News

Are you struggling to find ways to improve your freelance/agency profits or simply looking for ways to get your web design projects done faster?

Reducing your time to get projects kicked-off can not only drastically improve your profit per project, it can help you deliver projects faster, resulting in happier customers who continue to order more and more from you.

In this article, we will explore how you can use the new Genesis one-click theme setup feature available in StudioPressÔÇÖ newest themes (which may be freely available to you) to get a huge head start on your projects by setting up a theme, beautiful block-based demo content, and required plugins in under 30 seconds. Really!

Skip ahead to check out StudioPress themes which currently include the one-click theme setup feature.

What is the one-click theme setup feature?

Released in early 2019, the Genesis one-click theme setup feature allows any Genesis theme developer to configure theme demo content and dependent plugins to load automatically when someone first activates the theme. You can use a one-click setup feature in Genesis themes from StudioPress, other theme companies using Genesis, or you can create your own.

The one-click theme setup feature often turns hours, days, weeks, and even months of setup time into an automated process that takes seconds. Check out this real-time gif of our newest theme Revolution Pro loading in under 30 seconds (No video edits or 2x playback. It really is this fast!)

Which StudioPress marketplace themes support one-click theme setup?

Since the one-click theme setup feature was introduced, the newly expanded StudioPress R&D team has been working on adding the feature to all the StudioPress-owned themes and working with third-party theme providers in the StudioPress marketplace to do the same with their themes.

As of todayÔÇÖs date, these are all the themes in the StudioPress marketplace which you can use to jump-start projects in seconds with the one-click theme setup featureÔǪ…

Revolution Pro (Great for blogs & business sites)

$129 with Genesis. $74.95 if you have already purchased Genesis. Included for free for ProPlus customers, WP Engine customers, & WP Engine agency partners

Monochrome Pro (Minimalist theme great for all kinds of sites)

$129 with Genesis. $74.95 if you have already purchased Genesis. Included for free for ProPlus customers, WP Engine customers, & WP Engine agency partners´╗┐

Authority Pro (Great for personal brand & author sites)

$129 with Genesis. $74.95 if you have already purchased Genesis. Included for free for ProPlus customers, WP Engine customers, & WP Engine agency partners´╗┐

Hello Pro by BrandID (Great for personal brand & professional services)

$99.95 with Genesis. $59 if you have already purchased Genesis. Included for free for ProPlus customers

Genesis Sample Theme (Flexible starting point for any type of site)

Free if youÔÇÖve already purchased Genesis. Included for free for ProPlus customers, WP Engine customers, & WP Engine agency partners´╗┐

How can the Genesis one-click theme setup actually make me more profitable?

We all know that working faster means we spend less time doing things and thus, we make more profit, but how exactly does that come to life when you use a Genesis theme with the one-click theme setup?

As a previous agency owner, this is something IÔÇÖve personally thought a lot about and it was key to the product strategy when the StudioPress engineering team was planning the one-click theme setup feature.

Of course, using the one-click theme setup, which utilizes the new WordPress block-based page builder (Gutenberg), is a great way for nearly anyone to start building a beautiful and functional WordPress site. In this way, we see this feature opening up new capabilities for less sophisticated developers to build more valuable sites for the customers they serve.

One-click theme setup also allows novice site builders  to demand a higher price for the services they provide and to deliver that work in a shorter period of time. ItÔÇÖs not unreasonable to think you could spin out a simple brochure site in as little as 1-2 days. Depending on what you charge, this could mean thousands in revenue per day for even a single freelancer. For many folks, this is huge!

Additionally, the ability to ÔÇ£punch above your weightÔÇØ has been one of the benchmark benefits of using Genesis. WeÔÇÖre excited to see these enhancements enable the next generation of site creators in building their WordPress practice or their agency/freelance business and be able to demand a premium for the services they provide.

IÔÇÖm an advanced WordPress developer. Is this for me?

If you boast an advanced WordPress practice within your agency or internal team, you may be thinking ÔÇ£What does a one-click theme setup do for me? I donÔÇÖt need an easy button!ÔÇØ

While that may be a bit harsh as we all love ÔÇ£easy buttonsÔÇØ, knowing when and how to use the easy button can be the difference between looking like a pro and looking like a novice.

Even among advanced WordPress agencies and teams, we often find the need to create simple sites in a hurry. One-off marketing campaign sites, intranets, and any number of micro-projects often land squarely in our backlogs or the asks we receive from agency customers.

Using a Genesis theme enabled with one-click setup is a great way to quickly knock these projects out and delight your customers or stakeholders.

ItÔÇÖs true that you could design and code every last nook and cranny of these kinds of sites, but leveraging a solid starting point with one-click setup themes can help reduce your development time which you can save for more valuable projects that introduce new experiences or functionality into your or your clientsÔÇÖ sites.

Woah! One-click themes! How do I make one of those?

As mentioned earlier, the capabilities behind the one-click theme setup was built into Genesis itself. This means that as a theme developer, you (or your team) can make your very own one-click themes!

Agencies may find it helpful to build their own custom themes with one-click capabilities to enable a bigger percentage of their staff to kick a project off on their own or to offer lower-priced services to their customers. You can customize the plugins which are pre-loaded and use this as a method for  standardizing the way you build e-commerce sites or sites that rely on a specific plugin or functionality.

