Intro Best Blank WordPress Template

Within the previous 10 decades, I’ve used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up until recently, I had been using MyThemeShop, which was pretty good. But I had to do a great deal of customization to make it perform and operate how I wanted it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is undoubtedly the best WordPress theme I have found in 10 years. I was blown away and am now moving all of my sites to GeneratePress. I’ll enter exactly why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review below. And if you’re wondering, yes I have tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as several other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. Best Blank WordPress Template

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I have actually seen it for years from the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I’m fairly picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a great deal of stuff on there isn’t that good, or not encouraged for long. However, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The theme currently has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ active matches, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So obviously Tom is doing something right here.

I Actually set up the free version of the theme and in a matter of 15 minutes purchased the premium version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking exactly how I was imagining a theme should work. And I will go into that more below, but let’s first look at a number of the features. I will be covering the superior edition of the theme, since it’s worth very penny. Actually, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.

Characteristics

Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable things you don’t want running. This is only one of the greatest reasons I adore GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks fantastic across all of the devices.

Schema built-in, for better outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration using the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a fan of this customizer previously, but Tom does it correctly.

Compatible with all popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Great browser service back to IE8.

Additionally, it works great with all the favorite fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you want to dive into even more customizations, these are a great combo. I have also read that people using Beaver Builder have had success.

Resumes prepared.

Font wonderful built-in.

A lot of hooks and filters which make it good for developers.

Excellent active support from the programmer. Normally, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation can be unbelievable. Besides have good documentation on their website, the theme has existed long enough that what I wholeheartedly during the setup procedure was found within a couple of seconds from their own forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it’s Time to the fun part! I always test a new theme right out of the box with no customizations to just see how fast the foundation is. This tells me a lot of what I can expect by the time that I add everything to it. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress motif on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms load time. I was quite impressed.

One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to generate a lot of big files, but this is not the case. You may tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure every record loaded in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the number of files isn’t as important. But the size is! Have a peek at a few of the core GeneratePress files below:

/generatepress/css/unsemantic-grid. min.css 2.9 KB

/generatepress/style. css 7.1 KB

/generatepress/css/mobile. min.css 1.6 KB

/generatepress/js/navigation. min.js 1.1 KB

/generatepress/js/dropdown. min.js 1.5 KB

This is a developer that cares about performance! And I have Seen exactly the same throughout all of the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as you can possibly get them. In reality, Font Awesome is probably the biggest file contained. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming round the corner, we could anticipate this to secure smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I’d call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate whatever you are not using to ensure they do not load on your website. As the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin that has a script supervisor built, I felt at home for this. Everything ought to be made this way.

If You’re interested, I’m using the next add-ons on this website:

Blog

Colors

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best features of GeneratePress is I no more need to use a young child theme. This makes my life so much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally update my GeneratePress theme this exact minute rather than shed a single customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make it possible. It permits you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Best Blank WordPress Template

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each Page/post that you have a lot of options. You can change the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.

You Can quickly swap a page involving the default to a complete width page, as well as disable components.

The WordPress customizer options is really where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, lots of these options are permitted by the premium add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we would be here daily. But let me show you couple which really come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly recommend grabbing is your free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this can be made by precisely the exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super simple way to add responsive columns to any page or post. Characteristics include:

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid thickness

Add Customized courses

Add custom inline styles

Equal height columns

Here is An example under:

You might want to Also grab his amazing WP Display Posts plugin too. See my featured posts on the sidebar of this website? That is using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to display posts from a specific”featured” category. You can also have it show past modified/updated articles, recent posts, etc.. I’m using the free version and it works terrific.

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Segments add-in in the premium edition of GeneratePress allows you to do all sorts of things in terms of design. Think of it like a webpage builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not just for blogs! I’m in fact using GeneratePress to our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks nothing like a site.

Speed Tests

For those Of you that are regular readers, you likely did not even notice I changed the entire theme that forces woorkup.com. It just took me about an hour to get GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme that I had spent a year customizing. Here’s a comparison under.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop motif was already pretty fast, but I invested a great deal of time scrutinizing it. In reality, I have gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to print all of my customizations. My advice today is, just get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

Together with the New GeneratePress theme I was able to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I don’t have a child motif. All the customizations were made using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I have running on woorkup? You are in luck. Tom asked if he could create a replica of woorkup to your new GeneratePress site library. I am happy to let you know that you can now put in my woorkup theme in your own GeneratePress site with just a single click! It’s called the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog design immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved within my private site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimum website, since I don’t use it to get much. As you can see it already loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to duplicate the whole look 100 percent in GeneratePress in under one hour. And since you can view it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a couple plugins which weren’t needed because of GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved over our organization site, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimal site, as we just use it for our LLC. As you can see it already loaded pretty quickly. Best Blank WordPress Template

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to move everything over and get it looking just how I needed it in under one hour. And since you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page burden 2x!

I can’t express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I’m moving over all of my websites for this (which comprises some EDD e-commerce sites). Once I’ve got my 9 sites all running in GP without any child themes, my life will be a breeze! The programmer has revived my faith in multi-purpose themes, and that when done the right way, can actually perform faster.

