I talk a lot about my love for Genesis on this blog. I used free WordPress themes for years (and absolutely recommend the same for anyone who is new to blogging or doesn't have space in the budget yet).
But…
If you haven't bought Genesis, but you wonder what it's all about…
Or…
If you have bought Genesis and want a good how-to manual…
I've got a freebie for you.
StudioPress (the company that makes Genesis) has put together this free, printable, PDF called The Genesis Guide for Absolute Beginners (click to download immediately). Handy!
Here are the things you'll learn:
Table of Contents
1 Introduction to Genesis
- 1.1 What's a Framework?
- 1.2 What's a Child Theme?
2 Installing Genesis and a child theme
- 2.1 Installing Genesis from inside WordPress
- 2.2 Installing using FTP
3 Genesis Settings
- 3.1 Theme Settings
- 3.2 SEO Settings
- 3.3 Import/Export
4 How Home Pages Work
5 Widget Areas
6 Included Widgets
- 6.1 Genesis – Add the Featured Pages Widget
- 6.2 Genesis – Add the Featured Posts Widget
- 6.3 Genesis – Latest Tweets Widget
- 6.4 Genesis – User Profile Widget
- 6.5 Genesis – eNews and Update Widget
- 6.6 Additional Widgets
7 Logo/Header
8 Genesis Templates
- 8.1 Blog Template
- 8.2 Archive Template
9 Upgrading Genesis
- 9.1 Using the Automatic Upgrade feature
- 9.2 Upgrading Manually
10 Additional Resources
- 10.1 Plugins
- 10.2 Helpful Links
11. Troubleshooting
- 11.1 Common Installation Error Messages
Get the The Genesis Guide for Absolute Beginners now!
Disclaimer: The links in this post are my affiliate links. My disclosure policy is here.
Wonderful! I LOVE getting free stuff, especially if its going to be useful information. Thanks so much for all you do!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing – there is SOOOOOO much I don't know about my theme!! Hopefully this will help!
I hope so, Rhonda!
I made the mistake of not using a chid theme on my theme. Big whoops! (I wasn't reading your blog back then!) I have considered making the move to Genesis, but always seemed so complicated. Thanks so much for posting this.
Like I said on Facebook about making mistakes….
Haha!
So glad to know that even my blogging heroes occasionally make mistakes!
Thanks, Amy!
do you ever do things like this on thesis? even if it is w a guest blogger? mine was installed by someone else and there is a lot i don't "get" about it. i need people to interpret for me from the the reams of written stuff. i also need photos. i can't go to see what a theme will look like and i don't know how to figure it out.
Well, I've never used Thesis personally (although have tinkered around on other blogs that use it) but what about the forums? I've also heard good things about Kristarella.
thanks. that is helpful:)
Thanks! I downloaded it to read and study as I want to move my blog from Blogger to WordPress this year. This will be super handy!
I too love Genesis! Very easy to use and amazingly customizable. But my favorite is that they have excellent customer support!
Hi Amy
Love the look of your site – Genesis of course, but a little different from the basic "midnight" theme. Fabulous.
As to the guide, it's a great resource and grateful to the peeps at StudioPress for making it available.
Interesting to see how you've set out your article.
I've just written an article on The Genesis Guide – would love to know what you think of it.
StudioPress does a really good job trying to make things easy on their users. And now they're adding a lot of explanatory comments to their code, so it's easier make changes and know what you're doing.
No idea what I'm doing. I am at Blogspot right now…I bought my .com name and it never merged it (blogger said it would do it auto…it didn't.) So, I own my .com name and am not using it. I would like to go to wordpress AND use my .com name. Can't I do that and exactly HOW difficult is it? LOL Thank you, thank you!!
Yep, you sure can. My series about moving from Blogger to WordPress might be a good place to start.
Thank you so much!
Hi, Amy. I enrolled in WordPress.org and caused all kinds of problems for myself shuffling around. I accidentally removed the menu, etc. So I purchased Genesis / Prose hoping that might straighten some of the problems out. Do I go to WordPress or do I go to Studiopress for assistance?
If you purchased Genesis, definitely go to their support forums. I wrote a post which includes links to all kinds of Genesis resources here.
It's a good guide for beginners like me. But I'd really like to see a guide that takes one beyond merely installing a child theme and making minor alterations. I'm enthused about Genesis as a development framework but the documentation as to exactly how to develop with it is a bit sparse, certainly not much from Studiopress themselves. Must be a good market for a Professional Genesis Development book that takes you through the process of more radical customisation and generating your own themes. Anyway, good blog