There are nearly an infinite amount of use cases you could address with the one-clock theme setup feature, which is why it was so important to us to provide this functionality directly in the Genesis framework. ItÔÇÖs not only StudioPress themes and our partnersÔÇÖ themes that can leverage this capability, you can too!

You can read more about how to build using the one-click theme setup feature here.

Conclusion

Our hope is that these new capabilities will provide you the efficiency you need to get projects done faster, and if youÔÇÖre an agency or freelancer, to make more profit per project. We have a ton more planned in terms of utilizing one-click themes to deliver even more value to the community of Genesis users and product makers around the world.

As a reminder, for many of you, these capabilities are available for free through our ProPlus theme package, for WP Engine Customers, and for WP Engine agency partners.

Stay tuned for even more exciting product announcements as we continue to invest in Genesis, the StudioPress themes, and in supporting the global community we all share.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Genesis 3.0 is coming June 19th, and we couldn’t be more excited!

This release has been months in the making, and we’re thrilled to share with you some details about the release, what you can do today to prepare for this version, as well as run the beta a full 3 weeks before the official reveal.

Genesis + AMP

As many of you know, AMP is a technology created by Google to accelerate the web by optimizing the code used by websites (with a little help from Google’s cache).

Thanks to the folks at Google and XWP, along with long time friend of the Genesis community, Tonya Mork, Genesis now provides internal integration with the AMP spec, as well as the tools to make child themes AMP compatible as well.

More details and documentation on how to make Genesis themes AMP compatible will be coming prior to the official launch of Genesis 3.0, for for a good place to start, we’ve updated our Genesis Sample child theme with AMP compatibility, so feel free to take a look at that and start to tinker.

Cleaning Up

Genesis is over 9 years old (!) and with age definitely comes some baggage. But fortunately, our team has been eyeing ways of cutting loose some of the old and outdated code that Genesis has carried for too long.

Among the changes are:

• Removing all the unnecessary root template files.
• Removing the Theme and SEO Settings page content (Customizer is now the way to customize Genesis).
• Removing all markup that wasn’t HTML5. HTML5 is now the exclusive markup format in Genesis.
• Removing Adsense Auto Ads integration in favor of simply using the Header Scripts setting.
• Removing Google Plus integration, since it has now been shut down.
• Removing all the CSS in the style.css file. Genesis should never be active anyway.
• Removing all functions deprecated prior to Genesis 2.8.
• Removing compatibility with very old breadcrumb plugins.
• Output the responsive viewport meta tag by default.

Yes, this is a pretty big list, but most of these changes were a long time coming. They just make sense to update or remove.

Goodbye Blog Page Template

I know this one is going to make some of you sad, but I think ultimately our solution will make you happy again.

Yes, we’re removing the Blog Page template. First of all, if you’re simply looking to make one of your pages display blog posts (for instance, in the case where your homepage is static), you can use a built in WordPress feature to do this.

But if you were using the Blog Page template for something like a custom loop to pull in very specific posts, we have a solution for that as well.

Genesis has a built in feature that, up until this point, we called an “Easter Egg” ÔǪ a neat little feature that we didn’t really talk about, but that could maybe make your life a little easier if you knew about it.

This “Easter Egg” allowed you to use a custom field to modify the query on a page, as long as that page was using the Blog Page template.

Now that we’ve retired the Blog Page template, you can use this feature on ANY page. Check out this tutorial and remember that this feature is now available on all pages. It should allow you to essentially duplicate the functionality of the Blog Page template, even though that template is no longer available.

Learn More about Genesis 3.0.0 Beta

We keep a detailed changelog for each release. The changelog for Genesis 3.0.0 can be found here.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Genesis 3.0 is coming June 19th, and we couldn’t be more excited!

This release has been months in the making, and we’re thrilled to share with you some details about the release, what you can do today to prepare for this version, as well as run the beta a full 3 weeks before the official reveal.

Genesis + AMP

As many of you know, AMP is a technology created by Google to accelerate the web by optimizing the code used by websites (with a little help from Google’s cache).

Thanks to the folks at Google and XWP, along with long time friend of the Genesis community, Tonya Mork, Genesis now provides internal integration with the AMP spec, as well as the tools to make child themes AMP compatible as well.

More details and documentation on how to make Genesis themes AMP compatible will be coming prior to the official launch of Genesis 3.0, for for a good place to start, we’ve updated our Genesis Sample child theme with AMP compatibility, so feel free to take a look at that and start to tinker.

Cleaning Up

Genesis is over 9 years old (!) and with age definitely comes some baggage. But fortunately, our team has been eyeing ways of cutting loose some of the old and outdated code that Genesis has carried for too long.

Among the changes are:

• Removing all the unnecessary root template files.
• Removing the Theme and SEO Settings page content (Customizer is now the way to customize Genesis).
• Removing all markup that wasn’t HTML5. HTML5 is now the exclusive markup format in Genesis.
• Removing Adsense Auto Ads integration in favor of simply using the Header Scripts setting.
• Removing Google Plus integration, since it has now been shut down.
• Removing all the CSS in the style.css file. Genesis should never be active anyway.
• Removing all functions deprecated prior to Genesis 2.8.
• Removing compatibility with very old breadcrumb plugins.
• Output the responsive viewport meta tag by default.

Yes, this is a pretty big list, but most of these changes were a long time coming. They just make sense to update or remove.

