Recommended setup

1. Install the GeneratePerf child theme

Download the GeneratePerf Child Theme from the Downloads tab of your account, then in WordPress go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme and activate it (GeneratePress must be installed).

It is where your customisations live: your styles in style.css, your PHP in inc/functions-custom.php (every GeneratePerf hook is listed there with an example, see Hooks), your SVG icons in images/icons/, your HTML shortcodes in shortcodes/ and the files of CSS overrides in css/. Once installed, the child theme is yours: GeneratePerf updates never overwrite it. Site Health checks that a child theme is active.

2. Define the site colors

GeneratePerf’s components use seven GeneratePress global colors, by slug: primary, secondary, lightest, light, medium, dark and darkest. Their names are free.

When you activate the GeneratePerf child theme, the colors missing from your palette are added automatically, and the existing ones are never changed. A missing color takes the value of its GeneratePress equivalent when there is one (accent for primary, contrast for darkest, contrast-2 for dark, contrast-3 for medium, base for light, base-3 for lightest); otherwise its default value:

Adjust them in Appearance → Customize → Colors. If a color goes missing later, Site Health reports it and its Add the missing colors button restores it the same way.

3. Let the configurator set up your other plugins

If you use WP Rocket, Perfmatters, Imagify, Cache Enabler or ShortPixel, open 1 Clic Configurator and apply the recommended configuration: it sets their options for a GeneratePress site in one click.

4. Turn on the performance options for your content

In Web performance, enable for your posts and pages:

• Prioritize featured images (fetchpriority="high") and Early-load featured images (no lazy-loading);
• Early-load first content images on content without a featured image;
• Preload featured images where the featured image is the largest element of the page.

5. Choose self-hosted fonts

Pick your fonts in Appearance → Customize → Typography: GeneratePerf’s fonts are served from your own site, with fallbacks that avoid layout shifts. See Fonts.

6. Check Site Health

Open Settings → GeneratePerf → Site Health and fix what it reports: search engine visibility, plugin version, colors, child theme, editor and the size of autoloaded options.