Genesis 2.0…. no its not the latest revision of the Bible where they explain fossils. It is in fact a brand new way to run your WordPress website.
Genesis is a WordPress framework which sits on top of WordPress adding a lot of additional features and customisation options. I run all my websites on the Genesis framework so I was interested to hear about the release of Genesis 2.0. It is the biggest update to date and brings with it a suite of new and improved features. Since I bought Genesis ver 1 ($59.99), I get version 2 free. One of the great things about Genesis is you get free updates.
According to the sales pitch Genesis 2 offers better security, faster load speeds, improved SEO, a new design template and ‘ultraflexible foundational coding’. What does that mean in terms of new features?
HTML5 Markup
If you are a regular blogger you may have heard of HTML5. You know HTML5 is a thing that exists and quite frankly that is all you want to know. If you are a developer you may have stronger positive feeling about HTML5.
I am by no means an expert on HTML5. What I do understand is it is a web language which offers exceptional support for audio and video and works well across multiple platforms meaning your website renders better on mobile devices. It is replacing other web languages and can also be used to make apps.
Genesis 2.0 has full HTML5 compatibility. HTML5 markup is activated by a single line of code within a child theme and all future themes developed by Studiopress will be written in HTML5. Because the types of content you can publish with a HTML5 coded website are much expanded Genesis has new hooks for loops output in HTML5. I don’t understand what that means, I presume it is something to do with phishing 
Microdata
If you are using a theme with HTML5 Genesis will output your markup using microdata. Microdata is a way to label content so Google knows exactly what that content is. The more info Google has about your content the better it can rank your site.
New Design
Genesis have 43 WordPress themes available. They have tons (maximum 43) of amazing ones like the Agency Theme which I use for Think Genial. It costs $20-$30 to buy a theme once you have the framework however if you want a basic template you get one out of the box when you buy the framework. Studiopress have updated the standard theme to HTML5.
Removed Features
3 features have been removed for ver 2.0: the Latest Tweets widget, eNews widget and the “post templates” feature. They are now available as free plugins. I was not using any of these features so am unaffected.
The Latest Tweets widget is used to display tweets from your timeline on your website, I use Twitter Feed: Embedded Timeline WordPress Plugin. The eNews Widget was an optin box where people could subscribe to your posts and the ‘post templates’ feature is for custom templates available in some themes. You still have the 6 templates which you can choose between for each post/ page as standard.
Additional features
- Reorganized CSS file
- Network Upgrade now upgrades the Genesis database for all sites in a network when running WordPress in multisite mode
- Widget classes are now coded in PHP5 format
- Admin CSS and Javascript are now minified
- Inline HTML comments have been removed to reduce page size
- The Scripts option now has its own metabox when editing an entry.
- Introduced a flexible markup API to allow changes in markup element attributes with a smart filter system
Genesis Review
I have used Genesis for a number of years and have found it an excellent way to manage your WordPress website with outstanding out-of-the-box themes. Genesis is recommended by the very top bloggers. For instance Joost de Valk who’s team recently facilitated the move of the Guardian website from .co.uk to a .com domain recommends Genesis.
If you are interested in using Genesis for your website take a look at the Genesis review I did or jump over to the Studiopress website and take a look at the themes. I hope you found this post useful.
Genesis 2.0 for WordPress is a post from: Think Genial: Social Media Management