Goodbye Blog Page Template

I know this one is going to make some of you sad, but I think ultimately our solution will make you happy again.

Yes, we’re removing the Blog Page template. First of all, if you’re simply looking to make one of your pages display blog posts (for instance, in the case where your homepage is static), you can use a built in WordPress feature to do this.

But if you were using the Blog Page template for something like a custom loop to pull in very specific posts, we have a solution for that as well.

Genesis has a built in feature that, up until this point, we called an “Easter Egg” ÔǪ a neat little feature that we didn’t really talk about, but that could maybe make your life a little easier if you knew about it.

This “Easter Egg” allowed you to use a custom field to modify the query on a page, as long as that page was using the Blog Page template.

Now that we’ve retired the Blog Page template, you can use this feature on ANY page. Check out this tutorial and remember that this feature is now available on all pages. It should allow you to essentially duplicate the functionality of the Blog Page template, even though that template is no longer available.

Learn More about Genesis 3.0.0 Beta

We keep a detailed changelog for each release. The changelog for Genesis 3.0.0 can be found here.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

If youÔÇÖre planning on attending WordCamp EU in Berlin from 20-22 June 2019, donÔÇÖt miss the chance to spend time socializing and getting to know others in the Genesis community. We have a ton of Genesis community-centric activities planned.

Check out everything below so you donÔÇÖt miss out!

WP Engine / Genesis Community Party

Register now to join leaders and influencers from around the Genesis community at our WP Engine / Genesis Community party on 21 June 2019 during WCEU. We had a blast during our WCUS party and it was a really special time for Genesis folks from around the world to get together and spend some time having fun and getting to know each other.

WeÔÇÖre hoping to capture that magic again at WCEU, so weÔÇÖve lined up a wicked-cool venue and our events team have some awesome surprises planned to help make the night special.

DonÔÇÖt miss the chance to have a good time and hang out with others in the Genesis community. Register now!

Genesis Community Photo

Continuing the Genesis communityÔÇÖs long tradition of community photos at WordCamps, weÔÇÖll be getting everyone together for one massive group photo at WCEU. Check out the community photo below from WCUS which was our biggest community photo yet. WeÔÇÖre hoping our WCEU group will be even bigger.

To participate in the group photo, meet at the WP Engine booth at 11:05 AM on Saturday (22 June 2019). This is during the official coffee break, so you wonÔÇÖt miss any sessions if you attend!

Add the Genesis Community Photo to your Google Calendar

Genesis in the WP Engine Booth and Beyond

WeÔÇÖve had a busy year of product development and technology partnerships since Genesis was purchased by WP Engine in June of last year. To celebrate these achievements weÔÇÖll have Genesis demos in the WP Engine booth and perhaps even within the booths of our technology partners.

In particular, weÔÇÖll be showcasing exciting new features for building AMP compatible themes within the Genesis context. This is a feature that WP Engine and Google built in partnership for the Genesis framework to make it easier for you to serve your clients who require AMP.

Stop by the WP Engine booth to see the Genesis demos and speak to members of the Genesis team directly!

WeÔÇÖre excited to see you!

In addition to all the official things we have planned for the Genesis community at WCEU, weÔÇÖll have lots of folks on the ground in Berlin along with other members of the Genesis community from around the world. This should provide you with a ton of opportunities to get to know more people who use or create the framework you use to help to make your workflows faster and better.

WeÔÇÖre super excited for the chance to meet all of you and to have the opportunity to socialize and get to know each other.

See you at WordCamp EU!

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

On April 11th, we held our fourth Genesis Shapers Slack meeting. As a reminder, These meetings are a great opportunity for folks to share their thoughts and ideas about Genesis. You can read the recaps of the January, February, and March meetings.

The Genesis Shapers are a hand-selected and diverse group of people representing companies from across the community who have come together to be a representative voice in the strategic direction of Genesis in addition to the feedback we receive directly from customers, across social channels, and through Genesis WP on Slack.

Included in this group are:

Bill Erickson, Carrie Dils, Gary Jones, Greg Boser, Jennifer Bourn, Jon Brown, Jonathan Jeter, Lauren Gaige, Lee Anthony, Mike Hemberger, Robin Cornett, Sara Dunn, Sridhar Katakam, and Tonya Mork.

In the Shapers meeting earlier this month, we discussed Google AMP.

David Vogelpohl, the Vice President of Web Strategy at WP Engine and StudioPress brand lead, facilitated the conversation, and here was the meeting agenda:

• How important is AMP to you as a Genesis developer?
• How much demand do you have from clients for AMP?
• What could be better about creating Genesis themes that use AMP?
• Where does AMP integration fall on your Genesis road map priority list? Is better AMP needed now? If not, what would you do instead?

Importance of Google AMP as a Developer

I had a feeling this was going to be a touchy subject from the get-go. David kicked off the conversation by asking, ÔÇ£How important is AMP to you as a Genesis developer?ÔÇØ

Robin Cornett quickly jumped in with some brutal honesty:

ÔÇ£Honestly, at this point for me, not at all.ÔÇØ

This didnÔÇÖt come as a surprise to me, because I have to admit that I have kept AMP at a distance myself. ItÔÇÖs definitely something we arenÔÇÖt embracing (yet) for our clients at Authentik Studio.

