To create a website on WordPress, you need a theme that lets you add or remove functions, as your needs and Genesis framework becomes the most popular among the others. It’s created for maximum speed and the clean coding makes it optimized for SEO. However, the Genesis child themes come without a control panel in most cases and that’s why you need plugins to extend the theme features and options.
Luckily, there are lots of them, but I’ll focus on the best WordPress plugins for Genesis themes. That will help you to customize your blog design or functions, like any professional coder. But, you don’t have to learn a single line of coding, because the plugins are created, especially, for the Genesis framework, and they will make the site amazing.
Top Genesis theme plugins
1. Design Palette Pro
Would you like to customize your Genesis theme and pro design without coding? So, use this amazing plugin that allows anybody to change colors, layout, and other designs in minutes. Design Palette Pro combines multiple customization options and features into one powerful tool that saves money and time. You don’t have to hide a WordPress theme developer anymore to make your design look like you want, this Genesis premium customizer plugin offers what most webmasters and bloggers need.
2. Genesis Extender
This is a premium genesis theme customizer plugin developed by one of the skilled WordPress developers. It takes Genesis to the next level by offering multiple ways to create your custom layout, and build your own homepage, by replacing the default one and building a completely different structure.
You can build your own widgets and name them as you want, In a few clicks, you can tweak the site layout in real-time and make changes when needed.
There are lots of options and conditions to use, as a simple example, you can create a custom content layout and even a post structure.
3. Genesis Simple Hooks
This is one of the most useful plugins for the Genesis framework hooks, and child themes in general. It lets you add content, codes, such as HTML, and shortcodes to your website, without editing the theme functions. It creates lots of hooks in WordPress and in the theme and they are spaces, where you can add any content you want.
If you need banners, for example, you can create your insert code in the best location. There are over 50 different action hooks to select from, such as the header (before and after), the post content (before and after), and many other locations. You can also insert a PHP code if you want. It’s a great tool for genesis theme developers.
4. VelocityPage
This is a premium plugin created for 94% of WordPress themes including the famous Genesis. It works well without any settings. By default, every StudioPress Genesis theme is clean and easy to customize, this plugin lets you add, and edit anything on your page, directly without passing by any control panel.
This is one of the best plugins for WordPress developers. It’s a visual editor and page builder that works in real-time, you add items and save changes and it’s done. This tool is recommended for newbies who need to edit their themes without coding skills. But also, professionals who don’t have time can use this powerful tool, created by well-known WordPress developers and coders such as Mark Jaquith.
5. Genesis Visual Hook Guide
As its name, this free plugin shows you all the available hooks in your theme and in real-time. All you have to do is install the plugin, and visit any web page on your website, then, click the “G Hooks Guide” link from the top admin menu and click “Action Hooks” like the below screenshot. You don’t have to do anything after activating the plugins, it’s just one function:
You need to add content to it in the above plugin Genesis Simple Hooks.
6. Genesis Connect for WooCommerce
By default, Genesis themes come with no option to use e-commerce functions. This plugin will add full e-commerce support inside the theme functions, and let you sell products online without any problem. The plugin is easy to use and no extra settings are needed. You can replace this plugin by adding the e-commerce support function in the theme’s functions.php file. But, it doesn’t guarantee to work with a few tutorials, to install and use this tool, it’s safe.
7. Genesis Simple Edits
You will love this free plugin, even if you’re a newbie or even a coder. It lets you edit the footer content, so you can add your own information and delete the WordPress link if you want. At the same time, you can edit the post info such as the date, the author, the post metadata, and the keywords. You can add or delete them.
You can use simple shortcodes, and they are easy to use, and you can write your own footer structure as HTML or text.
8. Genesis Layout Extras
Very recommended plugin, it’s free to use and one of the most useful tools, that lets you customize the layout of every post, and page on your site. You just need to select the layouts to use, there are 9 to 15 different layouts to use. Then, the post layout can be customized individually from the editing page. It’s easy to choose a default layout and add a custom one on any page by selecting options.
9. Genesis eNews Extended
When you need a beautiful email subscription box, you can install this plugin. It’s also free and easy to use. It’s used in the StudioPress website. For Feedburner, there are no problems, it’s easy to use, for professional marketing services such as Aweber. You need to insert your list’s UR-form action. Just Google it and there are lots of tutorials on how to add these services to this plugin box.
10. Genesis Simple Sidebars
This free plugin extends the default WordPress sidebar options and lets you customize the way your widget appears. You can easily create multiple dynamic sidebar widgets, and organize them by location in your theme. I recommend this free plugin for both newbies, and advanced WordPress users, it has all the good functions that a blog or site needs.
11. Genesis Simple Menus
When you need different WordPress menus per page, post, or categories this plugin is free and you can easily use it. At the same time, it adds an option to create a custom menu and place it where you want.
These are not the full list of plugins that work with Genesis, but they are the best and most used, more plugins will be added later.
Do you have other good plugins to suggest?
