How To Place Cover Photo Astra Template

If I say Astra, what comes to mind?

Personally, it reminds me of a German automobile model, a satellite, or a Romanian football game club (yes, I'm a sports aficionado).

More amusing, merely but as serious, I also discovered that the acronym ASTRA referred to the Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature and Civilisation of the Romanian People.

Well, you lot probably don't care nigh that final point – and I'm not offended.

Y'all are interested in WordPress. Skillful thing, Astra is likewise a freemium theme on our famous and beloved CMS.

And not merely whatever theme. Information technology's one of the most popular in the theme directory.

Of the nigh v,000 reviews submitted at the time of writing, more than 4,800 gave it 5-stars!

Could it be the perfect theme, the 1 we dream of falling upon one twenty-four hour period, in order to adopt it for all our projects?

To find out, you volition observe an ultra-detailed exam of our beast of the 24-hour interval.

To do this, I will employ the same structure as for the article about GeneratePress.

I will focus in particular on getting started with Astra, its customization, its bear upon on performance and SEO, and its value for coin.

Some of the links you will find in this article are chosen "affiliates". This ways that WPMarmite will go a minor commission if y'all decide to buy one of the products shown. It won't cost you more and it's a style to thank us for the articles we write and piece of work on! Read our publishing policy for details.

Originally written in Apr 2019, this post has been concluding updated in June 2021 using the 3.half dozen.2 version of the free theme, and the 3.5.1 version of Astra Pro.

What is Astra theme?

A millionaire theme…

Astra is a freemium theme: it is available for free on the official WordPress directory.

If you want more than options, you can get the premium version (starting at $59). I will come dorsum to all its specificities a fleck later, don't worry.

Download Astra:

With more one meg agile installations (number reached in July 2020), this is one of the nigh popular gratis themes on the directory.

Only the Twenty Twenty and Twenty Seventeen themes, integrated into the WordPress Cadre, achieve the same level.

Which places Astra far ahead of other prestigious competitors such every bit:

• OceanWP
• Hestia
• Sydney
• GeneratePress
• Neve

All this success has been accumulated in only ii years (Astra was launched in 2017): sounds crazy, right?

… momentarily punished a few days on the official directory

Shortly after being the first non-native theme in the official directory to surpass one million active installations, Astra received a big bamboo hit.

The Theme Team, the team in charge of themes on WordPress, suspended it from the official directory for a few days, before reintegrating information technology. According to the Theme Team, Astra violated WordPress rules prohibiting the addition of chapter links in a theme (which Astra would have done, therefore).

An "accusation" refuted by Begin Strength, the company behind Astra. Even though it admitted to having fabricated "a mistake", information technology said that its only fault was to have used third-party plugins to circulate a sponsorship code.

Sujay Pawar, the CEO of Brainstorm Force, published a alphabetic character of apology on the theme blog.

Did WordPress go as well far? Was Astra outlawed? If you lot want to know more virtually this story, I recommend you to read this article on WP Tavern.

The flagship product of an innovative company

In general, Astra is the flagship product of Brainstorm Force, a team of almost 60 people based in India.

This company besides offers about 50 products, including:

• Ultimate Addons for Beaver Architect and Ultimate Addons for Elementor: two plugins to add boosted add-ons and templates to the Beaver Architect and Elementor page builders.
• Convert Pro: a plugin to create opt-in forms.
• Pro Schema: a plugin to generate Schema.org linguistic communication.
• WP Portfolio: a plugin to create a portfolio.

In total, Brainstorm Force has more 10 years of experience, and its products are used on more than 2 meg websites.

This solid presence inside the global WordPress ecosystem is a guarantee of effectiveness that is not to exist underestimated.

If you choose the Astra theme, you should be quite safety with its updates and maintenance.

Now, let's notice out why Astra is so famous.

"Customize Everything Easily"

The motto is obviously very catchy, but these are the few words that you will see appear when scrolling on the abode page of the site.

Its developers present it every bit:

• An easy to customize theme, even without any knowledge of code.
• Compatible with most of the page builders.
• Total of ready-to-install site demos.