Bill Erickson followed up RobinÔÇÖs comment, pretty much echoing what she said, with a caveat:

ÔÇ£Up until this point, AMP has not been important to me or my clients, but I think if it were easier to integrate it may become more important.ÔÇØ

Bill continued:

ÔÇ£I work with a lot of publisher and they have a love/hate relationship with AMP. They want the SERP boost, but not the loss of all their site features.ÔÇØ

Sara Dunn rounded out the initial responses with the same:

ÔÇ£For me, my clients arenÔÇÖt content publishers so AMP has not been important at all.ÔÇØ

To my surprise, David chimed in with some of his own experience with AMP:

ÔÇ£I used to be totally against it, but they solved a lot of the problems I had mainly the fact you can use your own domain for Google’s AMP cache.ÔÇØ

Between his and DavidÔÇÖs response, I gathered some insight into what I presumed was the overall consensus: Many are afraid of AMPÔÇöor at least wereÔÇöuntil better usability and documentation around it is available.

The conversation moved into the benefits of AMP, which Gary Jones quickly pointed out:

ÔÇ£For publishers there are other benefits, like being in the carousel. On a breaking news story, thatÔÇÖs critical.ÔÇØ

Sara also pointed out:

ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs my understanding that you can only get into ÔÇÿGoogle DiscoverÔÇÖ by using AMP.  Google Search Console just launched a Google Discover stats page, so IÔÇÖm guessing this will continue to be a focus for Google.ÔÇØ

Jonathan Jeter couldnÔÇÖt join us for this chat, but he did send over some insight, based upon the work he does for clients at his agency:

ÔÇ£AMP is extremely important to us as it is a required functionality for most sites now by our SEO team, along with schema and other standard SEO requirements.ÔÇØ

David wrapped us up with this observation, which led nicely into the next part of our discussion:

ÔÇ£If I had to summarize the comments on this question, it sounds like ÔÇÿas a developerÔÇÖ it may not be super important depending on who you are, but this begs the next question in our agenda.ÔÇØ

Client Demand for Google AMP

David started out this part of the discussion by asking the Shapers how much demand they have from clients for AMP.

Jason Cohen, CTO and founder of WP Engine followed that up with a question of his own:

ÔÇ£Could AMP be an excuse for a freelancer to justify new work?  That is: ÔÇÿHey, your blog content might get more views if we AMP-enable just the blog part of your site.ÔÇÖÔÇØ

Sara answered:

ÔÇ£Sure. Anything that Google comes up with could be something to approach clients with.  The question is if there is enough value for them to pay a freelancer to implement it.ÔÇØ

And Jennifer Bourn rebounded with a similar response:

ÔÇ£IÔÇÖm with Sara ÔÇö there has to be a clear ROI for clients to make it an upsell and increase their budgets.ÔÇØ

Jon Brown, who also was unable to attend the chat, emailed in:

ÔÇ£I havenÔÇÖt seen ÔÇÿtheme demandÔÇÖ for it, but our custom site build clients, which a lot of our publishers, often want it.  That said they also often hate it because that canÔÇÖt figure out how to monetize it to the level they did desktop ÔǪ or even mobile.ÔÇØ

Gary, who now works at Automattic, used to run his own Genesis agency, added:

ÔÇ£In Genesis world, I had some, but only because the client was up to speed on new developments and wanted that competitive advantage. The AMP plugin and AMP platform was still raw, and a moving target back then though, so difficult to take advantage of. My client knew they wanted to appear higher in search results. They didnÔÇÖt have ads on the site, so making their content available on AMP wasnÔÇÖt as much of a conflict compared to ad-driven sites at the time.ÔÇØ

The conversation moved away from the agency world a bit and toward the use/integration of AMP in Genesis themes. Gary said:

ÔÇ£I think Genesis / Genesis child themes supporting out of the box is a nice to have, but I donÔÇÖt think the typical SP customer would be able to make explicit use of it. As a feature, I think it would currently be more valuable to Genesis developers, who need to create a site fort clients who do want it.ÔÇØ

Bill asked:

ÔÇ£How seamless is the integration with AMP? If CSS changes are made to the child theme, do those automatically appear in the AMP version? Or do you need to compile a separate AMP stylesheet?ÔÇØ

Tonya Mork, who has spent a significant amount of her time while at XWP (and beyond) working on AMP support/integration replied:

ÔÇ£AMP requires different markup for interactive components.  That means the developer needs to provide an AMP component for any  interactive features (i.e. features that require JS). Tree shaking and the bulk of issues are handled by the AMP plugin and/or the Genesis + AMP components.ÔÇØ

Bill expressed his thought as it pertains to our customers:

ÔÇ£If itÔÇÖs ÔÇÿactivate AMP and everything is taken care ofÔÇÖ then I think SP customers would appreciate it. But IÔÇÖd be worried it might introduce more issues than it solves in the real world (too large styles, incompatibility with JS-requiring plugins).ÔÇØ

Carrie Dils rounded out this part of conversation with a little honestly, followed withÔÇöwell, a Carrie-ism:

ÔÇ£I donÔÇÖt have an opinion due to my own lack of knowledge. IÔÇÖm here for the free donuts.ÔÇØ

In my opinion, honesty is always the best policy. Grins.

Genesis Themes with AMP Support

Next, we moved into conversation around what could be better about creating Genesis themes that use AMP.

