Background Generatepress Real Estate Theme
Over the previous 10 years, I have used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up until recently, I was using MyThemeShop, that was pretty excellent. But I still had to perform a great deal of customization to allow it to do and operate how I wanted it to. A few weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s by far the finest WordPress theme I’ve discovered in 10 years. I was dismissed and am moving all my websites to GeneratePress. I’ll enter precisely why in my in-depth GeneratePress review below. And if you’re wondering, yes I have tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi in addition to several other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. Generatepress Real Estate Theme
To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.
GeneratePress Review
GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I have actually seen it for many years from 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 lot of things on there isn’t that good, or not encouraged for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The motif now has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So obviously Tom is doing some thing right here.
I Really installed the free version of the theme and in a matter of 15 minutes bought the superior version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking precisely how I was envisioning a theme should work. And I’ll go into that more below, but let’s first look at some of the features. I will be covering the superior edition of the subject, since it’s worth . Actually, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and so are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.
Characteristics
Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable things you don’t need running. This is one of the greatest reasons I love GeneratePress.
Responsive, looks great across all devices.
Schema built-in, for greater results in SERPs.
Dramatic integration with all the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a lover of this customizer in the past, but Tom does it right.
Compatible with all popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Great browser support 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 terrific combo. I have also read that people using Beaver Builder have had success.
Resumes prepared.
Font awesome built-in.
Tons of filters and hooks which make it great for developers.
Excellent active support from the programmer. On average, 3 updates per month.
The Documentation can be unbelievable. Besides have good documentation on their site, the theme has existed long enough that everything I Googled throughout the setup procedure was found within a few seconds from their own forum.
Going Deep Into GeneratePress
Now it is Time for the fun part! I test a brand new theme right from the box without any customizations to see how quickly the base is. This tells me a great deal of what I can expect by the time I add everything for this. Running the inventory 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 layout was going to produce a lot of big files, but this isn’t the case. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure that every record loaded in GeneratePress is as small as possible. With HTTP/2, the amount of documents is not as significant. However, the dimensions is! Take a look at some 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
This is a developer that cares about functionality! And I have Seen exactly the same during all the premium add-ons. They’re literally as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is probably the largest file included. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming round the corner, we could anticipate that to secure smaller also.
The premium add-ons Are setup in what I’d call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate anything you are not using to guarantee they don’t load on your site. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin that has a script supervisor built-in, I felt at home for this. Everything ought to be designed this way.
If You are interested, I’m using the next add-ons on this website:
Website
Shades
Copyright
Hooks
Page Header
Spacing
Typography
No Child Theme Needed
One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is I no longer have to use a young child theme. This makes my life much easier. No more editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally update my GeneratePress motif this very moment rather than lose one customization. The hooks add-on certainly helps make this possible. It allows you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Generatepress Real Estate Theme
Other Things I Love About GeneratePress
On each Page/post that you have a great deal of options. You can alter the sidebar design and the footer widgets.
You Can easily swap a page involving the default option to a full width page, in addition to disable components.
The WordPress customizer choices is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, lots of these choices are permitted from the superior add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here all day. However, allow me to 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 exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super easy way to add responsive columns into any page or article. Characteristics include:
Desktop grid thickness
Tablet grid thickness
Mobile grid thickness
Insert Customized courses
Insert custom inline styles
Equal height columns
Here is An example below:
You might want to Also grab his amazing WP Display Posts plugin also. View my featured articles on the sidebar of this website? That’s using the WP Display Posts plugin. I have it set to display posts from a particular”featured” category. You might also get it show last modified/updated posts, recent articles, etc.. I’m 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 version of GeneratePress lets you do all kinds of things in terms of design. Think of it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not only for blogs! I am 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 blog.
Speed Tests
For those Of you who are regular readers, you likely did not even notice I changed the entire motif that powers woorkup.com. It just took me about an hour to get GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme which I had spent annually customizing. Here’s a comparison below.
woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme
My older MyThemeShop theme was already pretty fast, but I spent a great deal of time scrutinizing it. In fact, I have gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to print all of my customizations. My advice today is, simply get GeneratePress!
woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme
Together 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 child theme. Each of the customizations were created using the wonderful 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 create a copy of woorkup to your brand new GeneratePress site library. I am pleased to allow you to know that you can now install my woorkup theme in your GeneratePress site with just a single click! It is called the Marketer motif. Get started with a great blog design instantly.
brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
I also Moved within my private website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum site, as I do not use it to get much. As you can see it loaded pretty quickly.
brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme
I had been Able to replicate the entire appearance 100 percent in GeneratePress in under an hour. And since you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I was even able to get rid of a few plugins that weren’t needed because of GP.
forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
I also Moved over our organization site, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimal website, as we just use it to our LLC. As you can see it loaded pretty fast. Generatepress Real Estate Theme
forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme
I had been Able to again move everything over and get it looking just how I needed it in under one hour. And as you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my total page burden 2x!