Moreover, as the description of the theme on its defended page in the official directory states, Astra "is very light (less than 50 Kb loaded on the public interface) and offers unprecedented speed".

According to its designers, it would load in 0.5 seconds. You'll find out if this is actually the case in the Performance section.

I don't know about you lot, but I'1000 pretty excited most it.

It'south time to get down to business: find Astra's options.

Allow's offset with its ease of apply.

If you're looking for some inspiration, take a look at websites created with Astra on BeautifulPress.

Getting started with Astra

A clear interface

Later activating the theme, a link entitled Astra Options appears on your Dashboard, within the Advent menu.

Once inside these options, y'all will discover several things:

• Several links will allow you to be redirected to the Customizer settings. This is one of the great strengths of this theme: all the settings take place from the Customizer.
• You will detect that information technology is possible to activate fifteen additional modules to customize your site. These modules are available in the Pro version, which we will focus on in Part three of this examination. Like GeneratePress, Astra uses a modular approach: yous tin choose to enable or disable the modules you are interested in at any time. On the user side (you), this allows you to optimize the performance of your site (it loads less resources). On the programmer's side, this leaves the field open for him to add together new modules over fourth dimension, and thus amend his product.
• To save time, you tin can import starter sites. These are ready-to-employ templates that require the installation of the Starter Templates plugin (erstwhile Astra Starter Sites plugin), listed in the directory. A simple click on the Install Imported Plugin link will activate it for you. So, just cull your page builder (Gutenberg, Brizy, Elementor or Beaver Builder), and information technology'll suggest templates (almost a hundred to create a blog, ecommerce, business or freelancer website). Please annotation that some of these templates can only exist activated if yous have purchased one of the following two Premium Licenses : Essential Parcel or Growth Package. It took me well-nigh 1 minute for the starter site to be installed. Now y'all have a website ready to use without having contributed to information technology! You lot can, of grade, customize it every bit you wish.

Annotation that in that location is a feature to delete all the settings of the demo subsequently, if it no longer suits you. Good to know, even if the option is not 100% constructive. I had to manually remove the remaining logo and a social sharing plugin that was yet lying effectually.

• A link to the documentation (very well fabricated) is besides bachelor if you need a paw.
• Finally, you lot will notice that information technology is possible to "customize" Astra with free plugins, such equally Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg.

All the settings inside the Customizer

You can find all the theme settings inside the Customizer. That'due south pretty cool: the theme is piece of cake to setup and to apply.

Equally you lot can see, there are typical customization options. You can customize the colors, the background, the typography, the widgets or your menus.

But at that place are still some small gems inside these options. 😉 Here are the ones I liked the most:

• The possibility to display your content in total width, adjusting to the nearest pixel.
• You can change the width of your logo.

• A breadcrumb tin be added inside/afterwards the header, or just below the championship of your content.
• The Blog layout can be adjusted quite precisely: you can choose to display the writer's name, comments, publish date, etc. Everything is done by activating and deactivating these options, and by simply dragging and dropping.
  Likewise note that since the release of its 3.iv version, in April 2021, Astra offers a feature to hands add related posts to your blog in gild to retain visitors longer on your pages.

• The buttons customization by choosing their radius or color.
• You lot tin can choose to brandish a sidebar on the right, left or non at all. It is also possible to do this every bit you wish on the pages and posts.

All this is already quite appealing, and the launches of Astra 3.0 versions and higher, starting in January 2021, have fifty-fifty brought several improvements to the Customizer (its loading fourth dimension has been significantly improved, for example).

But one of the biggest changes was surely introduced in the 3.0 version: the addition of a Header & Footer Builder within the Customizer itself, and accessible with the free version of the theme.

I present information technology to you merely below.

A elevate-and-drib header and footer builder

How does it work?

Astra'southward Header & Footer Architect is based on the drag and driblet principle: you lot can freely move the elements of your choice in the areas provided for this purpose, using your mouse.

This is the same principle as with a page builder, for example.

Whether for the Header or the Footer Builder, the customizable area is divided into 3 fields:

• To a higher place header/above footer: number 1 below.
• Header to main footer (heart area): number 2.
• Below header/below footer: number three.