Robin kicked it off with this question:

ÔÇ£Is there any benefit to using the AMP plugin (or enabling it) without using AMP? I’m not sure if that makes senseÔÇöhopefully someone knows what I’m asking.ÔÇØ

I love her honesty with the question, because I think it is representative of the uncertainty and confusion that exists withÔÇöwhat IÔÇÖm guessingÔÇöis a majority of the Genesis (and greater WordPress) community.

Tonya replied:

ÔÇ£No. ItÔÇÖs just for AMP endpoints. That said, if we choose not to add AMP as a component to Genesis, then we may want to extract the CSS tree shaker component and then allow it to be enabled. ItÔÇÖs native AMP by default.  So itÔÇÖs displaying the AMPlified version of the site.ÔÇØ

Tonya also included links to the AMP version of Essence Pro and the non-AMP version of Essence Pro for context.

Jason jumped back in with this suggestion:

ÔÇ£RE: AMP + Plugins: Since many plugins are incompatible, or at least ÔÇÿunfriendly,ÔÇÖ I wonder whether there would be value in a curated list of plugins that do play nice with AMP & Genesis.  Maybe even featured online at StudioPress.ÔÇØ

As an added data point, Carrie pinged Rebecca Gill to ask her if her SEO clients request AMP. Her response:

ÔÇ£Nope. Barely ever.ÔÇØ

Well there ya go and a great segway into Davids final question for the Shapers.

ÔÇ£Where does AMP integration fall on your Genesis road map priority list? Is better AMP needed now? If not, what would you do instead?ÔÇØ

Google AMP Integration Roadmap

Gary quick re-routed the conversation a bit with some insight:

ÔÇ£I honestly think a focus on i18n infrastructure for Genesis and child themes and plugins would have more appeal to creating more sales than AMP support at this stage.ÔÇØ

Sara put in her two cents:

ÔÇ£No more widgetized home pages?  IÔÇÖm not sure if these things fall on the same road map.ÔÇØ

And Robin expressed her support and enthusiasm for the new onboarding feature built into Genesis:

ÔÇ£It doesnÔÇÖt matter so much for me, but I think the continued onboarding work is great. IÔÇÖm talking about it at our May meetup.

Though he was unable to attend the meeting, Mike Hemberger took some time to share his thoughts about AMP, as it pertains to the work he and David are doing at BizBudding:

ÔÇ£Just wanted to say that we have a some (6-12) clients we are very close with that are publishers running ads. AMP made sense for the news carousel, ranking, boost, etc so we are constantly tweaking existing plugins and code to make it all work. ItÔÇÖs been frustrating for sure, *however* I do want to say that when we are AMP validated and the sites are serving AMP posts, these clients see a *very* noticeable boost in ad revenue.ÔÇØ

I have always appreciated their dedication to challenging the status quo and investing in providing the best products and services for their clients. Mike continued:

ÔÇ£This is a scenario where the client probably wouldnÔÇÖt ÔÇÿask for AMPÔÇÖ because they donÔÇÖt know, and honestly we donÔÇÖt really know. Point being, this a ÔÇÿsubmit to GoogleÔÇÖ kinda thing in my eyes. If traffic/ranking is important, and Google builds this huge thing they are pushing, and we see first-hand (via our own or our clientÔÇÖs websites) that AMP is helping them _a lot_, this is definitely something we want to have an easier way to handle.ÔÇØ

Recap

ItÔÇÖs obvious to me that AMP is in demand with certain types of website owners (especially publishers), and is definitely on the radar of developers and users of Genesis, though there is still a fair amount of hesitation for fully adopting it. Our hope is that improvements coming in Genesis 3.0 which make it easier to build AMP compatible themes, to empower the Genesis community to have a solid approach to AMP when clients need it.

For those who are interested in learning more about utilizing the power of AMP and how it works with WordPress, hereÔÇÖs a really good read.

As always, I enjoy following along with the latest trends in technology, and will be pushing myself to understand how AMP can be used and more importantly, reaping the benefits that it claims to offer.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

On April 11th, we held our fourth Genesis Shapers Slack meeting. As a reminder, These meetings are a great opportunity for folks to share their thoughts and ideas about Genesis. You can read the recaps of the January, February, and March meetings.

The Genesis Shapers are a hand-selected and diverse group of people representing companies from across the community who have come together to be a representative voice in the strategic direction of Genesis in addition to the feedback we receive directly from customers, across social channels, and through Genesis WP on Slack.

Included in this group are:

Bill Erickson, Carrie Dils, Gary Jones, Greg Boser, Jennifer Bourn, Jon Brown, Jonathan Jeter, Lauren Gaige, Lee Anthony, Mike Hemberger, Robin Cornett, Sara Dunn, Sridhar Katakam, and Tonya Mork.

In the Shapers meeting earlier this month, we discussed Google AMP.

David Vogelpohl, the Vice President of Web Strategy at WP Engine and StudioPress brand lead, facilitated the conversation, and here was the meeting agenda:

• How important is AMP to you as a Genesis developer?
• How much demand do you have from clients for AMP?
• What could be better about creating Genesis themes that use AMP?
• Where does AMP integration fall on your Genesis road map priority list? Is better AMP needed now? If not, what would you do instead?

