Background Best WordPress Template For Consulting Company
Over the previous ten decades, I’ve used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up until recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, which was pretty excellent. However, I had to do a lot of customization to make it do and work the way I needed it to. A few of weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is by far the best WordPress theme I’ve discovered in 10 years. I was blown away and am moving all of my sites to GeneratePress. I will enter precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review under. And if you’re wondering, yes I have attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi as well as many other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. Best WordPress Template For Consulting Company
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.
GeneratePress Review
GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I’ve really seen it for many years in the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I’m fairly picky when it comes to web performance, so I tend to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a lot of stuff on there is not that great, or not supported for long. Nonetheless, in this case, that was a mistake. The theme currently has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ active matches, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So clearly Tom is doing some thing right here.
I Really set up the free version of the motif and in a matter of 15 minutes bought the premium version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking exactly how I was envisioning a theme should get the job done. And I’ll go into that more below, but let us first look at some of the features. I’m going to be covering the premium version of the theme, since it’s worth . In fact, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.
Characteristics
Super lightweight and quick. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable things you do not want running. This is one of the greatest reasons I love GeneratePress.
Responsive, looks great across all devices.
Schema built-in, for greater outcomes in SERPs.
Dramatic integration with the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a fan of the customizer previously, but Tom does it right.
Compatible with 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 would like to dive into even more customizations, these really are a great combo. I’ve also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have experienced success.
Translation ready.
Font awesome built-in.
A lot of filters and hooks which make it great for programmers.
Great active service from the developer. On average, 3 updates per month.
The Documentation can be incredible. Besides have great documentation on their site, the theme has existed long enough that everything I Googled during the setup procedure was found within a few seconds in their own forum.
Diving Into GeneratePress
Now it is Time for the fun part! I test a brand new theme right out of the box without any customizations to just see how fast the foundation is. This tells me a lot of what I could expect by the time I add everything for this. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress theme on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms load time. I was very impressed.
One Thing I was worried about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to produce a whole lot of big files, but this is not the case. You may tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure that every file loaded in GeneratePress is as small as possible. With HTTP/2, the amount of documents is not as important. However, the dimensions is! Have a peek at a few of the center GeneratePress files under:
/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
That is a developer that cares about performance! And I’ve Seen the same throughout each the premium add-ons. They’re as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is probably the biggest file included. And that is not even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 arriving around the cornerwe can expect this to get smaller too.
The premium add-ons Are setup in what I would call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate whatever you aren’t using to guarantee they do not load on your website. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin that has a script supervisor built-in, I felt right at home for this. Everything ought to be designed this way.
If You are curious, I’m using the next add-ons on this site:
Blog
Colors
Copyright
Hooks
Page Header
Spacing
Typography
No Child Theme Needed
One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is that I no longer need to use a young child theme. This makes my life so much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I can literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this very moment rather than shed one customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make it possible. It permits you to incorporate custom code/PHP anywhere throughout your WordPress website. Best WordPress Template For Consulting Company
Other Things I Love About GeneratePress
On every Page/post that you have a lot of alternatives. You are able to alter the sidebar design and the footer widgets.
You Can easily swap a page between the default option to a complete width page, in addition to disable elements.
The WordPress customizer options is really where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, a lot of these choices are permitted from the superior add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we would be here all day. However, let me show you couple which actually come in handy.
Responsive Columns
Another Plugin I highly suggest grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this is also created by precisely the same developer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super easy way to add responsive columns to any page or article. Characteristics include:
Desktop grid thickness
Tablet grid width
Mobile grid width
Add custom classes
Add custom inline styles
Equal height columns
Here is An example below:
You might want to Also grab his incredible WP Show Posts plugin too. See my featured posts on the sidebar of this site? That is using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to display posts from a particular”featured” category. You can also have it show last modified/updated posts, recent posts, etc.. I’m using the free version and it works terrific.
To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.
Sections Add-on
The Segments add-in in the premium edition of GeneratePress lets you do all kinds of things in terms of design. Consider it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not only for blogs! I’m in reality using GeneratePress to our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to look it over. But as you can see below, it looks like a blog.
Speed Tests
For those Of those who are regular readers, you probably didn’t even notice that I changed the entire theme that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour to get GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme that I had spent annually customizing. Here’s a comparison under.
woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme
My older MyThemeShop motif was pretty quickly, but I invested a great deal of time customizing it. In reality, I’ve gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to print all my customizations. My advice today is, simply get GeneratePress!
woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme
With the New GeneratePress theme I was able to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I don’t have a kid motif. Each of the customizations were made using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).
Like the WordPress theme I’ve running on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he could make a copy of woorkup to your brand new GeneratePress blog library. I’m pleased to let you know that you can now put in my woorkup theme on your own GeneratePress website with just a click! It is called the Marketer motif. Get started using a fantastic blog layout instantly.
brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
I also Moved within my personal site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a theme from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimal website, since I do not use it for much. Since you can see it already loaded pretty fast.
brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme
I was Able to duplicate the whole look 100% in GeneratePress in under one hour. And since you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a couple plugins that weren’t needed because of GP.
forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
I also Moved over our business website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum site, as we simply use it for our LLC. Since you can see it already loaded pretty quickly. Best WordPress Template For Consulting Company
forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme
I had been Able to again move everything over and get it looking exactly how I needed it in under one hour. And as you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a total of four plugins and it dropped my total page burden 2x!
