Introduction Generatepress No Sidebar

Within the previous 10 decades, I’ve used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been very disappointed. Up till recently, I was using MyThemeShop, that was fairly good. However, I had to perform a lot of customization to make it do and operate how I needed it to. A few weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is undoubtedly the finest WordPress theme I’ve found in a decade . I was dismissed and am now moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I will enter exactly why in my in-depth GeneratePress review below. And if you’re wondering, yes I have attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi in addition to several other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. Generatepress No Sidebar

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Evaluation

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme created 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 am fairly picky when it comes to web performance, so I have a tendency to dismiss everything from the repository. Typically because a great deal of stuff on there is not that great, or not supported for long. However, in this case, that was a mistake. The motif currently has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ active installs, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So obviously Tom is doing some thing right here.

I Actually set up the free version of the motif 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 get the job done. And I will go into that more below, but let’s first look at a number of the features. I will be covering the premium edition of the subject, since it’s worth . Actually, Tom, if 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 don’t want running. This is only one of the biggest reasons I adore GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks fantastic across all devices.

Schema built-in, for greater results in SERPs.

Dramatic integration using all the WordPress Customizer. I have not been a fan of this customizer previously, but Tom does it right.

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

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

Translation ready.

Font wonderful built-in.

Tons of hooks and filters that make it great for developers.

Great active support from the developer. Normally, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation can be incredible. Besides have great documentation on their website, the subject has been around long enough that everything I wholeheartedly throughout the setup process 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 brand new theme right out of the box with no customizations to see how quickly the base is. This tells me a lot of what I could expect by the time that I add everything to it. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress theme on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms loading time. I was quite impressed.

One Thing I was concerned 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 may tell that Tom literally worked hard on ensuring that every file loaded in GeneratePress is as little as possible. With HTTP/2, the amount of files isn’t as important. But the size is! Take a peek at a few of the core 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

This is a developer that cares about performance! And I’ve Seen the same throughout all the premium add-ons. They’re literally as small as you can possibly get them. In reality, Font Awesome is probably the largest file included. And that isn’t even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 arriving around the cornerwe can expect that to secure smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are installation in what I would call a modular layout. It is possible to activate/deactivate whatever you aren’t using to ensure they don’t load on your website. As the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin that has a script supervisor built, I felt at home for this. Everything ought to be designed this way.

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

Blog

Shades

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 motif . This makes my life so much simpler. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I can literally update my GeneratePress motif this exact moment rather than lose one customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make this possible. It allows you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. Generatepress No Sidebar

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

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

You Can quickly swap a page involving the default to a complete width page, in addition to disable elements.

The WordPress customizer choices is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, lots of these options are enabled from the superior add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we would be here daily. But let me show you few which actually come in handy.

Responsive Columns

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

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid thickness

Add custom classes

Add custom inline designs

Equal height columns

This is An example under:

You might want to Also catch his amazing WP Show Posts plugin too. See my featured articles on the sidebar of this site? That is using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a specific”featured” category. You can also have it show last modified/updated articles, recent posts, etc.. I am using the free version and it works great.

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Segments add-in in the premium edition of GeneratePress allows you to perform all sorts of things concerning design. Think of it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not just for blogs! I’m in reality using GeneratePress for our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. But as you can see below, it looks nothing like a blog.

Speed Tests

For all those Of those who are regular readers, you probably didn’t even notice I changed the entire theme that forces woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop motif that I had spent annually customizing. Here is a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop motif was already pretty quickly, but I invested a great deal of time scrutinizing it. In fact, I’ve gotten a lot 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

Together with the New GeneratePress motif I was able to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I do not have a kid motif. All the customizations were made with the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I’ve working on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he could make a copy of woorkup for the new GeneratePress site library. I’m pleased to let you know that you can now put in my woorkup theme on your GeneratePress website with just a single click! It’s called the Marketer motif. Get started with a fantastic blog layout instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over my private site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimum site, as I don’t use it for much. Since you can see it already loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to replicate the whole appearance 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 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 is a pretty basic minimum website, as we just use it to our LLC. As you can see it loaded pretty fast. Generatepress No Sidebar

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

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

I can not express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I’m moving over all my websites to it (which comprises some EDD e-commerce websites ). After I’ve got my 9 websites all running in GP without any child topics, my entire life will be a breeze! The developer has revived my faith in multi-purpose subjects , and that when done the right way, can actually perform faster.