Importance of Google AMP as a Developer

I had a feeling this was going to be a touchy subject from the get-go. David kicked off the conversation by asking, ÔÇ£How important is AMP to you as a Genesis developer?ÔÇØ

Robin Cornett quickly jumped in with some brutal honesty:

ÔÇ£Honestly, at this point for me, not at all.ÔÇØ

This didnÔÇÖt come as a surprise to me, because I have to admit that I have kept AMP at a distance myself. ItÔÇÖs definitely something we arenÔÇÖt embracing (yet) for our clients at Authentik Studio.

Bill Erickson followed up RobinÔÇÖs comment, pretty much echoing what she said, with a caveat:

ÔÇ£Up until this point, AMP has not been important to me or my clients, but I think if it were easier to integrate it may become more important.ÔÇØ

Bill continued:

ÔÇ£I work with a lot of publisher and they have a love/hate relationship with AMP. They want the SERP boost, but not the loss of all their site features.ÔÇØ

Sara Dunn rounded out the initial responses with the same:

ÔÇ£For me, my clients arenÔÇÖt content publishers so AMP has not been important at all.ÔÇØ

To my surprise, David chimed in with some of his own experience with AMP:

ÔÇ£I used to be totally against it, but they solved a lot of the problems I had mainly the fact you can use your own domain for Google’s AMP cache.ÔÇØ

Between his and DavidÔÇÖs response, I gathered some insight into what I presumed was the overall consensus: Many are afraid of AMPÔÇöor at least wereÔÇöuntil better usability and documentation around it is available.

The conversation moved into the benefits of AMP, which Gary Jones quickly pointed out:

ÔÇ£For publishers there are other benefits, like being in the carousel. On a breaking news story, thatÔÇÖs critical.ÔÇØ

Sara also pointed out:

ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs my understanding that you can only get into ÔÇÿGoogle DiscoverÔÇÖ by using AMP.  Google Search Console just launched a Google Discover stats page, so IÔÇÖm guessing this will continue to be a focus for Google.ÔÇØ

Jonathan Jeter couldnÔÇÖt join us for this chat, but he did send over some insight, based upon the work he does for clients at his agency:

ÔÇ£AMP is extremely important to us as it is a required functionality for most sites now by our SEO team, along with schema and other standard SEO requirements.ÔÇØ

David wrapped us up with this observation, which led nicely into the next part of our discussion:

ÔÇ£If I had to summarize the comments on this question, it sounds like ÔÇÿas a developerÔÇÖ it may not be super important depending on who you are, but this begs the next question in our agenda.ÔÇØ

Client Demand for Google AMP

David started out this part of the discussion by asking the Shapers how much demand they have from clients for AMP.

Jason Cohen, CTO and founder of WP Engine followed that up with a question of his own:

ÔÇ£Could AMP be an excuse for a freelancer to justify new work?  That is: ÔÇÿHey, your blog content might get more views if we AMP-enable just the blog part of your site.ÔÇÖÔÇØ

Sara answered:

ÔÇ£Sure. Anything that Google comes up with could be something to approach clients with.  The question is if there is enough value for them to pay a freelancer to implement it.ÔÇØ

And Jennifer Bourn rebounded with a similar response:

ÔÇ£IÔÇÖm with Sara ÔÇö there has to be a clear ROI for clients to make it an upsell and increase their budgets.ÔÇØ

Jon Brown, who also was unable to attend the chat, emailed in:

ÔÇ£I havenÔÇÖt seen ÔÇÿtheme demandÔÇÖ for it, but our custom site build clients, which a lot of our publishers, often want it.  That said they also often hate it because that canÔÇÖt figure out how to monetize it to the level they did desktop ÔǪ or even mobile.ÔÇØ

Gary, who now works at Automattic, used to run his own Genesis agency, added:

ÔÇ£In Genesis world, I had some, but only because the client was up to speed on new developments and wanted that competitive advantage. The AMP plugin and AMP platform was still raw, and a moving target back then though, so difficult to take advantage of. My client knew they wanted to appear higher in search results. They didnÔÇÖt have ads on the site, so making their content available on AMP wasnÔÇÖt as much of a conflict compared to ad-driven sites at the time.ÔÇØ

The conversation moved away from the agency world a bit and toward the use/integration of AMP in Genesis themes. Gary said:

ÔÇ£I think Genesis / Genesis child themes supporting out of the box is a nice to have, but I donÔÇÖt think the typical SP customer would be able to make explicit use of it. As a feature, I think it would currently be more valuable to Genesis developers, who need to create a site fort clients who do want it.ÔÇØ

Bill asked:

ÔÇ£How seamless is the integration with AMP? If CSS changes are made to the child theme, do those automatically appear in the AMP version? Or do you need to compile a separate AMP stylesheet?ÔÇØ

Tonya Mork, who has spent a significant amount of her time while at XWP (and beyond) working on AMP support/integration replied:

ÔÇ£AMP requires different markup for interactive components.  That means the developer needs to provide an AMP component for any  interactive features (i.e. features that require JS). Tree shaking and the bulk of issues are handled by the AMP plugin and/or the Genesis + AMP components.ÔÇØ

Bill expressed his thought as it pertains to our customers:

ÔÇ£If itÔÇÖs ÔÇÿactivate AMP and everything is taken care ofÔÇÖ then I think SP customers would appreciate it. But IÔÇÖd be worried it might introduce more issues than it solves in the real world (too large styles, incompatibility with JS-requiring plugins).ÔÇØ

Carrie Dils rounded out this part of conversation with a little honestly, followed withÔÇöwell, a Carrie-ism:

ÔÇ£I donÔÇÖt have an opinion due to my own lack of knowledge. IÔÇÖm here for the free donuts.ÔÇØ

In my opinion, honesty is always the best policy. Grins.