The gear wheels on the left provide access to global settings for each surface area, including design settings (border, background, spacing, margins, etc.).

To change the position of each element, yous no longer need to go to the relevant tab inside the customization tool. But move the elements of your selection wherever you want:

Convenient, intuitive, efficient: personally, I really liked the ease of use.

What can you do with it?

Y'all can then add all sorts of customized elements within your navigation menu and footer :

• With the free version of the theme, you are free to add together call to action buttons, a search bar, HTML code, social network icons, or the widget of your pick. And don't forget the possibility to modify the copyright in the footer. Each element can be hands duplicated and deleted.
• Astra Pro offers even more options. For example, yous will be able to add a shopping cart in your header if you lot utilise WooCommerce, and besides a language Switcher chemical element, to brandish multilingual website navigation.

You will also have responsive options (optimal display on all screens) quite nice:

• Y'all volition be able to choose different displays for your smartphone menu (east.g. horizontal for figurer screens and vertical for smartphones).
• You will exist able to hide/prove the card items of your choice according to the screen size of your visitors.

If you want to know more about this feature, I propose you to watch the Brainstorm Force presentation video:

That's it for the Header & Footer Builder. In a nutshell, what tin can nosotros learn from getting started with Astra? Getting started is very easy.

If y'all decide to utilize it, y'all'll capeesh how easy it is to get started with Astra and the fact that yous're not drowned in the eye of hundreds of options.

But beyond some of the appreciable parameters mentioned in a higher place, you may feel a little restricted in terms of personalization.

To go farther and savor all the power and flexibility of the theme, y'all'll accept to examination the Premium version.

The theme customization: observe the premium add together-ons

The Premium version of the theme, called Astra Pro, is actually a plugin that will add together about twenty features to the bones theme.

You tin can get Astra Pro on the theme home page by clicking on the Pro tab.

The initial offer starts at $59 for unlimited website use and one yr of back up.

Once you lot have purchased the plugin (it volition be in zip format), install it and activate it on your Dashboard, via the Plugins bill of fare.

Is everything OK so far?

Let'due south keep going.

Returning to Appearance > Astra Options, you volition notice that Pro modules are now bachelor.

Before the release of version 3.0, there were eighteen Pro modules. Three of them have "disappeared" (Moving Header, Header Sections, Footer Widgets). In fact, Astra three.0 did not remove them: most of them are embedded in the Header & Footer Builder.

You lot accept to activate them if you want to use them (this is not the instance by default).

This is referred to as a modular structure. This prevents unwanted files and functions from being loaded.

Correct now, I would like to draw your attending to two points:

• Recollect to activate your User License (Astra Pro License carte, at the top right of the page) to activate automatic updates.
• The WooCommerce, Piece of cake Digital Downloads, LearnDash and LifterLMS modules tin simply work if you take previously activated the plugins/services stated in a higher place.

In full, in that location are 15 additional features that you tin activate.

Allow's review the nigh pregnant ones.

Blog Pro

To actuate the module, click on the Activate button. And then go back to Advent > Customize.

Then go to Layout > Web log.

Among the new features that appeared, compared to the gratis version of the theme, I liked:

• The Author Info option, which allows y'all to add together a pocket-sized insert to innovate the author of the mail in a few lines.
• Auto-loading previous posts.
• The possibility to apply the width and height of your choice to your Featured Prototype.
• The Infinite scroll option that triggers the display of your manufactures as the company scrolls through your folio.
• The possibility to customize the brandish width of the weblog content.
• The choice to display your posts up to four columns, with the possibility to add the date clearly visible in a square or a circle.

Spacing

At kickoff glance, I didn't really see the demand for this module. But on closer inspection, information technology is really very useful.

Thanks to this characteristic, y'all will be able to conform the margin and padding of some cardinal elements of your website such equally:

• The header
• The sidebar
• The footer
• The container
• The blog

Then how does all this piece of work? Just actuate the module and get back to the Customizer, for example in the Header Builder, in the Design part of your Master Menu.

If the module can work on the selected element, a Spacing section will appear.

It is so very elementary to modify the spacing between your different elements, depending on the chosen device (computer, tablet or smartphone).

