Background Best Website Templates 2016

Within the past ten years, I have used a lot of different WordPress topics and have been very disappointed. Up until recently, I was using MyThemeShop, which was pretty good. However, I had to perform a lot of customization to allow it to do and work how I wanted it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s undoubtedly the finest WordPress theme I have found in a decade . I had been blown away and am moving all my sites to GeneratePress. I will go into precisely why in my in-depth GeneratePress review under. And if you are wondering, yes I have tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as many other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. Best Website Templates 2016

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’ve really seen it for many years in the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I’m pretty picky when it comes to web performance, and so I have a tendency to ignore everything in the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there isn’t that good, or not encouraged for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The motif currently has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So obviously Tom is doing something right here.

I Actually installed the free version of the theme and in a matter of 15 minutes bought the premium version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking precisely how I was imagining a theme should get the job done. And I’ll go into that more below, but let’s first look at a number of the qualities. I’m going to be covering the superior version of the subject, because it’s worth . In fact, Tom, if you read this and are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

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

Responsive, looks fantastic across all of the devices.

Schema built-in, for better outcomes in SERPs.

Impressive integration using all the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a fan of this customizer in the past, but Tom does it right.

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

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

Resumes prepared.

Font wonderful built in.

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

Excellent active support from the developer. On average, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation is also unbelievable. Besides have good documentation on their site, the subject has existed long enough that everything I Googled throughout the setup procedure was found within a few 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 quickly the foundation is. This tells me a great deal of what I could expect by the time I add everything to it. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress motif on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms loading time. I was very impressed.

One Thing I was worried about with GeneratePress was that the modular design was going to produce a whole lot of big files, but this is not the case. You can tell that Tom actually worked hard on making sure every file packed in GeneratePress is as small as possible. With HTTP/2, the amount of files is not as important. But the dimensions is! Take a look at some of the center 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 programmer that cares about functionality! And I have Seen exactly the same during all the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as possible get them. In reality, Font Awesome is most likely the biggest file contained. And that isn’t even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 arriving around the corner, we could anticipate that to get smaller too.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I would call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate anything you are not using to ensure they don’t load on your site. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin which has a script supervisor built, I felt right at home with this. Everything ought to be designed this way.

If You’re curious, I am using the following add-ons on this website:

Blog

Colors

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is that I no more need to use a young child motif . This makes my life so much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I will literally update my GeneratePress theme this exact moment and not lose one customization. The hooks add-on definitely can help make this possible. It allows you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. Best Website Templates 2016

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each Page/post that you have a lot of alternatives. You are able to alter the sidebar design and the footer widgets.

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

The WordPress customizer options is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, a lot of these options are enabled by the premium add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we would be here all day. But let me show you couple which actually come in handy.

Responsive Columns

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

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid thickness

Add Customized classes

Insert custom inline designs

Equal height columns

This is An example under:

You May Want to Also grab his amazing WP Display Posts plugin too. View my featured posts on the sidebar of this site? That is using the WP Display Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a particular”featured” category. You can also get it show past modified/updated posts, recent articles, etc.. I’m using the free version and it works terrific.

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Sections add-on in the premium version of GeneratePress allows you to perform all kinds of things in terms of design. Think of it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not only for blogs! I am in fact using GeneratePress to our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to look it over. However, as you can see below, it looks like a site.

Speed Tests

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

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My older MyThemeShop theme was already pretty quickly, but I invested a great deal of time customizing it. In reality, I have gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to print all of my customizations. My advice now is, simply get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

With the New GeneratePress motif I managed to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I do not have a kid theme. All the customizations were created with the wonderful GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I have running on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he can create a replica of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress blog library. I’m pleased to let you know that now you can install my woorkup motif in your own GeneratePress site with only a click! It’s called the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog layout immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved within my personal site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum website, since I don’t use it for much. As you can see it already loaded pretty fast.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to duplicate the entire appearance 100% in GeneratePress in under one hour. And since you can view it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a few plugins that weren’t needed because of GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved over our business site, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum website, as we simply use it to our LLC. As you can see it already loaded pretty quickly. Best Website Templates 2016

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to move everything over and get it looking exactly how I wanted it in under one hour. And since you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I managed to get rid of a total of four plugins and it dropped my total page weight 2x!

