Installing GeneratePress and Elementor
Installing the premium theme, GeneratePress Premium went surprising well.
Down For Maintenance
I used WP Maintenance Mode plugin to let Google and any other visitors know that my site has not gone away and is just down for a short while for maintenance.
Once I had finished installing GeneratePress Premium, and I was happy everything was working, I deactivated this plugin and deleted it.
Installing GeneratePress Premium
I followed the instructions explicitly, and they are plain and with easy steps. Only at the beginning did I not understand, but that was probably because I was reading ahead.
The main steps are:
- Purchase GeneratePress Premium (GP Premium) from the GeneratePress website (You don't need to do this if you only want the free Theme!).
- Download the Premium plugin. Yes, it is a plugin! I tried installing this as a theme. I simply got an error that the Style.css was missing. Don't be me. Read the instructions! My download was not zipped/compressed. I had to do this manually.
- Go to your website within WordPress, and install the free GeneratePress Theme.
- Install the GP Premium plugin, use the option to upload the zipped/compress plugin that you purchased and downloaded earlier.
That is all there is to it. My final step was to get my Google Analytics code into GeneratePress rather than using the supplemental plugin that I was using for Yoast. For this, I had to go to the GeneratePress GP Premium plugin and check the box for Elements. This step installs the necessary hooks,
The hook I wanted was wp_head. In this hook I installed my Google Analytics code, and flipped the 'Advanced' switch to apply to the whole site.
My final steps for the night was reducing all my unnecessary plugins, I am now back down to five plugins.
The errors with my site reporting that all my posts were lightweight i.e., more HTML/CSS code than actual content, have all gone! Perhaps, Google will like my web pages and start ranking me. Time will tell, if my efforts were worthwhile.
Elementor
I will be installing Elementor later when I have a better understanding of this plugin extension to GeneratePress. I have played with this on my other site but I'm a bit awkward when it comes to designing pages.
Recent Comments
11
Hi Paul
This stuff is unmitigated Greek to me! I have instructed the lads on my website that there'll be no soft options for them, no Premium plug-ins, no HTML/CSS Codes - nothing. And no down-time for any maintenance. Unless of course they start earning some money for me. As the Americans say - period! Yours aye.
Well done Paul though you might find Thrive easier than Elementor as Elementor copied Thrive
Well done Paul, I think you'll just need to be prepared to play with Elementor for a few days
I went with the Avada theme in the end and was pulling my hair out for the first few days trying to figure out how to use a page builder.
In the end I actually went on to youtube and followed a 4 hour long tutorial on building a site and put it in to practice on a test site (it took 2 days!). And to be honest I am probably stil only using 10% of the features
The only thing it has changed fo me is that i dont use site content anymore becases I find it easier to write in Word and drop the relevant paragraphs/sections in the the page bulder that way.
God luck with it, take it step by step
I didnt like GP so I got a different theme. I felt it was better matched for me. Each of us have different preferences. Thanks for sharing your GP theme experiences with us. Maybe later I’d try GP but for now nope. I still have the GP premiums on my laptop folder. Elementor should help. Wish you success on that.
Hey Paul,
I have pasted the GA code in the hook section, but don't know where to find the "advanced" switch to apply for the whole site. Can you pl guide me:)
Also pl explain if you don't need AIO plugin after installing this plugin.
Regards
Hi,
You have to click on the tab that says "Display Rules". Then in "Location" click the dropdown and choose “Entire Site.”. After that just click Publish.
Cheers
Michael
See more comments
I have Generatepress on the two sites that I have hosted here and I really like the free version. I have been wanting to buy and install the premium version but have been busy with other things. I think I was just waiting for you to post this! Thanks!