Introduction Premium WordPress Theme Sites

Within the previous 10 decades, I have used a great deal of different WordPress topics and have been very disappointed. Up till recently, I had been using MyThemeShop, that was pretty excellent. But I still had to perform a lot of customization to make it perform and operate the way I wanted it to. A few weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is by far the finest WordPress theme I’ve found in 10 years. I had been blown away and am now moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I will enter precisely why in my in-depth GeneratePress review below. And if you are wondering, yes I’ve attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as several other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. Premium WordPress Theme Sites

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I’ve really seen it for years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I am fairly picky when it comes to web performance, and so I have a tendency to dismiss everything in the repository. Typically because a great deal of stuff on there is not that good, or not supported for long. However, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The motif now has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy matches, with over 500 5-star ratings. So clearly Tom is doing some thing 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 programmer was thinking exactly how I was envisioning a theme should get the job done. And I will go into that more below, but let’s first look at some of the qualities. I will be covering the superior version of the theme, since it’s worth . In fact, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.

Features

Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable things you do not want running. This is one of the biggest reasons I love GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks fantastic across all devices.

Schema built-in, for greater outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration with all the WordPress Customizer. I have not been a lover of this customizer previously, but Tom does it correctly.

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

It also works great with all the favorite fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you would like to dive into even more customizations, these really are a great combo. I have also read that people using Beaver Builder have experienced success.

Resumes prepared.

Font awesome built in.

Tons of hooks and filters which make it great for programmers.

Excellent active service from the developer. Normally, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation can be unbelievable. Besides have good documentation on their website, the subject has been around long enough that what I wholeheartedly throughout the setup process was found inside a few seconds in their own forum.

Going Deep Into GeneratePress

Now it’s Time to the fun part! I always test a new theme right out of the box without any customizations to see how quickly the foundation is. This tells me a great deal of what I can 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 worried about with GeneratePress was that the modular design was going to produce a lot of big files, but that is not the situation. 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 amount of files is not as significant. However, the dimensions is! Take 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 during all of the premium add-ons. They’re as small as you can possibly get them. In reality, Font Awesome is probably the biggest file included. And that is not even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 coming round 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 anything you aren’t using to ensure they do not load on your site. As the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin which has a script manager built, I felt at home for this. Everything should be designed this way.

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

Website

Shades

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is I no longer need to use a Child theme. This makes my life much simpler. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php files. I can literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this exact moment and not lose one customization. The hooks add-on definitely can help make it possible. It allows you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Premium WordPress Theme Sites

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On every Page/post you have a lot of alternatives. You can change the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.

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

The WordPress customizer options is where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, a lot of these choices are enabled from the superior add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here all day. But 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 made by the exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super simple way to incorporate responsive columns to any page or post. Characteristics include:

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid thickness

Insert custom courses

Add custom inline designs

Equal height columns

Here is An example below:

You might want to Also catch his incredible WP Display Posts plugin too. See my featured posts on the sidebar of this website? That is using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a particular”featured” category. You might also have it show past modified/updated posts, recent articles, 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 version of GeneratePress lets you perform all kinds of things concerning design. Consider it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not just for blogs! I’m in reality using GeneratePress for our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) that is running Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks like a blog.

Speed Tests

For those Of you that are regular readers, you probably did not 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 which I had spent a year customizing. Here is a comparison under.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop theme was already pretty quickly, but I invested a lot of time scrutinizing it. In reality, I’ve gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to publish all of my customizations. My advice now is, simply get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

Together with the New GeneratePress theme I was able to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I don’t have a kid motif. Each of the customizations were created using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I’ve working on woorkup? You are in luck. Tom asked if he could create a replica of woorkup to your brand new GeneratePress site library. I’m happy to allow you to know that now you can put in my woorkup motif in your GeneratePress site with just a single click! It’s known as the Marketer theme. Get started using a great blog layout instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

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

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to replicate the whole appearance 100 percent in GeneratePress in under one hour. And as you can view it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a couple plugins that weren’t needed due to 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 for our LLC. As you can see it loaded pretty fast. Premium WordPress Theme Sites

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 as you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my total page weight 2x!

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

And The best thing is, I finally have a thousand more choices to choose from than I did earlier.

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the ideal alternative for performance-focused users who want to be able to customize and control precisely how their site looks.

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

Since Of that, people who assemble WordPress websites for a living love GeneratePress. They will typically pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any kind of site.

But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Combination If…

…you Want something which will immediately look perfect out of the box.

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

While GeneratePress is becoming a great deal simpler to use, thanks to its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones if you first install it.

So To create GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you will most likely will need to go in and customize matters. 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 themselves.

GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique

Here Are some of the specific characteristics that clarify why GeneratePress is indeed popular.

Lots Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Functionality, another area where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization choices.

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

The Free variant of GeneratePress provides you adequate options, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize pretty much all about your site.

For Example, if you go in the Layout region, you may configure comprehensive settings to yourown:

Header — you can move your header around and change its styling
Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
Sidebar design — you can utilize one or two sidebars
Blog post layout — such as featured picture dimensions, metadata, etc..
Footer layout — like the number of widgets to add

Similarly, The Typography place enables you to control the font for each and every element on your website, including buttons:

And You also get a detailed region to control the color of every single element on your website.

All In all, GeneratePress will give you much more customization options in the WordPress Customizer than most other themes. This level of detail might be a little overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But as soon as you realize the way the settings come together, you will have complete control on how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times

Around All of its features, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on excellent performance and tidy code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, which will be about as small as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress topics are still 200+ kB. And a few badly coded topics can even exceed 1 MB!

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

Put That collectively, and you obtain a superfast-loading motif. How quickly? To give you a sense, I ran a little test.

First, I set up an empty site utilizing a random popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After testing 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 requests

That is Not bad in any way! But GeneratePress can perform.

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

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 that same test with other themes, you’ll continue to find that GeneratePress is one of those fastest-loading WordPress themes in existence. Premium WordPress Theme Sites

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach

Past 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 custom hooks, page headers, or design templates.
Page Header — lets you create a unique page header onto a per-page basis.
Sections — this is sort of like lightweight page construction. It lets you create separate”sections” on a webpage, each with their own layout and column preferences.

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular port where you can select and choose exactly which characteristics you want to activate.

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 needed to build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which made the motif difficult for casual users to install.

Earlier In 2018, however, the developer added a fresh Website Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users that lets you easily import any among the 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them right from your WordPress dashboard.

Yes — this site 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 Each Piece Of Content

With Most themes, every page and post will use the same configurations for the most part. You might have some custom formats or templates — however you do not have very much control past that.

GeneratePress Changes that by giving you a brand new Layout meta name box for every single page and post:

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 utilize
Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured image, post title, or footer
Produce a special”container” for your own page builder

Where These controls are the most helpful is if you are using a WordPress page builder.

By Disabling certain components, you are able to produce the correct baseline for your page builder layout, which makes it effortless to create custom articles as needed. Premium WordPress Theme Sites

GeneratePress Pricing: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Heart GeneratePress theme can be obtained for free at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you are seriously interested in utilizing GeneratePress, I feel you need to buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what makes the theme so flexible. The free version doesn’t give you almost as many settings in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also miss out on the premade Site Library.

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

When You believe that the typical premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a great value.

Conclusion

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

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

But If you’re ready to spend time changing preferences, then GeneratePress’ style 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 some time.

Additionally, It is among those fastest-loading WordPress themes that you will locate. So if you’re seeking the best performance possible, utilizing GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation 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. Premium WordPress Theme Sites