Intro How To Integrate WordPress Theme

Over the previous ten years, I have used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been very disappointed. Up till recently, I had been utilizing MyThemeShop, which was fairly good. However, I had to perform a great deal of customization to make it do and work the way I wanted it to. A couple of weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is undoubtedly the best WordPress theme I’ve found in 10 years. I had been blown away and am now moving all of my sites to GeneratePress. I will enter exactly why in my in-depth GeneratePress review under. And if you’re wondering, yes I’ve attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi in addition to several other lightweight and heavier multicolored themes. How To Integrate WordPress Theme

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Evaluation

GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I have actually seen it for many years in the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I am pretty picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to dismiss everything in the repository. Typically because a great deal of stuff on there is not that great, or not encouraged for long. However, in this case, that was a mistake. The motif now has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So clearly Tom is doing some thing 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 programmer was thinking precisely how I was envisioning a theme should get the job done. And I will go into that more below, but let us first look at some of the features. I will be covering the superior edition of the subject, because it’s worth very penny. Actually, Tom, in the event that you read this and are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.

Features

Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable items you do not need running. This is only one of the biggest reasons I adore GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks great across all devices.

Schema built-in, for greater outcomes in SERPs.

Impressive integration using all the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a fan of the customizer in the past, 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 individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.

Resumes prepared.

Font awesome built in.

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

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

The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have great documentation on their website, the subject has been around long enough that what I wholeheartedly during the setup procedure was found within a couple of seconds in their own forum.

Going Deep Into GeneratePress

Now it is Time to the fun part! I always test a new theme right out of the box without any customizations to just see how quickly the foundation is. This tells me a great deal of what I can 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 loading time. I was quite impressed.

One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular design was going to produce a lot of big files, but this is not the case. You may tell that Tom actually worked hard on ensuring that every file loaded in GeneratePress is as little as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the number of documents is not as significant. But the dimensions is! Take 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 functionality! And I’ve Seen exactly the same throughout each of the premium add-ons. They’re literally as small as you can possibly get them. In fact, Font Awesome is most likely the biggest file included. And that is not even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 arriving round the corner, we can expect that to get smaller too.

The premium add-ons Are installation in what I would call a modular layout. You can activate/deactivate whatever you aren’t using to ensure they do not load on your site. Since the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin that has a script manager built, I felt right at home for this. Everything should be made this way.

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

Website

Shades

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 much easier. No more editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I can literally update my GeneratePress motif this exact minute and not lose one customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make it possible. It allows you to incorporate custom code/PHP anywhere throughout your WordPress website. How To Integrate WordPress Theme

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

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

You Can easily swap a page involving the default to a full width page, in addition to disable components.

The WordPress customizer options is really where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, lots of these options are permitted by the premium add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here daily. However, let me show you few which really 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 enables you a super simple way to add responsive columns into any page or post. Features include:

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid width

Add custom courses

Insert custom inline designs

Equal height columns

This is An example under:

You might want to Also catch his incredible WP Display Posts plugin too. See my featured posts on the sidebar of this site? That’s using the WP Display Posts plugin. I have it set to display posts from a specific”featured” category. You might also get it show past modified/updated posts, recent articles, etc.. I am 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 version of GeneratePress allows you to do all sorts of things in terms of design. Think of it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not just for blogs! I’m in reality using GeneratePress to our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) that is running Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to look it over. But as you can see below, it looks nothing like a blog.

Speed Tests

For those Of those who are regular readers, you likely did not even notice that I changed the whole motif that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour to get GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop motif which I had spent annually customizing. Here is a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop theme was pretty fast, but I invested a lot of time customizing it. In reality, I have 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

With the New GeneratePress theme I managed to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I don’t have a child theme. Each of the customizations were made with the wonderful GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I have working on woorkup? You are in luck. Tom asked if he could create a replica of woorkup to your new GeneratePress site library. I’m pleased to allow you to know that you can now install my woorkup motif in your own GeneratePress website with just a click! It is called the Marketer motif. Get started with a great blog layout immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over my private website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimal site, as I don’t use it to get much. As you can see it loaded pretty fast.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to duplicate the whole look 100 percent in GeneratePress in under an hour. And as you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was even able to eliminate a few plugins that weren’t needed because of GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over our organization website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimum website, as we just use it to our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty fast. How To Integrate WordPress Theme

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to move everything over and get it looking just how I needed 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 of my sites for this (which comprises several EDD e-commerce websites ). After I’ve got my 9 websites all running in GP without any child topics, my life will be a breeze! The programmer has restored my faith in multi-purpose themes, and that when done the right way, can actually perform faster.

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

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect alternative for performance-focused users who wish to have the ability to personalize and control exactly how their site looks.

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

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

But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Fit If…

…you Need something which will instantly look perfect from the box.

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

Even though GeneratePress has gotten a lot easier to use, as a result of its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones if you first install it.

So To create GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you’ll almost certainly need to go in and customize things. And though the significant benefit 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 some of the particular characteristics that clarify why GeneratePress is indeed common.

Lots Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

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

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

The Free version of GeneratePress gives you adequate options, but if you own GeneratePress Premium, you will be able to customize nearly everything about your site.

For Example, if you go in the Layout region, you may configure detailed settings to your:

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

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

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

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will give you much more customization options from the WordPress Customizer compared to most other themes. This amount of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you’re a beginner. But as soon as you understand how the preferences come together, you will have complete control on how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times

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

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

Place That collectively, and you get a superfast-loading motif. How quickly? To give you a sense, I conducted a little test.

First, I set up a vacant website using a haphazard 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 is Not bad in any way! But GeneratePress can perform.

Next, I activated GeneratePress on exactly the 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% quicker
• Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
• Had 9 asks, ~40% less

If You perform that same test with other topics, you are going to continue to find that GeneratePress is among those fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. How To Integrate WordPress Theme

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach

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

• Elements — a unique feature which allows 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 permits you to create different”sections” on a page, each with their own design and column settings.

To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular port where you could select and choose what features you would like to activate.

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

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

In The past, you needed to build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas no matter what, which left the motif difficult for casual users to set up.

Earlier In 2018, though, the developer added a new Website Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users which allows you easily import any among the 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 on a few buttons to import a presentation site.

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

With Most topics, every post and page will use the very same configurations for the most part. You may have some custom templates or formats — but you do not have very much control beyond that.

GeneratePress Changes that by giving you a brand new Layout meta name 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 the number of 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 components, you are in a position to produce the proper baseline for your own page builder layout, making it effortless to create custom content as needed. How To Integrate WordPress Theme

GeneratePress Replies: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

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

Nevertheless, If you are serious about using GeneratePress, I believe you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what produces the theme so elastic. The free version doesn’t give you nearly as numerous settings in the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still quite affordable. It costs just $39.95, and that gives you use on infinite sites. 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 after the initial year without beating — you won’t receive any more updates).

When You believe the typical premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a great price.

Conclusion

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 requirements for your niche out of day one.

But If you are willing 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 may even be able to find a starter site that fits your needs to save some time.

Additionally, It is among the fastest-loading WordPress themes you will locate. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, utilizing GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a good decision.

If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, you should have no difficulty making your website load in under one minute. How To Integrate WordPress Theme

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.