Have a look below:

Last nice pick that volition appeal to the more than experienced: yous can choose spacing values in pixels, EM, or percentage.

For more than data on this field of study, you lot tin check out this resource: Spider web style sheets, CSS tips and tricks.

Scroll to top

Later activation, this module will display a "Scroll to summit" icon to let your visitors to quickly render to the elevation of a page without scrolling, if they want to do so.

This is specially useful for pages with a lot of content. To discover the available options, go to Global > Ringlet to top.

You will come across that you can:

• Brandish the icon on desktop, mobile or desktop + mobile.
• Cull its position (right or left).
• Customize its size and groundwork radius by entering the values of your option.
• Define the icon colors and its background, also on hover, through the Design tab.

White label

The White Label module allows you to rename the theme and the plugins associated with it by giving information technology the proper name of your company/brand.

This tin be useful if you lot are a freelancer or an agency and you create websites for your customers.

You can replace the name of the plugin and theme with the data of your choice and then that your customer does non know that you have used a third-party solution, if they admission the back office.

After that, there will be no trace of the Astra brand on your site.

Beginning enter the desired details on the Settings page. One time you're OK, click Save Changes.

And hither is the result on the themes page (in Appearance > Themes):

And here is the result on the plugins folio (in Plugins > Installed Plugins):

The Nav Menu module allows y'all to create what is chosen a Mega menu.

Mega menus are very often found on large ecommerce sites, because they permit the user to easily show the different categories of products sold on the said site.

If you have just a few topics on your website, no need to create a mega card (often criticized from an SEO point of view).

However, if you call up y'all absolutely need it, the Astra theme will let you to create one, by going to Advent > Menus.

You lot volition now be able to create columns, add custom text to highlight certain links, or add a template to brandish a background paradigm.

Folio headers

As its name suggests, the Page Headers module gives you the choice to create a page header.

An image is often worth 1000 words – and hither is a demonstration:

You volition be able to:

• Add together breadcrumbs and a background image.
• Change the colors.
• Integrate a parallax consequence.
• Merge your custom header with your site header.
• Utilise specific brandish rules to the pages of your option.

Custom Layouts

The Custom Layouts module allows you lot to add the following specific elements:

• Header
• Footer
• 404 Folio
• Hooks
• Custom calls to action that yous tin blueprint on Gutenberg, Elementor or Beaver Architect.

This is a fairly advanced pick, with which you will be able to create custom sections, applying the display rules of your option, if necessary. For example, y'all can specify:

• A get-go and terminate date and time to display one of your custom layouts.
• On which blazon of screen (computer, smartphone, tablet) the custom layout volition be displayed (not exhaustive list).

Only let'south motion on to some examples. The 404 Folio option volition allow you to create a custom 404 page past disabling the Main header, or the footer.

The Header and Footer options let y'all create these custom sections and display them simply on the pages of your selection, thanks to precise display and/or exclusion rules.

Finally, fifty-fifty though it remains technical, you can enjoy the power of hooks on Astra. If you lot are specifically interested in this, I advise yous to employ this feature.

The Hooks option allows y'all to add code snippets on nearly 50 unlike areas.

An example of how to utilise hooks? For example, you tin can utilize the one named wp_head to add together your Google Analytics tracking code.

To see where your hooks are located, yous can have a look at this resource.

If you lot exercise not wish to use the Pro version of Astra, but would even so like to use the hooks option, you tin can use the Astra Hooks plugin, available for gratuitous in the official directory. However, information technology will not let yous to utilise conditional display rules.

WooCommerce

The WooCommerce module helps you lot extend the customization options of the famous ecommerce plugin.

First, remember: you must take activated WooCommerce on your site.

You lot will and so find all the available settings in the WooCommerce sub-menu of the customization tool.

Amidst the pregnant options, we can mention:

• The display of your products in grid or list view, with the option of aligning them on several columns.
• The customization of the checkout page, with the presence of a lark gratis checkout, for example (the header and footer are disabled when the user is most to pay).
• Galleries to display unlike images of your products.
• Color management for titles, notations, texts, buttons, prices etc.
• The possibility to add the Shopping Cart icon wherever you want on your site thanks to a shortcode.