I can’t express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I am moving over all my sites for this (which includes several EDD e-commerce sites). After I have my 9 websites all running in GP with no child themes, my life will be a breeze! The developer has restored my faith in multi-purpose themes, and that when done the right way, can actually perform quicker.
And The best thing is, I now have a billion more options to pick from than I did before.
What GeneratePress Is Good For…
GeneratePress Is the ideal alternative for performance-focused users who wish 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 performance, the website that you build will have a fantastic base to make it load fast.
Because Of that, those who assemble WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They’ll normally pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any kind of site.
But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Combination If…
…you Want something that will immediately appear perfect out of the box.
For Example, if you realize you want to create a fashion blog, you might be happier picking out a market theme that is developed exclusively for trend bloggers.
Even though GeneratePress has gotten a great deal simpler to use, thanks to its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones if you first install it.
So To make GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you’ll almost certainly will need to go in and personalize matters. And though the significant advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, particularly casual users, do not like having to make those changes themselves.
GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique
Here Are a few of the particular characteristics that explain why GeneratePress is so common.
Lots Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer
Beyond Performance, another place where GeneratePress does well is its customization options.
GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient because you will have the ability to see all the changes that you make in real time.
The Free version of GeneratePress gives you decent possibilities, but if you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize pretty much all about your site.
For Example, if you go into the Layout region, you may configure comprehensive settings to yourown:
- Header — you can move your header around and alter its own styling
- Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
- Sidebar layout — you can use a Couple of sidebars
- Blog post design — such as featured picture size, metadata, etc..
- Footer layout — like how many widgets to include
Similarly, The Typography area enables you to control the font for every single element on your site, such as buttons:
And You also receive a thorough area to control the colour of every single element on your site.
All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer than most other topics. This amount of detail may be a little overwhelming if you’re a beginner. But once you understand how the settings come together, you’ll have full control over how your site looks.
Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times
Around All of its features, GeneratePress always includes a focus on excellent performance and clean code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, and it is 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 a few poorly coded topics can even surpass 1 MB!
GeneratePress Also has no code dependencies, which helps you avoid the leave obstructing error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.
Put That together, and you get a superfast-loading theme. How quickly? To give you a sense, I conducted a little test.
First, I put up a vacant website utilizing a random popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After analyzing its performance with Pingdom, it
- Had a performance tier of 77
- Loaded in 1.05 seconds
- Had a page size of 243.9 kB
- Had 15 asks
That’s Not bad in any way! However, GeneratePress can do better.
Next, I activated GeneratePress on the exact same test website 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 asks, ~40% fewer
If You do that same test with different topics, you’ll continue to see that GeneratePress is among the fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. Best WordPress Template For Consulting Company
Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach
Beyond Giving you more design controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium comes with a lot of other helpful 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 — this is sort of like lightweight page construction. It permits you to create different”sections” on a page, each with their own design and column preferences.
To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular interface where you could pick and choose what features you want to activate.
That Way, you do not need to slow down your site 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 websites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which left the motif difficult for casual users to set up.
Earlier In 2018, though, the programmer added a new Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users that lets you easily import any among the 25+ pre-built demo sites.
You Can import them right from the WordPress dashboard.
Yes this site still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click a couple buttons to import a presentation site.
Page-Level Settings Give You Detailed Control Over Each Piece Of Content
With Most topics, 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 past that.
GeneratePress Changes that by providing you a brand new Layout meta box for every single post and page:
You Can utilize this meta box to:
- Change how many sidebars your site uses, or the sidebar orientation (such as changing the sidebar from right to left)
- Choose the number of footer widgets to use
- Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, post featured image, article title, or footer
- Produce a special”container” for your own page builder
Where These controls would be the most useful is if you’re using a WordPress site builder.
By Disabling certain elements, you are in a position to create the correct baseline for your page builder layout, making it easy to create custom content as needed. Best WordPress Template For Consulting Company
GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites
The Heart GeneratePress theme can be obtained for free at WordPress.org.
Nevertheless, If you’re serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I believe you need to buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what makes the theme so elastic. The free version does not 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 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 continue receiving support and upgrades after the first year (you can, obviously, continue using GeneratePress after the first year without beating — you just won’t get any more updates).
When You consider the typical premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a fantastic value.
Conclusion
As I said, I don’t think GeneratePress is for everyone.
If You want a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that fits your needs for your niche from day one.
However, If you’re ready to spend some time changing preferences, then GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any type of WordPress site. Or, you might even have the ability to locate a starter site that fits your needs to save a little time.
Additionally, It is one of the fastest-loading WordPress topics that you will find. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a great choice.
If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, you shouldn’t have any problem making your website load in under one second. Best WordPress Template For Consulting Company
To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.