Despite what some may think, building a website doesn’t happen overnight; wireframes, information architecture, design drafts, SEO, content strategy – the list goes on. A web designer (or agency) needs to cover all these bases to develop a top-notch product.
Before I discovered the wonders of building with a framework, I would typically spend hours just to find the right theme or layout with which to start my project. Buying a new theme for each client a) wasted hours of my time spent learning my way around a new set of code and b) wasted my client’s money.
I started building with the Genesis Framework about two years ago and haven’t built a website with anything else since. Using a framework has significantly decreased the time it takes for me to build high-quality, custom WordPress websites, and has tripled the amount of client work I have received. Here’s how –
Lightning Quick & Reliable Support
When I have an issue, it gets resolved. Quickly. The Studiopress forum is a treasure trove of how-to’s and answers to most of the questions I have. If I can’t find the answer in the forum, I post a new topic and it is addressed almost always within 24 hours.
Library of Turn-key Designs
Some clients don’t need a site built from scratch. The ever-growing collection of templates that Studiopress creates are suitable for many types of sites, including personal blogs, magazine websites, small business websites and more. Having access to all these turn-key themes decreases the time of the web development process considerably.
Custom snippet library
Every time the Studiopress team releases a new theme, I download it and dig into the code. Each new theme offers some new feature, page layout and design aspect that I can easily adapt for future websites. This modular approach to building sites with Genesis has expanded the type of features and functions I can offer new clients.
Having these snippets has shortened development time. Dramatically.
People search for Genesis Developers
I am so passionate about using Genesis for all my sites that I decided to write a blog post about it about a year ago titled 6 Reasons I Use the Genesis Framework. In it, I show off some of the Genesis sites I have built and explain why I use it.
Since publishing the article, it has been visited thousands of times from Google searches alone. The article gets traffic for search terms like “Genesis Framework” and “Genesis WordPress developer”. Most of these people were looking for reasons why they should or shouldn’t invest in Genesis for their projects. But some people were bloggers, small business owners or other websites owners looking to improve their site by using Genesis. How do I know? I have gotten leads through my contact form asking for Genesis websites.
The team over at StudioPress and Copyblogger have put in a lot of effort, time and money promoting and educating the web designer community about the benefits of using the Genesis Framework. This has created a demand for designers who can build with the framework.
Extra Website Features – Now Standard
Built-in SEO, mobile responsive, fast load times – these are all valuable to my clients. Genesis has all these features built into their framework and the majority of their themes. Instead of spending my time and client dollars, I can now offer these features standard with websites.
In all, the Genesis Framework has been a great investment in time and money for my business and an even better deal for my clients. Craps Tips and Tricks: 10 Ways to Win
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I could not agree with you more. One single example: after I first installed Genesis on my old blog the traffic almost doubled, the organic traffic I mean.
Bob,
How cool! Simple changes, big results.
Thanks for the comments and stopping by,
Chris
I’m with you 100%! When I started my business three years ago, I planned on focusing on Joomla and WordPress since I was familiar with both. Within two months I dropped Joomla and the following year I went exclusive to Genesis. It has been an uphill roller coaster ride ever since.
Looking back I know that my dedication to WordPress and Genesis were two of the best decisions I could have made. I’m officially married to Genesis and I’ve surrounded myself with coders who are as well. A great decision for me, my clients, and my team.
Last week I had a prospect ask how my proposal would change if it did not include Genesis. I firmly responded there would be no proposal.
Rebecca,
Thanks for sharing your story! Every single site I have built in the last two plus years has been with Genesis.
I’m interested to know what advantages you have seen in using WordPress and Genesis over Joomla?
Thanks again for stopping by!
Chris
P.S. Awesome portfolio!
Tried the rest, now I only use the best, ‘Genesis’ nothing more to say !
Joseph,
Thanks for the comment – totally agreed. I must have gone through dozens of different themes before finding and settling down with Genesis.
Thanks again,
Chris
BTW – beautiful photography!
I had just the opposite experience with Genesis and now use Thesis. I don’t have time to learn all and forum users assumed I knew things and were not helpful for novices. So this isn’t for everyone.
Dave,
Thanks for the comment. I understand what you are saying. There is a learning curve with Genesis. Learning hooks, modifying functions.php and home.php pages and knowing a good bit of css and html is important if you really want to take advantage of all the framework has to offer. Have you looked at Prose Theme? Studiopress put this out to give users stronger control over styling without killing themselves trying to learn CSS. Might be worth looking at.
Thanks again for stopping by,
Chris
PS – How can Poipu Beach in Kauai not make your top ten beaches?!
Moving to Genesis is probably the best decision I’ve ever made. The framework is solid and its child theme is glorious
In what way would genesis help a webdesigner who always coded client websites from scratch using only the functions.php from the standard wordpress themes?
Anwar,
Great question. The Genesis framework gives you a great head start on all your client websites that you build. Customizing Genesis child themes is done primarily through functions.php, which it sounds like you are pretty familiar with. I think the big difference for me in using Genesis has been the support and the community built around the framework. There are tons of helpful resources on the web to help you accomplish pretty much anything you want with Genesis. Take a look at more reasons I use the Genesis Framework.
Thanks!
Chris
First of all I will likely develop my own framework down the road, but since I have been extremely pressed for time, having started a new business only a few months ago, I needed something that would help me today. I decided to use a framework to speed up the development time. That was my primary reason and the initial motivation for choosing a WordPress framework to work with. I wanted to build custom unique websites that were not derivatives of other peoples themes and by using a framework the core things needed to connect your HTML to WordPress are already in place.
I agree. We couldn’t be happier with our website – it was even featured by StudioPress
Chris – thanks for the comment. That’s awesome you were featured by StudioPress! What site was featured?
For a novice, genesis framework is easier to design, develop and customize. It makes the whole process of building, launching, and maintaining the site so much easier.
Chris,
How exactly would you use wordpress for clients. Buy a new theme for each client, set it all up the way they want then hand over the keys to that account? Not quite sure how WordPress works, but anything that takes the tediousness out of coding from scratch is worth a look into.