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Website design and content creation is an important part of building your authority online. A professional-looking website contributes to your brand and builds trust. However, development takes time and money, and many entrepreneurs do not know how to edit their websites when they finally receive it from a developer.
Using Genesis Pro is one solution that makes it easy to add and remove blocks and completely customize your WordPress website.
You may have heard that the block editor is difficult. After all, why did so many WordPress users resist it when it first came out? However, continuous improvements have been made and there are more blocks being added all the time. While there may be a bit of a learning curve, the flexibility offered by blocks makes them worth the effort.
What Is Genesis Pro?
Genesis Pro provides website owners with everything they need to create and customize themes, page layouts and blocks with WordPress. With Genesis Pro, business owners do not need a developer to create basically anything they can imagine.
Genesis Pro is highly recommended for any entrepreneur who wants to take charge of their website and easily edit it as they design new offers, build content and post their latest company news. Consider it as a type of site builder made specifically for the Gutenberg WordPress environment.
What Do You Need in a Website Builder?
Theme: While there are many ways to customize your website, the theme of your WordPress website controls the overall framework, look and style. It’s important to choose a quality theme because, otherwise, you could experience site maintenance issues, slow page loading times and conflicts with your plugins. Many theme developers fail to update their themes after a few years which can put your site at risk of a security hack. Even if you don’t get hacked, your theme may no longer be compatible with new WordPress updates.
Choosing premium themes can help you to avoid these problems. By using StudioPress themes with Genesis Pro you will have peace of mind that you are choosing a secure and optimized theme that will last. You do not need to use a StudioPress theme to use Genesis Pro, but all the themes are high quality.
Customization: In the classic WordPress environment, developers selected basic themes and then used “child themes” to add their code and customization. With the Gutenberg block editor, this is no longer necessary, and the average person can customize their own website. This is called “full-site editing.” However, some website owners find the customization options included with their themes limited and not necessarily intuitive.
Genesis Pro takes this functionality a step further by adding blocks, sections and layouts that you can edit and save. Many things can be customized in the block editor that cannot easily be customized using the default WordPress editor.
Layouts: While anything is possible, it’s easier to get started if you already have layouts available that you can customize to your needs. For example, let’s say that you want a sales page that leaves out the main navigation because you want to get the lead into your funnel quickly. You can choose a page layout and customize it to your needs. Drag in the blocks you need to customize your page and get your funnel working quickly.
You can also add a specific section to your site. For example, consider a service that has three different versions – Starter, Standard and Pro. You could use a section layout with a pricing chart. You can combine multiple sections to create your page.
You can also save blocks to reuse. Let’s say you want all your testimonials to have a similar layout. Simply create your block, save it, and reuse it on any page where a testimonial is important.
Security: Genesis Pro comes included with the shared WP Engine hosting package. WP Engine are WordPress experts meaning that your site is less likely to be plagued by the security issues that come with other hosting options.
As for the StudioPress themes and Genesis Pro plugins, they have worked with a security expert developer to ensure that all best practices have been followed.
SEO: The Genesis Pro framework is optimized for good site navigation which helps search engines crawl your site. The StudioPress themes are well-coded, so you will be getting fewer of those weird technical messages from Google Search Console that take you down the rabbit hole. Plus, they are mobile responsive and provide support for schema which are tags that help search engines understand the content of your website.
Page speed: How fast your page loads affects your traffic and user experience. If it takes longer than three seconds people may click away from your site. Using the native block editor means that Genesis Pro does not weigh down your site with bulky editors and features.
Genesis Blocks include support for Google AMP pages. Google AMP accelerates loading time on mobile to prevent people from “bouncing” away from your site.
Conversions: As an entrepreneur, you likely have a desired action for every piece of content that you create. However, adding a call to action can be frustrating in many WordPress builders. You’ll need to add heading, description, form, button, background image or color, etc. However, Genesis Pro adds a simple call-to-action box that you can easily customize in the block editor, save and drop anywhere.
How Does Genesis Pro Compare to Other Site Builders?
There are other ways to simplify WordPress editing, but with the Gutenberg editor many of these options are no longer necessary. Plus, some of them can slow down your site which makes them bad for your search traffic.
Typically, other site builders use a “drag and drop” editor that makes them easier to learn than the block editor. If you don’t want to use CSS, you may find it easier to customize your site with a website builder like Elementor or Beaver Builder. These types of editors can also be used with the Genesis Framework for the best of both worlds.
In conclusion, Genesis Pro is a great option for businesses that want a flexible modern, responsive site that is easy to build and manage.
Learn how you can get Genesis Pro, select StudioPress themes and more with WP Engine web hosting.
Shella Gardezi is a marketing, PR and SEO specialist with experience doubling website traffic and sales and getting features in national publications and on the airwaves.