Genesis Themes with AMP Support

Next, we moved into conversation around what could be better about creating Genesis themes that use AMP.

Robin kicked it off with this question:

ÔÇ£Is there any benefit to using the AMP plugin (or enabling it) without using AMP? I’m not sure if that makes senseÔÇöhopefully someone knows what I’m asking.ÔÇØ

I love her honesty with the question, because I think it is representative of the uncertainty and confusion that exists withÔÇöwhat IÔÇÖm guessingÔÇöis a majority of the Genesis (and greater WordPress) community.

Tonya replied:

ÔÇ£No. ItÔÇÖs just for AMP endpoints. That said, if we choose not to add AMP as a component to Genesis, then we may want to extract the CSS tree shaker component and then allow it to be enabled. ItÔÇÖs native AMP by default.  So itÔÇÖs displaying the AMPlified version of the site.ÔÇØ

Tonya also included links to the AMP version of Essence Pro and the non-AMP version of Essence Pro for context.

Jason jumped back in with this suggestion:

ÔÇ£RE: AMP + Plugins: Since many plugins are incompatible, or at least ÔÇÿunfriendly,ÔÇÖ I wonder whether there would be value in a curated list of plugins that do play nice with AMP & Genesis.  Maybe even featured online at StudioPress.ÔÇØ

As an added data point, Carrie pinged Rebecca Gill to ask her if her SEO clients request AMP. Her response:

ÔÇ£Nope. Barely ever.ÔÇØ

Well there ya go and a great segway into Davids final question for the Shapers.

ÔÇ£Where does AMP integration fall on your Genesis road map priority list? Is better AMP needed now? If not, what would you do instead?ÔÇØ

Google AMP Integration Roadmap

Gary quick re-routed the conversation a bit with some insight:

ÔÇ£I honestly think a focus on i18n infrastructure for Genesis and child themes and plugins would have more appeal to creating more sales than AMP support at this stage.ÔÇØ

Sara put in her two cents:

ÔÇ£No more widgetized home pages?  IÔÇÖm not sure if these things fall on the same road map.ÔÇØ

And Robin expressed her support and enthusiasm for the new onboarding feature built into Genesis:

ÔÇ£It doesnÔÇÖt matter so much for me, but I think the continued onboarding work is great. IÔÇÖm talking about it at our May meetup.

Though he was unable to attend the meeting, Mike Hemberger took some time to share his thoughts about AMP, as it pertains to the work he and David are doing at BizBudding:

ÔÇ£Just wanted to say that we have a some (6-12) clients we are very close with that are publishers running ads. AMP made sense for the news carousel, ranking, boost, etc so we are constantly tweaking existing plugins and code to make it all work. ItÔÇÖs been frustrating for sure, *however* I do want to say that when we are AMP validated and the sites are serving AMP posts, these clients see a *very* noticeable boost in ad revenue.ÔÇØ

I have always appreciated their dedication to challenging the status quo and investing in providing the best products and services for their clients. Mike continued:

ÔÇ£This is a scenario where the client probably wouldnÔÇÖt ÔÇÿask for AMPÔÇÖ because they donÔÇÖt know, and honestly we donÔÇÖt really know. Point being, this a ÔÇÿsubmit to GoogleÔÇÖ kinda thing in my eyes. If traffic/ranking is important, and Google builds this huge thing they are pushing, and we see first-hand (via our own or our clientÔÇÖs websites) that AMP is helping them _a lot_, this is definitely something we want to have an easier way to handle.ÔÇØ

Recap

ItÔÇÖs obvious to me that AMP is in demand with certain types of website owners (especially publishers), and is definitely on the radar of developers and users of Genesis, though there is still a fair amount of hesitation for fully adopting it. Our hope is that improvements coming in Genesis 3.0 which make it easier to build AMP compatible themes, to empower the Genesis community to have a solid approach to AMP when clients need it.

For those who are interested in learning more about utilizing the power of AMP and how it works with WordPress, hereÔÇÖs a really good read.

As always, I enjoy following along with the latest trends in technology, and will be pushing myself to understand how AMP can be used and more importantly, reaping the benefits that it claims to offer.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Update to Genesis Framework 2.10 right now!

This update adds WP-CLI commands, improved navigation, increased visibility into Genesis plugins, and easier access to the settings and features.

New WP-CLI Commands

Genesis 2.10 introduces new WP-CLI commands that help automate tasks such as checking for updates to the framework or completing a database upgrade after an update has occurred.

New commands include:

• wp genesis setting get – will retrieve the value of a Genesis setting
• wp genesis setting update – will update the value of a Genesis setting, and
• wp genesis db version – retrieves the current database version of Genesis installed on a site.

Check out thefull list of commands. 

Access Genesis Plugins

We now include a ÔÇ£Genesis PluginsÔÇØ link under the Genesis admin menu. Users will be able to install and activate plugins straight from their dashboard.

One-Click Theme Setup

Genesis 2.8 introduced the One-Click Theme Setup function which provides users with more control of the demo installation process.

Version 2.10 allows developers to specify which plugins and content should be installed and activated in their custom themes, and if they decide to not have content or plugins installed, the steps simply wonÔÇÖt show up.

