[Toolbox] Why Genesis Framework is my go to WordPress Framework

Genesis Framework is my go to WordPress framework for last few years. I have joined their Pro Plus package in 2012 and used them extensively on many of my sites like this one.

This has turned out to be a single most useful investment I have made for my online presence. You can check the official site for StudioPress for more details on Genesis Framework.

1.  Why do I like Genesis Framework?

Most of the theme contains two parts of the code, one which interacts with WordPress and gets the data and other with contains the layout and design of the elements.

What is a Genesis Framework?

Genesis Framework is the part which interacts with WordPress and generates the data to be displayed on the page or post. Now I know it sounds like a very simple thing but it does a lot of other things like making your site SEO friendly, handling different layouts, security and most importantly – speed improvements.

The framework is also very customizable and allows you to add your functionality at almost any place with the help of hooks and filters.

Hooks – It allows you to hook specific functions to a specific action. It is useful when you want to add new things at any specific places. Here is a list of the hooks supported by the framework.

Filter – Allows you to modify the output of existing functions. It is useful when you want to change the existing output at any specific places. Here is a list of all the filters supported by the framework.

Now hooks and filter is nothing new, WordPress comes with those and Genesis expands those to include its own hooks and filter. Its close integration with WordPress is one of the prime reason of its efficiency.

Do I need Child Theme?

The answer is yes, you need both the parts to render the webpage correctly. Genesis Framework will provide the data which will be displayed and child theme will put that data into the layout.

All of their child themes are responsive, which means they will work fine on the desktop as well as on mobile and tablets. Being responsive is one of the most important aspects as more and more people have started to browse from their mobile devices.

Why is Genesis different?

There is a benefit of dividing the workload into two different things, it makes core framework independent of your site layout. It means that you can get all the core updates without worry about all the customizations on your site.

Their turn-key design allows to enable and disable elements very easily, not only that you can swap themes with a good speed.

Everyone likes to customize the look and style of their site and you can do that with ease on Child Themes. As you are just changing the look and feel not the way you receive the data, updates to Genesis Framework will not break anything on your site.

That why Genesis is little different than other themes in the market. You will get all the timely security updates, optimization, latest WordPress support without worrying about anything breaking on your site.

Genesis Framework

SEO

Genesis framework has been built keeping speed and SEO in mind. It comes with pre-built SEO support which can do all the basic SEO work.

Not only that, it integrates well with Yoast for SEO, one of the must have SEO plugin for me. If you have Yoast for SEO installed, it hides most of its SEO settings which are a duplicate of the plugin. This way you only set it at one place and do not get confused with extra boxes in the panels. Yoast himself has talked about Genesis doing much better job than other WordPress themes.

Genesis Framework Post SEO Settings Panel
Genesis Framework Post SEO Settings Panel

Genesis Framework also compatible with Schema.org and generates most of the common metadata automatically. If you want to add the additional metadata, that can be done easily with filters or hooks. This way your results are shown correctly on the search result pages. I have not seen any schema.org errors on this site, though have not added any additional metadata, most of the common metadata is displayed correctly.

Speed

Now I have told earlier that Genesis Framework is built keeping SEO and speed in mind. Page loading speed is one of the important factors for search engine rankings and Genesis makes sure that your site can remain fast. Their core framework is optimised for fast loading and they have also partnered with leading caching plugin providers W3 Edge.

You can enable the fragment cache in the W3 Total Cache plugin to get 30-60% speed improvements. Genesis Framework is optimised for fragment cache, so no other changes are required. You need to enable the Pro mode in W3 Total Cache for getting the Genesis Extension.

Licence

StudioPress themes come with an unlimited usage license. It also comes with a Developer license, so if you are selling website design services, you can use it on your client site also.

There is almost no restriction in terms of usage of the Genesis Framework and Themes. I have even sold sites build with Genesis Framework with no issues.

Community and Free Resources

Genesis has a very big community and support forum, where you can find almost any help needed. It also has a backing of a big developer community, so it will be easy to hire freelancers.

You can also reach people based on hashtags, just look at the hashtag #GenesisWP on Twitter or Google Plus. If you need some help, use the tag and many people should let you lend a hand. Even their support forum is also very active, so you can just go and search there, most probably you will find the solution.

StudioPress has a very well written support documentation and they also provide step by step setup guide for each theme. These are very extensive and well-written document so should be easy to follow and setup your site.

Plugins Support

Genesis covers most of the functionality through core framework and child themes, for any additional functionalities, there are many free and paid plugins.

Here are some of the best free plugins for Genesis Framework which will help you set it up correctly:

  1. Genesis Visual Hook Guide – This plugin will show the actual location of Hooks, Filters, and Markup in your theme. So that you can make the right choice while customising theme.
  2. Genesis Simple Hooks – This plugin adds a new setting page where you can make the edit to any of the hooks for Genesis Framework.
  3. Genesis Layout Extras – It allows you to modify your layout for the homepage, archive pages or single pages.

There are so many other plugins available which can increase the ease of use, just choose accordingly.

Genesis Framework comes with many shortcodes but if you want to extend that support, you can download my Awesome Shortcode For Genesis Plugin.

Customer Support

Their customer support is very good and they treat their returning customers with extra goodies. When I purchased the Pro Plus package third party themes were not part of the package. Later on, when they decided to add the third party themes, I got it for free. So you can rely on them to provide more and more value over time.

Do you know they provide an additional discount of 25% for only the returning customers?

So if you buy something from them, it automatically brings down the rates for everything else.

I have used their hosting solution for almost an year and contacted their support team multiple times. Every time their response was prompt and they have resolved the issues adequately.

2. Why You should avoid Genesis Framework

Now if everything is so rosy, why on earth anybody is buying any other theme?

A single theme or framework cannot be suitable for everyone in the world, so there are certain things which you need to keep in mind.

There are plugins available to customize but the true power of Genesis Framework is in Child Theme function.php and style.css. If you have never worked with PHP or CSS before, or you do not have any exposure to coding and debugging small problems, you might want to give it a skip.

You can skip updating the files with the help of some premium plugin but you will have to spend extra money for them or hire an experienced developer for Genesis Framework.

For setting up the child themes, please follow the setup guidelines. Each and every theme comes with a very well documented setup instructions.

You can contact me in case you still have any questions about Genesis Framework or ask in the comments below.

Get It From StudioPress

This post is part of the ToolBox Series. To check all the post of the series, check My ToolBox.

Full Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning that if you click on one of the links and purchase an item, we may receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). We only hyperlink the products which we feel adds value to our audience. Financial compensation does not play a role for those products.

About Sanjeev

Sanjeev is an IT Consultant and technology enthusiast. He has more than 15 years of experience in building and maintaining enterprise applications. He is been with Android from T-Mobile G1 time but recently shifted to iOS. He loves to code and play with the latest gadgets.

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