WordPress, a free and open-source content management system, is a flexible enough to power any website, from a tiny personal blog to a gargantuan Fortune 500 site. Because it’s open source, developers from all over the globe build excellent WordPress plugins, themes and frameworks that are capable of making your site mobile-friendly, optimized for search engines and much more. One combination we like is Genesis, a theme framework offered by StudioPress, and Beaver Builder, a complete design system that makes building sleek web pages a breeze.
What Is Genesis and Why Should You Use It?
Genesis offers you the ability to easily create incredible websites, even if you’re new to WordPress or building websites.
Features of Genesis a wide variety of absolute necessities:
- Mobile optimization
- Theme options
- Custom page templates
- Featured content widgets
- Customizable headers
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Getting your site to rank in the search engines is no easy feat, but Genesis takes a bit of the pain out of the process. The theme framework, which allows you to set titles and meta tag descriptions for pages and posts, prioritizes SEO. Genesis has always been geared towards search engine optimization, and with automatic updates it continues to keep on top of SEO trends, making sure your site is up-to-date.
Mobile Optimization
More and more people are leaving their computers behind and are predominantly using their tablets and smartphones. Your site needs to be accessible and optimized for mobile devices. Genesis takes care of this for you, as mobile optimization comes standard.
Page Loading Time
End users are not only going mobile, they are also demanding their content quickly. Genesis can increase your page loading time dramatically–loading pages in milliseconds–by “caching fully-formed HTML files that can be quickly served up to users without calling the database.” This increased speed is absolutely vital to your business on the web, as it means fewer lost end users due to impatience.
Advanced Widgets
Featured content widgets, such as the Genesis Featured Page Advanced widget, can give you even more customization. The widget integrates seamlessly with the Genesis framework and boosts the functionality of your site:
- Custom page titles, including placement above or below image
- Custom image upload field, including option to adjust size
- Custom content field (accepts shortcodes)
- Display page excerpt option
- Page link removal from page title option
- Widget custom link option
Genesis allows you to quickly and easily configure your site, optimize it for search engines and mobile devices and improve the page loading time significantly. It’s an incredibly functional and user-friendly framework.
As a complement to Genesis, Beaver Builder allows for even easier layout configurations and adjustments.
What Is Beaver Builder and How Can It Make Your Website Better?
Beaver Builder works seamlessly with Genesis and has many advantages when building site optimized for SEO. Beaver Builder is a comprehensive design system that uses drag-and-drop functionality for an easy user experience and gives you the ability to customize your site’s layout. The system gives you control over the layout and allows you to design your site with ease.
Increased Efficiency
Beaver Builder can increase efficiency and save you time. If you are a web professional, you can empower your clients to make their own edits. And if you’re a web novice yourself, it will allow you to quickly move items on the page and add custom photos or images as you wish. Beaver Builder offers hundreds of templates and allows you to customize your layouts, giving you incredible flexibility. With Beaver Builder’s exceptional design capability and ease of use, you can create beautiful websites in half the time.
Theme Flexibility
If you’ve spent much time with WordPress, you know losing content when you switch themes is a huge problem. Beaver Builder’s page builder plugin, however, allows you to sidestep this problem. Even if you stop using the plugin, your content will end up back in the WordPress editor.
Genesis and Beaver Builder Support
In addition, both Genesis and Beaver Builder both offer top notch support and tutorials. Beaver Builder has a knowledge base that can be referenced prior to submitting a support ticket, and Genesis assistance–which they call “unlimited”–is available through an account with StudioPress. The goal of each tool is to be functional, flexible and user-friendly.
Better Together
Genesis provides a strong foundation for your site, allowing your brand to shine while making sure your code is clean and search engine optimized. Genesis provides the theme framework for your site, while Beaver Builder makes your site customization as easy and simple as dragging and dropping. Together these two tools can make even a web novice an innovator. They can create fast-loading, custom and easily editable websites in a snap.