This is a convenient way to customize sites and is particularly useful for theme builders or digital agencies building custom themes for their customers.

Moving to The Customizer

Genesis 2.10 will begin the process, as previously mentioned, of moving Genesis settings management to the WordPress Customizer. Rather than having their own pages, theme and SEO settings will now appear in the customize window within WP-admin.

Learn More about Genesis 2.10

Genesis owners should see the update right now in your dashboard. As always, you can also see all of the up-to-date changes being made to Genesis by checking out our changelog. 

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Update to Genesis Framework 2.10 right now!

This update adds WP-CLI commands, improved navigation, increased visibility into Genesis plugins, and easier access to the settings and features.

New WP-CLI Commands

Genesis 2.10 introduces new WP-CLI commands that help automate tasks such as checking for updates to the framework or completing a database upgrade after an update has occurred.

New commands include:

• wp genesis setting get – will retrieve the value of a Genesis setting
• wp genesis setting update – will update the value of a Genesis setting, and
• wp genesis db version – retrieves the current database version of Genesis installed on a site.

Check out thefull list of commands. 

Access Genesis Plugins

We now include a ÔÇ£Genesis PluginsÔÇØ link under the Genesis admin menu. Users will be able to install and activate plugins straight from their dashboard.

One-Click Theme Setup

Genesis 2.8 introduced the One-Click Theme Setup function which provides users with more control of the demo installation process.

Version 2.10 allows developers to specify which plugins and content should be installed and activated in their custom themes, and if they decide to not have content or plugins installed, the steps simply wonÔÇÖt show up.

This is a convenient way to customize sites and is particularly useful for theme builders or digital agencies building custom themes for their customers.

Moving to The Customizer

Genesis 2.10 will begin the process, as previously mentioned, of moving Genesis settings management to the WordPress Customizer. Rather than having their own pages, theme and SEO settings will now appear in the customize window within WP-admin.

Learn More about Genesis 2.10

Genesis owners should see the update right now in your dashboard. As always, you can also see all of the up-to-date changes being made to Genesis by checking out our changelog. 

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Atomic Blocks, our Gutenberg blocks plugin was just updated, and this release offers a great feature enhancement that will help you format your content in highly-flexible, good-looking columns.

The Advanced Columns block provides you with a powerful, flexible, responsive grid system to help you quickly build out custom page designs. Each column has options for margins, paddings, colors and more to easily achieve layouts that were once difficult to do in WordPress.

After updating your Atomic Blocks plugin, you can find the Advanced Columns block in the Atomic Blocks tab or by searching for advanced, columns, and then layout.

Watch this animation to get a feel for what’s possible with this amazing block:

Once added, you will be presented with the option to choose how many columns you want to add, between one and six columns. If you choose two, three, or four columns, you’ll have the option to choose between different layouts available for those columns. There are no additional column layouts for the one, five, or six column layouts.

After you’ve selected your column number and layout, your columns will be added to the page and you can start adding content and customizing the column settings.

Column Wrapper Settings

Using the Block Navigation button, you can select the column wrapper by clicking AB Advanced Columns. The settings for the column wrapper will be shown in the inspector sidebar.

• Column Layout – Use the Column Layout setting to adjust the layout of your columns. Your content will remain intact in its respective columns and the layout will shift based on the layout you choose.
• Column Gap – Change the width of the gutter between your columns.
• Column Inner Max Width – Change the width of the content inside the container wrapper. This will allow you to have your column container (and background color) stretch the full width of your page while keeping the content inside the container at a certain width.
• Center Columns in Container – Enable this option to center the columns on the page when a max-width is used.
• Responsive Columns – Enable Responsive Columns to enable smart stacking of columns on tablets and mobile devices.
• Margin and Padding – Adjust the margin and padding around your column content. Both margin and padding come with the option to select which measurement unit you would like to use in adjusting your spacing (pixels, percent, and ems). Margin and padding also both have the option to sync the range slider to adjust the values at the same time, instead of individually. This is handy if you want to quickly adjust the padding on all sides of your column.
• Color – Change the background color and text color of the column container.

Individual Column Settings

Each individual column also has a set of settings that can be adjusted.

• Margin and Padding – The same margin and padding settings found in the column container can be found on each individual column.
• Color – Change the background color and text color of each individual column.
• Vertical Alignment – When an individual column is selected, the toolbar will display vertical alignment options that let you vertically align the column to the top, center, or bottom of the container. This is helpful when you want your column content to be vertically aligned together.

Go ahead and try it out!

The new Advanced Columns block can do more than I have touched on here and we believe it now provides you with the most powerful, flexible, responsive grid system for publishing in WordPress.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Back when we first released Authority Pro, it quickly became one of the favorite themes in the community.

Now it is back, with updates to take full advantage of the WordPress 5 “Gutenberg” editor and Atomic Blocks!

In addition to the fully block based setup and one-click theme setup, the homepage now features the new Newsletter block with Mailchimp integration.

Installed with Authority Pro are a selection of essential plugins:

• Atomic Blocks
• Genesis eNews Extended
• WPForms Lite

Go Ahead, Check it Out!

There is a lot more to the theme than I have listed here, so go ahead and check out all the information using the buttons below:

The Authority Pro theme, as with all StudioPress themes, is included in all WP Engine Start-Up, Growth, Scale, Premium and Enterprise plans, and WP Engine Agency Partners also have it available for download.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.