And The best news isI finally have a thousand more choices to pick from than I did before.

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the ideal alternative for performance-focused users that want to be able to customize and control exactly how their site looks.

You Can make GeneratePress do pretty much anything. And since GeneratePress has a focus on functionality, the website that you build will have a fantastic base to make it load fast.

Because Of that, people who assemble WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They will typically pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any kind of website.

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Combination If…

…you Need something that will immediately appear perfect out of the box.

For Example, if you realize you want to produce a style blog, you might be happier choosing a niche theme that’s developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.

While GeneratePress has gotten a great deal easier to use, as a result of its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones if you first install it.

So To create GeneratePress look how you want it to, you will almost certainly need to go in and personalize things. And though the substantial benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, especially casual users, do not like having to make those changes themselves.

GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique

Here Are a few of the particular features that clarify why GeneratePress is indeed common.

Plenty Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Performance, another area where GeneratePress does well is its customization options.

GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this is convenient as you will have the ability to see all of the changes that you create in real time.

The Free variant of GeneratePress provides you decent options, but if you have GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize nearly everything about your website.

For Example, if you go into the Design area, you can configure comprehensive settings to your:

• Header — you can move your header round and change its own styling
• Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
• Sidebar design — you can use a Couple of sidebars
• Blog post layout — such as featured picture dimensions, metadata, etc..
• Footer layout — like the number of widgets to include

Similarly, That the Typography place lets you control the font for every single element on your site, such as buttons:

And You also receive a thorough area to control the color of each and every element on your website.

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will give you much more customization options in the WordPress Customizer than most other topics. This amount of detail may be a little overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But once you understand how the settings come together, you’ll have complete control over how your site appears.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Across All of its features, GeneratePress always has a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The entire theme is less than 30 kB, which will be about as small as you are ever going to find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress themes are still 200+ kB. And some poorly coded topics can even exceed 1 MB!

GeneratePress Also does not have any code dependencies, which will help you avoid the render blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.

Place That collectively, and you get a superfast-loading theme. How quickly? To give you an idea, I ran a small test.

First, I put up a vacant site utilizing a random popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After analyzing its functionality with Pingdom, it:

• Had a performance tier of 77
• Loaded in 1.05 seconds
• Had a page size of 243.9 kB
• Had 15 requests

That’s Not bad at all! However, GeneratePress can do better.

Next, I activated GeneratePress on exactly the same test site without changing anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress failed:

• Had a performance tier of 87, 10 points better
• Loaded in 666 ms, ~37% faster
• Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
• Had 9 requests, ~40% less

If You do that same test with different topics, you’ll continue to see that GeneratePress is among those fastest-loading WordPress topics in life. Best Blank WordPress Template

Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach

Past Giving you more style controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium also comes with a lot of other useful features like:

• Elements — a exceptional feature which lets you create custom hooks, page headers, or design templates.
• Page Header — allows you create a exceptional page header onto a per-page basis.
• Sections — that is kind of like lightweight page building. It lets you create separate”sections” onto a webpage, each with their own design and column preferences.

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular interface where you could select and choose what features you would like to activate.

That Way, you do not have to slow your site down for a feature which you’ll never use.

Pre-Made Starter Sites Make It Easier To Design Your Site

In The past, you needed to construct GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which left the motif difficult for casual users to set up.

Earlier In 2018, however, the programmer added a new Website Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users which lets you easily import any one of those 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them directly from your WordPress dashboard.

Yes — this site still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click on a few buttons to import a demo site.

Page-Level Settings Provide You Comprehensive Control Over Each Piece Of Content

With Most themes, each page and post will use the very same settings for the most part. You may have some custom formats or templates — however you do not have very much control past that.

GeneratePress Changes that by providing you a brand new Layout meta box for each and every page and post:

You Can use this meta box to:

• Change how many sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (like changing the sidebar from right to left)
• Choose how many footer widgets to utilize
• Disable certain components, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured picture, post title, or footer
• Produce a special”container” to your own page builder

Where These controls are the most helpful is if you are using a WordPress site builder.

By Disabling certain components, you are able to produce the proper baseline for your own page builder layout, which makes it easy to create custom articles as needed. Best Blank WordPress Template

GeneratePress Replies: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Heart GeneratePress theme is available for free at WordPress.org.

That said, If you are serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I feel you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what produces the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you nearly as numerous configurations from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still fairly reasonably priced. It costs just $39.95, and that provides you use on infinite websites . You’ll also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to keep on receiving support and updates following the initial year (you can, of course, continue using GeneratePress following the initial year without renewing — you just won’t receive any more updates).

When You believe that the normal premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a fantastic price.

Summary

As I mentioned, I do not think GeneratePress is for everybody.

If You want a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that satisfies your requirements for your niche from day one.

But If you are willing to spend some time changing settings, GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any sort of WordPress website. Or, you may even have the ability to locate a starter website that fulfills your needs to save some time.

Additionally, It is among those fastest-loading WordPress topics you will locate. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a great choice.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, so you should have no problem making your website load in under one minute. Best Blank WordPress Template

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.