3. Genesis Framework
Search Engine Optimized
Clean, light, optimized code
Schema.org markup
Updated to stay consistent with best practices
HTML5 + Responsive Design
Unlimited support, sites, updates, etc., for one
price
Great Documentation
4. Genesis Child Themes
Business
Real Estate
Photography
Education
Magazine/News
…and new themes added regularly
https://my.studiopress.com/themes/
8. Genesis Plugins
Most child themes require specific Genesis
plugins, such as the Responsive Slider.
The instructions will tell you which ones your
theme needs
Full list: https://www.studiopress.com/plugins/
Genesis Simple Edits + Current Year and
Copyright Shortcodes
Easily customize above-post and below-post
meta
Copyright in the footer like: [c][y] ABC Company,
LLC
9. Genesis Theme Settings
Header and Footer script entry (for things like
Google Analytics code)
Default color scheme for the child theme
Default page layout (sidebar-blog, blog-
sidebar, full-width, etc)
SEO Settings
Automatic Genesis updates
10. Non-Genesis Plugins
Contact Form 7 + Flamingo
Calendarize It
WooCommerce
UberMenu
Image Widget
Mailchimp
Google XML Sitemaps
Akismet
20. Calendarize It
• Extensive Calendar and Events app
• Repeating events
• Multiple day events
• All Day or Specific Start and End Time
• Color Coding
• Map View
• Shortcode for full page
• Widgets for monthly, daily, agenda style, etc
26. Calendarize It
• Lots of features and add-ons (free and paid)
• Map View
• Event Ratings and Reviews
• Event RSVP
• Event Check In App
• User-submitted Calendar Events
• Sync with iCal or Google Calendar
• Purchase through Code Canyon starting at
$30
• More information at Calendarize.it
27. WooCommerce
• Most Genesis child themes integrate well with
WooCommerce
• Genesis Connect for WooCommerce
plugin (FREE)
• replaces WooCommerce’s built-in shop
templates with its own Genesis-ready versions
• WooCommerce Authorize.net DPM
Gateway plugin ($79)
• Allows you to process credit cards on your site
while not having to worry about PCI Compliance
• Can also choose to use Paypal, Stripe and
others using WooCommerce add-ons
31. UberMenu
Basically: You can put anything in the menu
you could put in a post, page or widget.
Purchase via Code Canyon for $19
Demo, documentation, video tutorials and
support
More information at wpmegamenu.com
32. Image Widget
• Great for a clickable image.
For example, a sponsor’s
logo
• Upload or use existing
• Title/Alternative Text
• Caption
• Link
• Size & Alignment
• Free
• No coding!
33. Mailchimp
Mailchimp for WP plugin
Allow users to subscribe to one or more lists in
your Mailchimp account
FREE
Customizable forms for full page and widget
areas, much like Contact Form 7
38. Last but not least…
Anti-Spam: Akismet
Comes with WP installation
Free (but encouraged to donate)
Integrates with Contact Form 7 forms
Sitemap: Google XML Sitemaps plugin
Creates your sitemap
Submits your sitemap to Search Engines
Re-submits it when new content is created
Introduction: My name is Ann Gaffigan. I’m currently working full time as CTO of National Land Realty but previously had my own company and clients for about 12 years. I started using Wordpress in 2009 or so. Since then, I’ve circled in on a set of themes and plugins that I consistently used for clients because they worked so well and were so user-friendly. That’s what I’m going to tell you about today.
First I want to talk about themes. A good theme can set you up with a foundation that has the features expected for most sites these days, a clean and responsive look and feel, with the ability to customize beyond that.
How many of you have heard of the Genesis Framework?
How many of you have used the Genesis Framework?
Once I started using the Genesis framework, I’ve used it for 95% of the Wordpress sites I’ve built ever since. Partly because I think the themes are great, partly because the documentation is great, and partly because I’ve used it before and know the in’s and out’s, so it’s the most efficient path for me.
The Genesis Framework is a theme framework. This means it contains all the functionality and structure, while allow child themes to be built that take advantage of those built in features but add custom styling.
This means you can use the same familiar framework and backend features while using different child themes to make completely different LOOKING sites.
The Genesis Framework is Search Engine Optimized: It’s light. It uses Schema.org markup and is consistently update to stay current with best practices.
It employs HTML5 and responsive design
You can purchase the framework and get access to all of the child themes for what I think is a reasonable price ($500). Or you can purchase them one at a time (usually around $129).
I can login at any time and re-download a child theme to use again, all my instructions for set up are there, etc.
I’m not a designer, so having child themes that look great out of the box saves me a ton of time and headache and makes the client happier
The Genesis Child Themes are best for business, real estate, photography, education and magazine or news style sites.
