Genesis Framework: The what, why, and how?

Here at Restored 316 all of our themes are built on the Genesis Framework. We often get asked a lot of questions about Genesis from those just starting who don’t quite understand what it is and why they need it. If you are asking that question and reading this article please know you are not alone!

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So let’s discover what the Genesis Framework is and why we use it!

What is the Genesis Framework?

Genesis is a framework (the “parent”) in which all our themes are built. Our themes are child themes. These are words you’ve likely seen before but are still scratching your head wondering what that even means.

StudioPress, the creator of the Genesis Framework, gives a great example of comparing the Genesis Framework to a car and how the framework itself is the engine and what drives the car, and the child theme (the theme you get from us) is considered the paint on your car.  I love this analogy of course, but since we deal with a lot of women here at Restored 316, I wanted a way to represent this a little better.

Ready to tap into your Joanna Gaines loving heart?

So let’s imagine that your domain is considered your home address.  This is where people send you mail.

Then let’s imagine that the hosting provider is us renting the land in which our home resides.

Next, we have a house that sits on top of the land we are renting and that home is considered WordPress.

Now that we have our house, we have to design it and decorate it.

In our imaginary home, the Genesis Framework serves as your pest control that keeps the bugs out of the home, your security company that protects your home, and your HOA that keeps everything in order for your community.

Lastly, we want a gorgeous design inside our home, and this is the child theme that makes it all pretty.  With this new design inside our home, we can customize colors, add decorative elements like fonts and images, we can even pick up the walls and rearrange them (using widgets), just like Joanna loves to do!

Why do we use the Genesis Framework?

SEO

Security

As with any software, WordPress can also be vulnerable to hackers. Those of you who have dealt with this situation know that dealing with a hacked site can be expensive and time-consuming.

The StudioPress team brought in Mark Jaquith, a security expert and one of the core developers for WordPress to make sure the Genesis Framework had the best security possible!

Updates

We know that updating your site and plugins may feel a little complicated and stressful.  With the Genesis Framework updating your site is actually a breeze and shouldn’t be something you’re stressing about.

The updates are automatically integrated and when new updates become available you’ll see a notice in your WordPress dashboard, you’ll click the button and let it run, and you’re on your way!

Another beautiful thing about Genesis updates is when you update the framework, it still keeps your child theme design looking gorgeous!

With other themes, once you hit that update button you typically lose all your changes, which of course makes that updating process scary.  Not with the Genesis Framework!

Customizations

Genesis offers features right out of the box that allow you to customize your site and make it super simple to get set up!  Here are some of the features we love about the Genesis Framework:

Widgets: Widgets give you the ability to quickly and easily add elements to your site without ever having to know anything about code.  With the Genesis Framework, they already include widgets for featured pages and featured posts which allow you to add this content into the spaces that matter and get your customers to where you want them.

Genesis Theme Options: If you ever want to change your site layout, select new image sizes, control how many posts appear on your blog page, etc., the Genesis framework gives you these options and the moment you hit save the options appear on your site immediately.

Community

The Genesis Community is like none other, and they are always willing to step in and help and support each other.  Because of this, there is a ton of help available to find tutorials or to hire a developer to help achieve something a bit more custom. I can tell you that I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for the community that surrounds Genesis because there are so many people who have been able to step in and help me figure out issues when I just can’t figure it out myself!

How to use the Genesis Framework?

The Genesis Framework cannot function on its own you have to have a child theme. When starting a website you will need (in this order)

• a Domain Name
• Hosting
• WordPress
• the Genesis Framework
• Genesis Child Theme

After you purchase all of these items. You will follow these steps here to get everything installed and your Genesis Framework uploaded as well as your child theme.