I can’t express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I’m moving over all of my sites for this (which comprises several EDD e-commerce sites). Once I have my 9 websites all running in GP with no child topics, my life will be a breeze! The developer has revived my faith in multi-purpose themes, and that when done the right way, can actually perform quicker.
And The best thing isI now have a thousand more choices to choose from than I did before.
What GeneratePress Is Good For…
GeneratePress Is the perfect alternative for performance-focused users that wish to be able to customize and control precisely 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 great foundation to make it load fast.
Because Of that, people who assemble WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They will normally pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any kind of site.
However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Combination If…
…you Need something which will instantly look perfect out of the box.
For Example, if you know you wish to create a fashion blog, you might be happier choosing a niche theme that is developed exclusively for trend bloggers.
Even though GeneratePress is becoming a great deal easier to use, as a result of its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones if 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 while the substantial benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, particularly casual users, do not like having to make those changes .
GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique
Here Are some of the particular features that clarify why GeneratePress is indeed common.
Plenty Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer
Beyond Functionality, another place where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization choices.
GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient as you’ll have the ability to see all of the changes that you create in real time.
The Free variant of GeneratePress gives you adequate options, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you will be able to customize pretty much all about your website.
For Example, if you go in the Layout area, you can configure comprehensive settings to yourown:
- Header — you can move your header around and alter its styling
- Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
- Sidebar layout — you can utilize one or two sidebars
- Blog post layout — like featured picture size, metadata, etc..
- Footer layout — like the number of widgets to add
Similarly, That the Typography area lets you control the font for every single element on your site, including buttons:
And You also receive a thorough area to control the colour of each and every element on your site.
All In all, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization options in the WordPress Customizer compared to most other topics. This amount of detail might be a little overwhelming if you are a beginner. But as soon as you understand the way the settings come together, you will have full control over how your website looks.
Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times
Across All its features, GeneratePress consistently has a focus on exceptional performance and tidy 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 topics are still 200+ kB. And some badly coded themes can even exceed 1 MB!
GeneratePress Also has no code dependencies, which will help you avoid the leave blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often mentions.
Put 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 using a random popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After testing its functionality with Pingdom, it
- Had a performance grade of 77
- Loaded in 1.05 seconds
- Had a page size of 243.9 kB
- Had 15 asks
That is Not bad in any way! But GeneratePress can do better.
Next, I triggered GeneratePress on the same test website without changing anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress did:
- Had a performance tier of 87, 10 points better
- Loaded in 666 ms, ~37% quicker
- Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
- Had 9 asks, ~40% less
If You do the exact same test with different themes, you are going to continue to find that GeneratePress is one of the fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. Generatepress Real Estate Theme
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 like:
- Elements — a exceptional feature that lets you create custom hooks, page headers, or layout templates.
- Page Header — lets you create a unique page header onto a per-page basis.
- Sections — that is sort of like lightweight page construction. It lets you create different”sections” on a page, each with their own layout and column preferences.
To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular interface where you can pick and choose exactly which characteristics you would like to trigger.
That Way, you don’t have to slow down your site for a feature which you’ll never use.
Pre-Made Starter Sites Make It Easier To Design Your Website
In The last, you had to build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which made the motif difficult for casual users to install.
Earlier In 2018, though, the developer added a new Website Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users that allows you easily import any among those 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 on a few buttons to import a presentation site.
Page-Level Settings Give You Detailed Control Over Each Bit Of Content
With Most topics, each post and page will use the same configurations for the most part. You may have some custom formats or templates — however you do not have very much control beyond that.
GeneratePress Changes that by providing you a new Layout 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 (such as altering the sidebar from right to left)
- Choose the number of footer widgets to utilize
- Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, post featured picture, post title, or footer
- Create a special”container” for your own page builder
Where These controls would be the most helpful is if you’re using a WordPress page builder.
By Disabling certain elements, you’re able to create the proper baseline for your page builder design, making it easy to create custom content as needed. Generatepress Real Estate Theme
GeneratePress Pricing: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites
The Core GeneratePress motif can be obtained for free at WordPress.org.
Nevertheless, If you are seriously interested in using GeneratePress, I believe you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what makes the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you nearly as numerous configurations from the WordPress Customizer. And you will also lose 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 unlimited websites . You’ll also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to keep on receiving support and upgrades after the initial year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress following the first year without beating — you won’t receive any more upgrades ).
When You believe that the normal premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a fantastic value.
Wrap-up
As I said, I don’t think GeneratePress is for everybody.
If You desire a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that fits your needs for your market from day one.
However, If you’re willing to spend some time changing settings, GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to flip it into any type of WordPress website. Or, you may even have the ability to locate a starter site that fits your needs to save a little time.
Additionally, It is among those fastest-loading WordPress themes that you will find. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, utilizing GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a good choice.
If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, so you shouldn’t have any problem making your website load in under one second. Generatepress Real Estate Theme
To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.