Other types of integration

Every bit for WooCommerce, Astra Pro has 3 modules to extend the customization options of 3 plugins/solutions:

• Piece of cake Digital Downloads A freemium plugin (bachelor in Pro version from $99/year) that allows you to sell digital products.
• LearnDash A premium solution (from $159) with which you lot can create an due east-learning site on WordPress.
• LifterLMS 1 of LearnDash'southward competitors (starting at $120/year).

The other modules

Without going into too much detail, know that other modules tin can assistance y'all:

• Create a sticky menu. This is a menu that remains stuck at the top of the screen, even when the user scrolls through the page. Y'all can as well change the width of this sticky menu.
• Customize the layout of your content with iv options (Full width, Max width, Padded and Fluid), contained in the Site Layouts module.
• Fine tune the colors and background (east. g. you can choose a colour for each hn (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6).
• Choose the font of your choice and adjust its weight, size and line height for each element of your site (body, header, breadcrumbs, buttons, titles, widgets, footer). This is the Typography module.

And that's it for this complete bout of the different modules offered by the Astra theme.

Let'southward motility on to the next pace in our guide: Astra Starter Templates.

Starter Templates

If you remember, I briefly started talking about the subject at the beginning of this article.

I explained that it was possible to import starter sites (the Starter Templates) so that you don't have to offset from a blank page to outset creating your site.

To employ them, I remind yous the two possible options:

• Activate the dedicated plugin present on the official directory.
• To take advantage of fifty-fifty more template options, you can also subscribe to Astra's Essential Package or Growth Bundle offers.

Honestly, don't deprive yourself of them. With them, you lot'll save a lot of time and Astra claims to offering more than than 150 ready-to-use site templates (while continuing to add more equally y'all get along).

By going to Appearance > Starter Templates, you will notice a very wide range of templates, adjusted to dozens and dozens of different niches (Weblog, Ecommerce, Catering, Music, Travel, Way, Health etc.).

To alter them, Astra proposes an integration with Gutenberg and 3 page builders: Elementor, Beaver Builder and Brizy. Elementor and Beaver Builder are the all-time (more than than a hundred compatible templates), compared to Brizy (forty templates).

Among the advantages of these Starter Templates, we tin for example annotation the possibility to import a complete site or the page of your choice, from the template of your choice (you can combine several pages from several templates).

Too, note the fact that templates inherit your settings from the Customization Tool (colors, typography etc.).

Now, since we have just talked almost page builders, let's become to the next step of our test: adapting Astra to page builders and plugins.

What adaptations are in that location for page builders and plugins?

Astra clearly highlights this on its website: the theme is "fabricated for page builders".

First, as noted earlier in this guide, Astra Starter Sites were specifically created to piece of work with Elementor, Beaver Builder and Brizy (non to mention Gutenberg, which is non a folio builder per say).

Elementor and Beaver Builder are the two "favorite" builders of the theme. Elementor CMO Ben Pines, recommends Astra to all Elementor users.

For the purpose of this article, I was able to exam the theme with the ii builders mentioned to a higher place – and there'due south zilch to complain about.

The theme lets yous completely control the structure of your page, which makes information technology very convenient to use with a folio builder. For example, you tin can:

• Choose to brandish your content full width (this is not possible with all themes, and it is essential).
• Disable your sidebar.
• Disable elements that yous practice not use (eastward.g. footer, header, navigation menu).
• Disable your page title.

Only what happens if you take another favorite architect other than Elementor or Beaver Builder?

Volition it integrate properly into Astra? According to the creators of the theme, Astra should be compatible with all folio builders, including Divi, Thrive Architect and WPBakery Page Builder (quondam Visual Composer).

I could not check individually, just if you have encountered whatever concerns or incompatibility issues, delight let united states of america know in the comments.

Astra theme and plugins

Now that we've discussed page builders, let's move on to the plugins. One of the webmaster's "fears" is the compatibility of the theme they activated with the plugins they will utilise.

Considering if y'all accept a trouble, your site may crash. And that's not fun for anyone.