They consistently add new themes and if you paid the one-time price for all themes upfront, you get access to those new themes.
- They are all responsive and come with all the demo content so you can set the site up exactly as it looks in the demo and go from there.
All of the child themes offer the basic genesis layouts – sidebar – body, body – sidebar, primary sidebar and secondary sidebar, full-width body, etc.
Their Real Estate themes even include the ability to search listings by price, home type, location, bedrooms, MLS#, etc.
- Any plugins a theme requires will be included in the instructions. Often the home page slider. The instructions will walk you through exact step by exact step.
I always install Genesis Simple Edits first: editing three most common areas:
Top of a post/entry: date and author for example: [post_date] by [post_author]]
Bottom of a post/entry: categories for examples: [post_categories]
Footer of the site: Copyright [c] [y] American Top Team HD · Site Design by <a href="http://gazelleincorporated.com" target="_blank">Gazelle Inc</a> · [footer_loginout]
The Current Year and Copyright Shortcodes plugin let’s you use [c] for the Copyright symbol and [y] for the current 4-digit year so you always have the current year showing instead of having to update it every year.
Genesis makes it easy to…
Add your Google Analytics code or maybe include Font Awesome in the <head> or footer of your code on every page of the site
Change your color scheme (most child themes come with a handful)
Change the default page layout)
Adjust some SEO settings
Turn on automatic Genesis Updates (like you can with Wordpress updates)
Now I’m going to walk you through 8 non-Genesis plugins I use a lot.
9 Slides
- We all need contact forms on our site. The basic example is a Contact Us form. (NEXT)
This is the default form when you install the Contact Form 7 plugin and create a new form.
YES this is code, but the example tells you a lot about how this markup works and they provide buttons for the input fields.
You can mark certain fields as required and add any HTML you need. (NEXT)
In the Mail tab you can customize who gets an email when a contact form is filled out, and what the email says (NEXT)
Under Messages you can customize what the user sees when the form was submitted, whether there was an error or not
We will come back to Additional Settings (NEXT)
I always install Flamingo to go along with Contact Form 7 because it keeps a copy of each form filled out as well as everyone’s name and email who filled out a form.
This is great for when you want to email everyone that used a sign-up form, for example. (NEXT)
Being able to see all of the filled out forms means if the emails had been going to spam or something, you still have them all saved here and can look up what people submitted. You can also export them to view, for example, the shirt size everyone ordered when they signed up for a clinic.
I integrate a simple Paypal BuyNow button with Contact Forms a lot to make registration setup easy.
For example, here is a registration form for a wrestling seminar. It asks for name, email and comments, and then instructs you to click Continue.
When the user clicks Continue, their submission is saved and the BuyNow button appears (NEXT)
This is what the HTML looks like when I’m editing this registration Page.
Contact form Shortcode
THEN a <div> with an ID “paypaldiv” that is set to not display (be hidden).
INSIDE the paypaldiv Is the Buy Now Paypal button code copy and pasted from my Paypal account when I used their tool to create a button. (NEXT)
Now we see where I can use the Additional Settings – when the form is submitted, the paypal div is UNHIDDEN to the user. (NEXT)
Read the slide
Here is an example of a monthly view of the calendar.
You can filter the calendar by category, see the Week view or a List view, etc. (NEXT)
Each event can be as extensive as any WP post, with a body (description), featured image, etc.
The pop up looks like this and you can click the event name to see a full page view (NEXT)
Calendarize It also offers widgets so you can post upcoming events or event the whole calendar as a widget (NEXT)
Calendarize EVENTS are custom Post Types. Your Calendars are custom Categories.
It makes it really easy to set repeating events. And you can even put in exclusions, for example, if something is cancelled because of a holiday.
I could do a whole presentation on this plugin. It has a lot of “free” (no extra cost) and paid add-ons, such as^^^^^
Purchase at Code Canyon for $30, and get more info at Calendarize.it (NEXT)
Read the slide
Example of personalization options in WooCommerce (EXPLAIN)
ALSO: discuss variations and attributes for complicated products with different sizes/colors/styles/prices
I use UberMenu to make fancy looking Mega Menus.
Here is a simple example of a drop down menu under Sports that lists each season’s sports in its own column
Take that another step further – here is a Login dropdown that allows several different types of users to login right here.
Read the slide
Super simple widget that is really helpful especially if you or the person who is going to manage the site going forward doesn’t want to have to use code.
[READ THE SLIDE]
COMING SOON: Image Widget Plus: random images, lightbox and slider
READ
Here is an example on a full page/post using Shortcode
Here is an example of how it looks in a Widget
It’s really easy to set up the form, and if you have multiple lists, you can let the user select or restrict the sign up form to a certain list
You can customize the confirmation message, as with Contact Form 7
