Genesis 2.0 Beta is now available for download for existing owners or purchase for new customers.
It’s not recommended existing users update just yet, however new users building new sites on Studio Press child themes shouldn’t have any problems.
Here’s a post about how to convert your existing child themes XHTML markup to HTML 5.
If you also want to test out the latest version of Genesis risk free and enable HTML 5 support in your StudioPress child theme, you’ll find the code below.
Here’s 3 potential benefits of turning on HTML 5 in your child theme once you have updated to Genesis 2.0 are:
- HTML 5 Markup
- Microdata
- Single Post Navigation Links
While all future child themes will be built using HTML 5, you’ll need to add the code to turn on HTML 5 for any existing theme.
All you need to do to enable Genesis to output HTML 5 in your child theme is add a line of PHP code to your child themes functions.php file. Once your child theme is HTML 5 supported, it will also output your HTML 5 markup as microdata.
HTML 5 Support Code
Simply updating to Genesis 2.0 won’t enable support for HTML in your child theme.
Some of the other SEO benefits of using adding support for HTML 5 in your Genesis 2.0 child theme are:
Single Post Navigation
Simply add one line of code to your child themes functions.php file and single post navigation links will appear at the end of every post. This links all your posts together meaning its highly unlikely any of your posts will miss out when search engine bots crawl your links.
Single post navigation also increases page views which leads to more time on site and can lead to more conversions, sharing of your content, subscribers and so on.
HTML 5 Micro Data
Another potential benefit of updating to the latest version of Genesis is HTML 5. Genesis 2.0 also includes support for micro data therefore potentially increasing search engine visibility. If micro data is something you believe will benefit your sites search visibility, you’ll also want to make sure your child theme can take advantage of this and add support for HTML 5.
New Loop Hooks
Once you’ve turned ion HTML 5 in your child theme, you may need to replace any old loop hooks with the new Genesis 2.0 loop hooks.
You’ll find any of the old hooks will NOT work once your theme is using HTML 5.
Test Drive Genesis 2.0
Try Genesis 2.0 for 30 days risk free.
Once you download any of these 3 themes, you also get access to a getting started guide which walks you through how to setup your theme correctly.
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