If this happens to you ane 24-hour interval, don't panic. Before calling the Emergency Department, go to our guide to fix major WordPress errors.

Nobody is immune from error, even when applying best practices. All the same, no major plugin incompatibility has to be noted regarding the Astra theme.

The theme is developed on a clean basis and respects WordPress standards, it helps to avoid issues.

Regarding plugins, Astra too has its ain specificity. To add new features to the theme, it recommends 9 free plugins, all created past the parent company, Brainstorm Forcefulness.

Y'all will find them in Appearance > Astra Options.

The thought is the same every bit for the Modules: you enable/disable them as y'all want.

Suggesting extra plugins to activate adds a little misunderstanding: why non create boosted modules for the plugins dedicated to Astra?

But information technology withal keeps the theme every bit low-cal equally possible, which is a adept point.

To me, Lightweight Sidebar Manager is quite useful: information technology allows you to display different sidebars on different pages of your site.

And if you apply Gutenberg, you'll appreciate Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg, a cake library for the WP content editor.

Speaking of Gutenberg, permit's move on to the next part.

Astra theme and Gutenberg

Too many themes on famous sales platforms such as ThemeForest pretend they are compatible with Gutenberg, the content editor that appeared with version five.0 of WordPress, at the end of 2018.

Merely when you dig a niggling deeper, you realize that they are nevertheless a long way off, fifty-fifty more two years later on…

Yet, Astra is compatible with Gutenberg, and integrates perfectly with it.

An example? The famous Starter Sites, which I've mentioned several times throughout this post.

More than 70 ready-to-employ site templates are available and piece of work very well with Gutenberg.

In fact, Begin Strength is going all out for it. Between October 2020 and June 2021, they added more 50 boosted templates uniform with Gutenberg!

Among the interesting features of Astra with Gutenberg, I could mention:

• The possibility to suit the width of your content from Gutenberg.
• The application of the theme'south colour and background settings transcribed on Gutenberg when editing a page or post.
• The application of your settings initiated from the Customizer within Gutenberg.
• The possibility to create custom layouts, as with a page builder, as long equally you actuate the Custom Layouts module.

How is the user experience for a site using Astra?

Influence on site performance

On the Astra Options folio, on your Dashboard, you lot may take seen this message, summit right: "Stylish, Lightning Fast & Easily Customizable".

Allow's have a wait at the performance of this supposedly ultra-fast theme.

And then, according to you: deserved reputation, or total bluster?

To answer this, let'southward kickoff by recontextualizing.

Having a fast theme is very important, and not just to brag at dinners with your developers or SEO managers.

Did you know that to rank a page in its search engine, Google uses more than 200 criteria?

Amidst them is the speed of your page (even if this criterion is far from beingness the nearly important to position a folio in the search engine results).

But it is still important that a folio loads quickly (Google recommends a folio load time of less than iii seconds on smartphones), in particular to take care of the user feel of your visitors.

If you choose Astra, you lot should exercise quite well. It is said to be "the most lightweight theme bachelor in the market place and offers unmatched performance".

More technically, know that Astra does not apply jQuery (a JavaScript library), and prefers Vanilla JavaScript, a JavaScript framework known for its speed.

In addition, Astra claims:

• To load "in less than 0.5 seconds with default WordPress information" .
• To require less than 50KB of resources to load, " whereas most of the other WordPress themes crave at to the lowest degree 300 KB " .

In guild to verify the accuracy of these statements, I ran a serial of tests.

Here's how I did this:

• Testing services used:
  • WebPageTest (using Paris as location each time) using the "fully loaded" criterion (when the site is fully loaded, including external scripts and applications);
  • Pingdom Tools (each time using London every bit a location).
• Test site hosted on a shared Bluehost server.
• I didn't activate any plugins and Astra Pro was not installed.
• I compared Astra to another pop free theme (Sydney, 200,000 agile installations) from the official WordPress directory.

