Important! – Genesis now FREE and big changes to Premium Themes.

Philip Gledhill

WordPress | Genesis Framework | StudioPress

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StudioPress Setup Guide for Small Business

Helping you get your StudioPress website setup faster. I provide simple, practical advice for small business owners.

Update! In June 2021 StudioPress made big changes in advance of a new feature in WordPress called Full Site Editing.

WordPress are due to begin the move towards full site editing in WordPress version 5.8 which is due out in June 2021. I’ve updated this page to reflect those changes.

Big change #1

The Genesis Framework and the Genesis Sample theme are now free for all to use.

Get Genesis Framework for Free

Big change #2

You can no longer buy StudioPress themes outright for a one off fee. But you can still get one of the StudioPress Top 10 themes via a Genesis Pro subscription or as part of WP Engine hosting.

The StudioPress website is still active. But their themes are now bundled with hosting or with Genesis Pro subscriptions.
Get more info.

Genesis Pro is a yearly subscription based service aimed at freelance web designers and web design agencies.
Get more info.

WP Engine include the Top 10 StudioPress themes with their hosting packages.
Get more info.

The StudioPress Top 10 themes

StudioPress are now focusing on these ten themes. The themes are now bundled with WP Engine hosting and they are included with Genesis Pro subscriptions.

  • Genesis Sample
  • Revolution Pro
  • Monochrome Pro
  • Authority Pro
  • Essence Pro
  • Magazine Pro
  • Altitude Pro
  • Infinity Pro
  • Breakthrough Pro
  • Navigation Pro

There are two ways to set up StudioPress homepages

Most of the top ten StudioPress themes have a built in automatic set up wizard. This sets up your homepage and a couple of other pages for you.

Breakthrough Pro, Infinity Pro, and Altitude Pro do not have set up wizards. These themes have widgetized homepages.

If your theme homepage uses widget areas, my setup wizard helps you set it up faster.

Third-party themes

If you want to use a theme designed by a third party, not StudioPress, you’d have to buy it separately, even if you use WP Engine hosting.

The StudioPress website still lists themes designed by third party web designers that StudioPress trust.

If you’re looking for a third party theme I recommend Mai Theme. They offer a great bundle of themes and plugins. And if you need it, they offer hosting too.

Find out more about Mai Theme

These posts are of most use to users of legacy StudioPress themes.

However, there is also much information that is of use to people using the newest block based themes too.

StudioPress Setup Wizard

StudioPress provide a solid foundation that grows with your business. The StudioPress setup wizard helps you setup sites faster. The faster & easier way to setup StudioPress themes StudioPress sell great WordPress themes at a sensible price. But serious bloggers and web professionals needed a faster way to get started using their StudioPress theme or Pro Plus Pack. I’ve got a lot of practical …

Read moreStudioPress Setup Wizard

StudioPress & WP Engine

A great solution for businesses of all sizes.

Heading and Subheading for a Client Winner website
Heading and Subheading for a Client Winner website

Can you really build your own website?

If you’re a competent computer user you can build a great looking WordPress website yourself. All you need to do is carefully follow the instructions, and keep it simple.

Show Me How
Extra Tips

Advanced Tips And Third Party Plugins

This is a list of tutorials that new Genesis users might view as advanced. And tutorials about some third party plugins you might find useful.

For instance, if you want to know more about the Genesis Grid Loop, adding new widget areas or the simple hooks plugin. You might find these tutorials useful.
The easiest way to do things

Many Genesis users like to do everything using code. But there are some great alternatives for building page layouts and post listings that don’t require any code. You just need to choose the right plugins. So I’ve listed some plugins that you might find useful in this archive too.

More Info

StudioPress Setup Wizard

Please note! The more modern StudioPress themes have an automatic set up wizard, so you don’t need to use my set up wizard or these import scripts. I’ve left these here for people who are using legacy themes.

StudioPress provide a solid foundation that grows with your business. The StudioPress setup wizard helps you setup sites faster. My whole site is designed to be a StudioPress Setup Guide for Small Business, I hope you find the tutorials and videos useful.

The faster & easier way to setup StudioPress themes

StudioPress sell great WordPress themes at a sensible price. But serious bloggers and web professionals needed a faster way to get started using their StudioPress theme or Pro Plus Pack. I’ve got a lot of practical experience with the Genesis Framework and StudioPress themes. So I decided to help.

StudioPress Setup Wizard

How Philip’s StudioPress setup wizard works

You will need

  • A demo site to practice on. I recommend using Bitnami or Xampp local hosts.
  • The Genesis Framework and Your chosen child theme.
  • The Widget Importer & Exporter (.wie) files. I have made these for you.
  • Website content. Use your own content, my content or the demo content from your StudioPress theme.

Have you got all these things downloaded onto your desktop and ready to use? Great, let’s get started.

The industry Standard for WordPress Themes

Why I specialise in setting up StudioPress themes…

  • StudioPress themes cater for most types of small business.
  • All StudioPress themes are built on the rock solid Genesis Framework.
  • You can buy excellent plugins to help you modify and adapt the Genesis Framework and StudioPress themes to your needs. These plugins help you change things like theme colours or home page layouts relatively easily.
  • Genesis provides a long term, secure and frequently updated foundation that grows with your business. If your business grows into a super brand, simply contact one of StudioPress’s trusted Developers and commission a completely bespoke design for your web site. Your site would already be built on WordPress and the Genesis Framework so making the move to a completely bespoke design, commissioned from a top notch Genesis Developer, is that much easier.

Who needs a StudioPress theme

Copywriters, designers, coaches and trainers of all kinds. In fact StudioPress themes are ideal for any small business that sells their skills or services.

Who is the StudioPress Setup Wizard designed for?

  • Serious bloggers
  • Web design agencies
  • Freelance WordPress professionals

I made the StudioPress Setup Wizard for people who already have a good basic understanding of, and practical experience with WordPress.

If you can already use WordPress and want to get started using the StudioPress Pro Plus Pack or a theme designed by StudioPress.

This guide is for you.

* The StudioPress Setup Wizard currently covers themes designed by StudioPress BUT not third party themes. Most third party themes supply their own .xml and .wie files.