Introduction WordPress Best One Page Template
Within the past 10 years, I have used a great deal of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up till recently, I was using MyThemeShop, which was pretty excellent. However, I still had to do a great deal of customization to make it perform and work how I wanted it to. A few of weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s undoubtedly the best WordPress theme I have discovered in 10 years. I was blown away and am now moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I’ll go into precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review below. And if you’re wondering, yes I have attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as many other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. WordPress Best One Page Template
To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.
GeneratePress Evaluation
GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I’ve actually seen it for 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 in the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there isn’t that great, or not supported for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, that was a mistake. The motif now has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy matches, with over 500 5-star ratings. So obviously Tom is doing something 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 developer was thinking precisely how I was imagining 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 premium edition of the subject, since it’s worth very penny. Actually, Tom, if you read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.
Features
Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable things you don’t want running. This is one of the biggest reasons I adore GeneratePress.
Responsive, looks great across all of the devices.
Schema built-in, for better 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. Fantastic browser support back to IE8.
Additionally, it works great with the popular fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you want to dive into even more customizations, these really are a great combo. I have also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.
Translation ready.
Font awesome built in.
Tons of filters and hooks which make it good for programmers.
Excellent active support from the programmer. Normally, 3 updates per month.
The Documentation is also unbelievable. Besides have good documentation on their site, the theme has been around long enough that what I wholeheartedly throughout the setup process was found within a few seconds from their forum.
Diving Into GeneratePress
Now it’s Time for the fun part! I always test a brand new theme right from the box with no customizations to see how quickly the foundation is. This tells me a lot of what I could expect by the time that 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 worried about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to generate a lot of big files, but that isn’t the case. You may tell that Tom actually worked hard on ensuring that every record loaded in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the amount of documents is not as important. But the dimensions is! Take a look at some 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
That is a programmer that cares about functionality! And I have Seen exactly the same during each of the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as you can possibly get them. In fact, Font Awesome is probably the biggest file included. And that is not even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming round the cornerwe could 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 this perfmatters plugin which has a script manager built-in, I felt at home with this. Everything should be designed this way.
If You’re curious, I’m using the following 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 I no more need to use a Child theme. This makes my life so much easier. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I will literally update my GeneratePress motif this very minute rather than shed one customization. The hooks add-on certainly helps make it possible. It allows you to incorporate custom code/PHP anywhere throughout your WordPress website. WordPress Best One Page Template
Other Things I Love About GeneratePress
On every Page/post you have a lot of alternatives. You can change the sidebar design and the footer widgets.
You Can quickly swap a page between the default option to a full width page, in addition to disable elements.
The WordPress customizer choices is really where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, a lot of these options are enabled 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 really come in handy.
Responsive Columns
Another Plugin I highly recommend grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this is also made by the same developer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super easy way to incorporate responsive columns to any page or article. Characteristics include:
Desktop grid thickness
Tablet grid width
Mobile grid width
Insert custom classes
Add custom inline designs
Equal height columns
This is An example below:
You May 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 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 edition of GeneratePress lets you perform all sorts of things concerning design. Think of it like a webpage builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not just for blogs! I’m in reality utilizing GeneratePress for our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) that is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to look it over. However, as you can see below, it looks nothing like a blog.
Speed Tests
For those Of those who are regular readers, you probably did not even notice I changed the entire motif that powers woorkup.com. It just 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 spent a lot of time customizing it. In reality, I’ve gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to publish all my customizations. My advice today is, simply get GeneratePress!
woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme
Together 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 motif. Each of the customizations were made with the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).
Like the WordPress theme I have running on woorkup? You are in luck. Tom asked if he could create a replica of woorkup for the new GeneratePress blog library. I am happy to let you know that you can now put in my woorkup theme on your own GeneratePress website with only a single click! It’s known as the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog design immediately.
brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
Additionally, I Moved within my private website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimum website, as I don’t use it for much. As you can see it already loaded pretty fast.
brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme
I had been Able to replicate the entire look 100% in GeneratePress in under an hour. And as you can view it loads even faster! Amazing. I was even able to eliminate a couple plugins which weren’t needed due to GP.
forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
Additionally, I Moved over our business website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimum website, as we just use it for our LLC. As you can see it loaded pretty fast. WordPress Best One Page Template
forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme
I was Able to again move everything over and get it looking just how I wanted it in under one hour. And since you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page weight 2x!
I can not express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I am moving over all of my websites for this (which includes some EDD e-commerce sites). After I have my 9 sites all running in GP without any child topics, my life is going to be a breeze! The programmer has revived my faith in multi-purpose themes, and that when done the correct way, can actually perform quicker.
And The best thing is, I finally have a thousand more choices to choose from than I did earlier.