Exam on WebPageTest with Astra enabled: page load time of 1,040s (fully loaded):

Test on WebPageTest with Sydney enabled: page load time of 2,237s (fully loaded) :

Exam on Pingdom Tools with Astra enabled: 492ms page load time

Exam on Pingdom Tools with Sydney enabled: page load time of 2.03s

In determination, we tin can ostend that Astra is indeed a "lightning fast" theme. It loads in around a second (492ms on Pingdom, 1,040s on WebPageTest) and remains much more efficient than its competitor Sydney (2 to 4 times more efficient).

It is rather close to GeneratePress.

In addition, the Astra theme sends fewer requests, and the size of the folio remains very light with it (33.9 KB compared to … 473.v KB for Sydney). I would like to point out that the content was exactly the same for both themes.

On the other manus, the results we accept observed are a little less "good" than those announced on the theme website:

The above results provide a first glimpse, but cannot be considered every bit a final and conclusive judgment. You may accept unlike data at home, depending on your hosting, or the plugins you use.

Overall, Brainstorm Force is committed to making website cosmos faster, better and smoother. A strong commitment that can be seen in action on the latest theme versions:

• three.iii version of the theme (April 2021) features lighter HTML and CSS code (file size has been reduced).
• 3.5 version of the theme (June 2021) introduces powerful CSS optimizations for faster frontend loading. For example, conditional loading of CSS means that Astra volition only load CSS if a particular fashion or element is applied or used on your website.
• 3.6 version of Astra allows, if yous wish, to locally store your site's Google Fonts on your server (instead of making requests to Google'south servers to load them). This improves the loading time of your WP website.

You can load Google Fonts locally.

Bear upon on SEO

To begin with, Astra uses valid HTML code, which will make it easy for search engines to come up and scan your site to index information technology.

Astra also uses structured Schema.org information on each folio of your site.

This is an HTML tagging method that helps Google understand what blazon of content you have.

On this discipline, you tin fifty-fifty go further past using their Schema Pro plugin.

About this, beware. Frederic, ane of our readers, pointed out in a annotate that duplicates in the marking of data had been created when he used Astra Pro + Schema Pro in combination. If you lot are in this configuration and notice the slightest problem, practise not hesitate to contact the theme's support to written report the trouble to them.

Finally, some other interesting option from an SEO point of view: the breadcrumb. Astra offers y'all the possibility to add a breadcrumb inside/after the header, or simply after the championship of your content.

Every bit a reminder, a breadcrumb helps your visitors empathise where they are, and navigate more than easily on your site. They can likewise have a beneficial impact on your SEO.

Responsive

Having a responsive site (that fits computers, tablets and smartphones) is essential for several reasons, such as:

• The user experience of your visitors . There is a 61% college chance that they will exit your site and go expect elsewhere if they do not find what they are looking for on your pages.
• Your SEO. Since March 2018, Google has implemented what is called mobile-first indexing. This means that Google mainly uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking your pages in the results of its search engine.
• Over half of all Google search visits (61%) have place on a mobile device.

Then, is our dear Astra theme responsive?

If you're having fun reducing your browser window on one of their demos (Starter Sites), everything seems to work like clockwork.

But to exist sure, nosotros used an even more reliable test: Google's mobile friendly test.

And the result was convincing.

No obstacles in sight. So we can move on to the adjacent step in our test: Astra pricing.

What is the value for money?

First of all, as y'all now know, you tin use the theme'southward free version past installing it directly from your Dashboard.

If you wish to use – in particular – the Premium modules presented in a higher place, yous will need to buy ane of the 3 Pro versions:

• Astra Pro: this is the version used in this article, sold for $47/yr.
• Essential Package ($169/year).
• Growth Parcel ($249/year).

Astra often offers discounts on its 3 Plans, as you lot tin can meet on this screenshot.

The entry-level package (Astra Pro) should exist enough for you, particularly if yous don't demand additional ready-to-employ site templates and are not interested in the other products offered by Brainstorm Force (Ultimate addons for Beaver Builder and Elementor, as well every bit their other in-house plugins).

Coupled with the page builder of your pick, Astra Pro will requite you splendid results.

If yous tin, and if Brainstorm Force products attract you, go for Essential Bundle or Growth Bundle.

Annotation that each plan allows the use of the theme on an unlimited number of sites and includes one year of support (with a 20% discount on each plan at the annual renewal).

