How to Add Custom CSS to Your WordPress Website? 

One of the biggest issues with websites today is that they’re all so similar. This makes it difficult for business and website owners to set themselves apart from the competition. Sound familiar?

If you’re using WordPress, the good news is that you can edit and personalize your theme by modifying your site’s CSS. What is CSS? It stands for Cascading Style Sheets – and CSS controls how your HTLM elements are shown on the screen.

By tweaking your CSS, you can customize things like the color of the text, fonts, border thickness, margins, layout, as well as the default appearance of your WordPress theme.

It doesn’t matter if you have absolutely no experience because, with the following methods, you can add original and custom CSS to your WordPress website today.

How to Add Custom CSS to your WordPress Website

#1 Use WordPress Customizer

This might be the simplest way of adding custom CSS to your WordPress website. This is because you won’t have to install or download any third-party plugins.

To get started, head over to your WordPress dashboard. From there, you need to launch the WordPress customizer interface. Click on Appearance and then Customize on the dashboard.

When your WordPress theme customizer launches, you will have a live preview of your website – as well as plenty of customization options on the left-hand side.

Find the option for Additional CSS. This should be located on the WordPress customizer sidebar, right on the bottom. That Additional CSS tab will slide, and you will be able to see a box where you can simply add your custom CSS.

Add your valid CSS rule to that box, and you should be able to see the changes made to your WordPress website. You can play around until you’re satisfied with the changes. As soon as you’re done, just hit Save & Publish.

#2 Use a Plugin

If you’re not interested in writing code, using a WordPress plugin to add custom CSS is another easy option.

The good news is that there are many free options to choose from – one of which is Simple CSS.

To get started, you will need to install and activate the Simple CSS plugin. As soon as that’s done, you can head over to Appearance and then Customize. Next, you’ll need to select the Simple CSS option. The great thing is that it will provide you with a real-time, live preview.

Another option is to go to Appearance and then click on Simple CSS. This will allow you to use the full editor within the plugin. Once you’ve opened up the editor, you will need to enter the custom CSS code and then hit Save CSS.

#3 Edit CSS using a Child Theme

If you’re looking to do a fair bit of tweaking, this option might suit you best. If you only want to make a few small changes, it would be better to use the two methods already mentioned.

Remember that you won’t be able to apply custom CSS changes in your parent theme. That’s due to the fact that as soon as you update your theme, your new custom theme will get overwritten automatically.

You should also note that adding custom CSS in WordPress using the child theme isn’t something we recommend for beginner users. If you’re not well versed in coding, please skip this step. It’s a little more complex, and there is also no option for a live preview.

So, now that we’ve covered all of that, let’s get down to business. Choose the current theme that you’re using. From there, you need to click on Create Child Theme. As soon as it’s been created, you will need to activate it straight away.

Is your child theme active? Good. Now you can edit the stylesheet of that specific theme.

#4 Edit the Theme style.css File

Using this method, you can add custom CSS via the theme’s style.css file. Just go through your WordPress dashboard and hit Appearance and then Editor. There you will find a list of files. Select the Stylesheet option, and your style.css file should load, where you can edit it to make the appropriate changes needed.

Common Mistakes When Adding Custom CSS to your WordPress Website

Sometimes you will find small errors that might impact your adding custom CSS to your site. For example, the changes you’re attempting to make aren’t appearing. This might be because the resources used are cached and therefore are sent to temporary storage so as to reduce your resource usage.

All you need to do in that case is to clear your WordPress cache. The alternative is to disable your plugin, wait a few minutes, and get it started again.

Another problem that results in your changes not being active is that there are spelling errors. Double-check this by pasting the CSS into the CSS Validator and make sure the tool runs. It should automatically notify you if there are any typing errors present.

Final Word

The thought of adding custom CSS might be intimidating for beginners and those that aren’t skilled in coding. Luckily, there are a number of ways you can go about doing this without having to write a single line of code.

The simplest way to add custom CSS to your WordPress website is definitely through the WordPress customizer, especially if you only have a couple of changes to make.

If you’re confident in your coding skills and have many tweaks you want to apply, you can always use the child theme method.

We hope this guide was useful to you and has given you the confidence to tweak and personalize your website further.