What GeneratePress Is Great For…
GeneratePress Is the ideal alternative for performance-focused users who want to be able 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 foundation 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 type of site.
However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Fit If…
…you Want something that will immediately look perfect from the box.
For Example, if you know you wish to produce a style blog, you might be happier picking out a market theme that’s developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.
Even though GeneratePress has gotten a great deal easier to use, thanks to its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones if you first install it.
So To make GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you will almost certainly need to go in and personalize matters. And while the significant advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, especially casual users, do not like having to make those changes themselves.
GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique
Here Are some of the particular features that clarify why GeneratePress is indeed popular.
Lots Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer
Beyond Performance, another area where GeneratePress does well is its customization choices.
GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient because you’ll be able to see all of the changes that you make in real time.
The Free version of GeneratePress gives you decent options, but should you have GeneratePress Premium, you will have the ability to customize nearly all about your site.
For Example, if you go in the Layout area, you can configure detailed settings for your:
- Header — you can move your header around and alter its styling
- Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, such as sticky menus
- Sidebar layout — you can use a Couple of sidebars
- Blog post design — like featured picture dimensions, metadata, etc..
- Footer layout — like how many widgets to add
Likewise, That the Typography place enables you to control the font to get each and every element on your site, including buttons:
And You also receive a detailed area to control the colour of every single element on your site.
All In all, GeneratePress will give you a lot more customization choices in the WordPress Customizer compared to most other themes. This level of detail might be a little overwhelming if you are a newcomer. But as soon as you understand how the preferences come together, you will have full control over how your site appears.
Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times
Across All its features, GeneratePress consistently has a focus on excellent performance and tidy code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, which is about as little as you are ever going to find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress topics are still 200+ kB. And some 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.
Place That collectively, and you obtain a superfast-loading motif. How fast? To give you an idea, I conducted a little test.
First, I put up an empty website utilizing a haphazard popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After analyzing its performance with Pingdom, it
- Had a performance tier of 77
- Loaded in 1.05 moments
- Had a page size of 243.9 kB
- Had 15 asks
That’s Not bad in any way! However, GeneratePress can perform.
Next, I activated GeneratePress on exactly the same test site without changing anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress failed:
- Had a performance grade of 87, 10 points greater
- 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 other topics, you are going to continue to see that GeneratePress is among the fastest-loading WordPress themes in existence. WordPress Best One Page Template
Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach
Past Giving you more style controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium comes with a lot of other useful features such as:
- Elements — a exceptional feature that lets you create custom hooks, page headers, or design templates.
- Page Header — lets you create a unique page header on a per-page basis.
- Sections — this is sort of like lightweight page building. It permits you to create separate”sections” on a webpage, each with their own design and column settings.
To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular port where you could select and choose what characteristics you want to activate.
That Way, you don’t have to slow your site down for a feature which you’re never going to use.
Pre-Made Starter Sites Make It Easier To Design Your Site
In The past, you needed to build GeneratePress websites from a blank canvas no matter what, which left the motif difficult for casual users to install.
Earlier In 2018, though, the programmer added a new Website Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users which lets you easily import any among the 25+ pre-built demonstration websites .
You Can import them right from the WordPress dashboard.
Yes this site still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click on a couple buttons to import a demo site.
Page-Level Settings Provide 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 — however you do not have very much control beyond that.
GeneratePress Changes that by giving you a brand new Layout meta name box for every single post and page:
You Can use this meta box to:
- Change the number of sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (like changing the sidebar from right to left)
- Choose how many footer widgets to use
- Disable certain elements, like your header, navigation menu, post featured image, post title, or footer
- Create 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 components, you’re in a position to produce the correct baseline for your own page builder layout, which makes it effortless to create custom articles as needed. WordPress Best One Page Template
GeneratePress Replies: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites
The Core GeneratePress motif can be obtained at no cost at WordPress.org.
That said, If you’re serious about using GeneratePress, I believe you should buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what produces the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you almost as many configurations in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also lose out on the premade Site Library.
GeneratePress Premium is also still fairly affordable. It costs only $39.95, which gives you use on unlimited sites. You’ll also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to keep on receiving support and updates following the first year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress after the initial year without renewing — you just won’t receive any more updates).
When You consider the typical premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a fantastic value.
Conclusion
As I mentioned, I do not believe GeneratePress is for everybody.
If You want a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that satisfies your needs for your niche out of day one.
But If you’re willing to spend some time altering settings, GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to flip it into any type of WordPress site. Or, you may even have the ability to locate a starter website that fulfills your needs to save some time.
Additionally, It’s among the fastest-loading WordPress topics you will find. Therefore, if you’re seeking the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a good decision.
If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, you should have no problem making your site load in under one minute. WordPress Best One Page Template
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.