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

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users that wish to have the ability to customize and control exactly how their site appears.

You Can make GeneratePress do pretty much anything. And because GeneratePress has a focus on functionality, the site that you build will have a great base to make it load quickly.

Since Of that, those who build WordPress websites 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 Fantastic Fit If…

…you Want something that will instantly appear perfect from the box.

For Example, if you realize you wish to produce a style blog, you may be happier picking out a market theme that is developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.

Even though GeneratePress is becoming a lot 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 customize things. And though the significant advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, especially casual users, don’t like having to make those changes .

GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique

Here Are a few of the specific features that clarify why GeneratePress is so common.

Lots Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Beyond Performance, another area where GeneratePress does well is its customization choices.

GeneratePress Utilizes the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this is convenient as you’ll be able to see all the changes that you make in real time.

The Free version of GeneratePress gives you decent options, but if you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll be able to customize pretty much all about your site.

For Example, if you go in the Layout area, you may configure comprehensive settings to your:

• Header — you can move your header around and change its own styling
• Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
• Sidebar layout — you can use one or two sidebars
• Blog post layout — like featured image size, metadata, etc..
• Footer layout — just like how many widgets to include

Likewise, The Typography place lets you control the font to get every single element on your site, such as buttons:

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

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide you much 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 as soon as you understand the way the settings come together, you will have complete control over how your site appears.

Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times

Across All of its features, GeneratePress always has a focus on excellent performance and tidy code. The whole theme is less than 30 kB, and it is about as little as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress topics are still 200+ kB. And some badly coded topics can even exceed 1 MB!

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

Put That together, and you obtain a superfast-loading theme. How fast? To give you a sense, I ran a little test.

First, I set up an empty website utilizing a haphazard popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After testing 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 in any way! However, GeneratePress can do better.

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

• Had a performance grade of 87, 10 points greater
• Loaded in 666 ms, ~37% quicker
• Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
• Had 9 asks, ~40% fewer

If You perform the exact same test with other topics, you are going to continue to find that GeneratePress is among the fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. Generatepress No Sidebar

Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach

Beyond Giving you more design controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium comes with a lot of other helpful features such as:

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

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

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

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

In The past, you had to build GeneratePress websites from a blank canvas no matter what, which made the motif difficult for casual users to install.

Earlier In 2018, though, the developer added a new Site 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 the WordPress dashboard.

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

Page-Level Settings Give You Detailed Control Over Every Piece Of Content

With Most topics, every post and page will use the very same configurations 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 brand new Design meta name box for each and every page and post:

You Can use 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 components, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured image, article title, or footer
• Produce a special”container” to your own page builder

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

By Disabling certain elements, you are able to create the proper baseline for your own page builder layout, which makes it easy to create custom content as needed. Generatepress No Sidebar

GeneratePress Replies: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Heart GeneratePress theme can be obtained at no cost at WordPress.org.

That said, If you are serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I believe you should buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what makes the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you almost as many settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you will also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still quite reasonably priced. It costs just $39.95, and that provides you use on unlimited websites . You will also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to continue receiving support and updates following the first year (you can, obviously, continue using GeneratePress following the first year without renewing — you just won’t get any more upgrades ).

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

Summary

As I mentioned, I don’t think GeneratePress is for everybody.

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

However, If you’re ready to spend some time altering settings, GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any type of WordPress site. Or, you may even be able to find a starter site that fits your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It’s one of those fastest-loading WordPress themes that you will find. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a great decision.

If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, you shouldn’t have any difficulty making your site load in under one minute. Generatepress No Sidebar

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.