Regarding this last bespeak, I have dealt with them several times past asking them questions about the Ultimate addons for Beaver Architect plugin, which I use. I got an answer in less than 24 hours and my problems were fixed.

Finally, if you are confident and want to make Astra theme your number one work tool, don't hesitate: get for a Lifetime License.

Astra Pro volition so be offered at $249, Essential Bundle at $499 and Growth Bundle at $699.

And compared to competing solutions on the market, is Astra in the standard toll range?

• Themeforest: Most of the themes sold on the platform cost, on average, around $59. They are non always usable on an unlimited number of sites and include half dozen months of support ;
• OceanWP: this ultra-pop theme costs $129 for the premium version, for unlimited website usage ;
• GeneratePress: information technology will price you lot $59 for for utilize on up to 500 sites.

Our final opinion

Astra's strengths

• An easy to use theme, as promised. We appreciate the presence of the settings in the same identify, directly on the Customizer.
• A powerful theme. Yes, Astra is actually lightning fast and the modular approach (you only enable/disable the options you lot need) is a existent plus.
• The presence of more than than 150 ready-to-use site designs to activate in one click (the famous Starter Sites). In brusk: Astra contains more than 150 themes in i!
• The Header & Footer Architect to create your headers and footers by drag and drop.
• Very efficient and responsive support. There is also a Facebook group dedicated to the theme, with nearly xxx,000 members to assist you.
• The documentation is clear and well designed.
• A perfect integration with WooCommerce.
• The presence of an option to purchase the theme via a Lifetime License, allowing yous to make "savings" in the long term.
• A theme that is regularly updated and properly maintained. Brainstorm Force has been in business organization for 10 years and remains a solid visitor with continuous growth. A cool guarantee for the user.
• An SEO-optimized theme.
• A clean code that respects WordPress standards.
• The theme also focuses on accessibility past following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) ii.0.

Astra's areas of improvement

• Starter Sites are very useful to install a site from A to Z in a few clicks. However, they only work with some folio builders (Elementor, Beaver Builder and Brizy). If you are used to using another architect, it will take some time to adapt to a new page builder.
• The feature to delete all the settings of a Starter Site (to reset in some way) is not 100% effective. I had to manually remove the remaining logo and a social sharing plugin that were withal around. This feature can be improved.
• Fifty-fifty if the distinction between complimentary plugins and modules on the Board is well dissever in ii, one gets a chip lost at get-go when discovering the theme. Do I need to activate a module? Or rather a plugin?

Who is Astra for?

• Novice site creators will appreciate its ease of employ. All settings can exist found inside the Customizer, and for those who don't know how to code at all or are in a hurry, it must be said that Starter Sites are a cakewalk! For this kind of user, i of the Premium versions seems more than appropriate to me (Astra Pro, for example), particularly because y'all volition benefit from many more than customization options and support from the theme creators.
• More experienced users will appreciate the presence of many hooks, as well as the presence of lawmaking snippets to alter some settings. Another useful option, if you are a freelance website designer or an agency: the presence of the White Characterization module, in the Premium version, to adapt your branding to the theme. If you have a basic code cognition and/or are used to working with a page builder, the free version will probably be sufficient. In particular, you can utilise information technology every bit a starter theme on which to build your site.

Determination

In the finish, I find Astra a very pleasant theme to apply. It's true that information technology is:

• Easily customizable
• Stylish
• Lightning fast

Nevertheless, in the same category, and fifty-fifty if it remains very subjective, I prefer GeneratePress, which I found even more accessible and elementary to use, although with fewer options.

But in the end, the two themes are really very like in terms of quality.

To get Astra, become to the official website via the button below:

From now on, it's up to you. I would very much similar to hear your stance.

What do you think of Astra? Are yous an experienced user or practise you plan to exam information technology after reading our postal service?

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WPMarmite Team

WPMarmite helps beginners get the best out of WordPress with in-depth tutorials and honest reviews. Run into the founder, Alex, and his squad right hither.

How To Place Cover Photo Astra Template,

Source: https://wpmarmite.com/en/astra-theme/

Posted by: jacksonthly1979.blogspot.com

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