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

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

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the ideal option for performance-focused users that want to be able to personalize and control exactly how their site appears.

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 foundation to make it load fast.

Since Of that, those who build WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They will normally pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any type of site.

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Fit If…

…you Need something that will immediately look perfect from the box.

For Example, if you realize you wish to produce a style blog, you may be happier choosing a niche theme that is developed exclusively for trend bloggers.

Even though GeneratePress has gotten a lot simpler to use, as a result of its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones when you initially install it.

So To make GeneratePress look how you want it to, you will most likely need to go in and customize matters. And though the significant advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, especially casual users, don’t like having to make those changes .

GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique

Here Are some of the specific features that explain why GeneratePress is so popular.

Lots Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Beyond Performance, another place where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization choices.

GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this is convenient because 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 possibilities, but if you have GeneratePress Premium, you’ll be able to customize nearly all about your site.

For Example, if you go into the Design region, you can configure comprehensive settings to yourown:

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

Likewise, That the Typography place enables you to control the font to get each and every element on your website, including buttons:

And You also receive a detailed area to control the colour of every single element on your site.

All In all, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer than most other themes. This level of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But once you understand how the preferences come together, you’ll have complete control on how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Around All its features, GeneratePress always has a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, which will be about as little as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress topics are still 200+ kB. And a few badly coded themes can even surpass 1 MB!

GeneratePress Also has no code dependencies, which will help you avoid the leave blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.

Put That together, and you get a superfast-loading theme. How quickly? To give you an idea, I conducted a small test.

First, I set up an empty website using a haphazard popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After testing its performance with Pingdom, it:

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

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

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

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

If You perform the exact same test with other topics, you are going to continue to see that GeneratePress is one of those fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. Best Website Templates 2016

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 that lets you create customized hooks, page headers, or layout templates.
• Page Header — lets you create a exceptional page header on a per-page basis.
• Sections — this is sort of like lightweight page building. It lets you create separate”sections” on a page, each with their own design and column preferences.

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular interface where you can select and choose exactly which characteristics you would like to trigger.

That Way, you don’t have to slow your site down for a quality that you’ll never use.

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

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

Earlier In 2018, however, the programmer added a fresh Site Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users that lets you easily import any one of those 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them right from your WordPress dashboard.

Yes this Website still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click on a couple buttons to import a presentation site.

Page-Level Settings Provide You Comprehensive Control Over Every Bit Of Content

With Most themes, every post and page will use the very same settings for the most part. You might have some custom templates or formats — however you don’t have very much control beyond that.

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

You Can utilize this meta box to:

• Change the number of sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (like altering the sidebar from right to left)
• Choose how many footer widgets to use
• Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured image, article title, or footer
• Produce a special”container” for your page builder

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

By Disabling certain elements, you’re in a position to produce the proper baseline for your page builder layout, making it easy to create custom content as needed. Best Website Templates 2016

GeneratePress Replies: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Heart GeneratePress theme is available at no cost at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you’re serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I feel you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what makes the theme so flexible. The free version doesn’t give you almost as numerous configurations in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium can be still quite reasonably priced. It costs just $39.95, and that gives you use on unlimited websites . You will also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to keep on receiving support and updates after the initial year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress following the initial year without renewing — you won’t get any more upgrades ).

When You consider that the normal premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a great value.

Conclusion

As I said, I do not think GeneratePress is for everyone.

If You desire a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that fits your requirements for your niche out of day one.

But If you are ready to spend time changing settings, GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any sort of WordPress site. Or, you may even be able to find a starter website that fulfills your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It is one of the fastest-loading WordPress themes you will locate. Therefore, if you’re seeking the best performance possible, utilizing GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a great decision.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, you should have no problem making your website load in under one second. Best Website Templates 2016

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.