Note: if you run into issues or have questions that aren't answered here (or in the linked tutorials) then use the support ticket page in the Feast Plugin.
Installing the Feast Plugin doesn't do anything on its own - everything is designed to be manually enabled piece-by-piece so that you're aware of what's been implemented, and why it was implemented.
The Feast Plugin gets implemented in two stages, in easy-to-manage steps:
- fixing the site involves enabling settings to remove outdated, worthless options WordPress has in place
- rebuilding the site involves replacing the site layout with their modern equivalent, without having to reinstall the theme
We've named theme-replacements "Modern X" to indicate that this the Modern setup. These do require some work to get configured properly for your site.
Once complete, you shouldn't have to worry about these during any future theme update - they're not affected by theme updates, or theme changes, and we release small bug fixes automatically as needed via plugin updates.
Jump to:
Theme
While most of the Feast Plugin will work on any theme/framework, we recommend installing Genesis and one of our child themes (both included for free with the Feast Plugin) for the best possible integration.
Simply install Genesis and the child theme, then skip importing demo content or any other steps and come back here.
Install the plugin
Grab your Feast Plugin zip file here, then upload it to the "plugin" section of your WordPress admin.
The Feast Plugin almost entirely does away with the widgets section (except one part of the Modern Mobile Menu) so you can forget everything you know about widgets.
Fix the site
The default WordPress setup comes with some very outdated settings, and is missing some basic integrations. Enabling the following will:
- improve pagespeed by removing unnecessary DOM nodes
- improve SEO by removing unnecessary internal links
- improve accessibility by eliminating unnecessary, confusing and cumbersome links
- improve accessibility by making your content more legible
We recommend everyone enable these settings:
- Remove comment author link
- Remove website field from comments form
- Remove comment date link
- Add Yoast breadcrumbs
- Enable previous+next on posts
- Remove entry-meta from posts
- Edit the body font size (18px)
- Enable: Process Shortcodes on "Custom HTML" widgets
- Enable: Remove WordPress "Smart Quotes"
- Enable: System Fonts
- Enable: Intelligent post edits
Note: as time goes on, more things are added to the "Recommended" section of the Feast Plugin. Just enabled everything under this section.
Image optimization
Enable the Modern Thumbnails by following the tutorial, remove the theme thumbnails, and run the regenerate thumbnails plugin on the images. This will be used for the Modern Homepage below.
You'll then need to update your "featured posts" widgets and archive grid settings, and set the thumbnail to one of the options from the Feast Plugin.
The most common thumbnail will be the feast-portrait-3x4-360x480. We recommend everyone use this unless you have a compelling reason not to.
Review the image optimization page for up-to-date best practices.
Mobile optimization
Homepage
Set up the Modern Homepage, which:
- improves SEO with proper heading structure
- improves SEO with unique on-page content
- improves SEO with proper site structure support author E-A-T
- fixes key accessibility issues with all themes "Featured Posts" widgets
- provides additional styling options
This takes the homepage to a whole new level and requires some work on your part, deciding which post and categories to feature on the homepage, as well as writing unique content for each section.
Additional reading:
Footer
Set up the Modern Footer, which replaces the theme's outdated widget-based footer with one built using the block editor.
- improves user experience, thanks to updated content guidelines
- simpler to customize, using the block editor
- improves SEO by moving administrative links away from the header and sidebar
- improves accessibility with better heading structure
Sidebar
Set up the Modern Sidebar, which replaces the theme's outdated widget-based sidebar with one built using the block editor.
- customize the sidebar more easily with the block editor
- improves SEO by linking to 4 trending recipes, and 4 seasonal recipes
- improves SEO by replacing "featured post" widgets
- improves accessibility by replacing "featured post" widgets
- improves user experience with better guidelines for sidebar content
Mobile + Desktop Menu
The Modern Mobile Menu replaces the theme's javascript-based menu with a sleeker, more user-centric menu that's better for pagespeed.
- improves user experience by increasing above-the-fold content
- improves user experience with a subscribe button
- improves SEO by supporting good site structure
- improves pagespeed by removing CLS issues
- improves pagespeed by removing slow-loading javascript
After setting up the mobile menu, please set up the Modern menu for desktop.
Category optimization
You can now assign images to categories for use in the Simple Category Index block, which gets used on the homepage and recipe index. We recommend starting with at least 4 so that you can embed it into the Modern Homepage.
Sign up for the newsletter
The newsletter is where we send all updates about changes we've made, and new things we've released to help your site.
Some updates are tweaks to existing features, and are automatically implemented.
Some updates are changes and new release, which require manually implementation. We try to make anything that would affect your site manual (usually a checkbox) so that:
- we don't accidentally break your site
- you're aware of what's changed on your site
It's important to register for this and keep an eye on the emails.
White glove services
If you'd rather have us handle the Homepage, Footer, Sidebar and Menu conversion, we have white glove services available to convert these for you:
Post optimization
Most of the post optimizations fall under the "Recommended" section. These are designed to optimize your content (with the automatic fraction conversions), reduce DOM nodes (with the comment tweaks) and support better site structure with breadcrumbs.
The only setting remaining on posts is to:
The Advanced Jump To links is manually inserted into posts that you've updated to follow the Modern Guidelines for Headings.
This is not part of the setup process - it's something you'll do over time as you're naturally updating content.
Cleanup
We recommend removing all widgets from the "inactive widgets" section after implement the Modern Homepage, Modern Sidebar, Modern Footer and Modern Recipe Index.
This will prevent potential future issues with widgets re-inserting themselves where they don't belong.
Plugin audit
The #1 cause of slow sites and coding conflicts is outdated or incompatible plugins.
Review the plugin audit and remove or replace anything incompatible.
Site speed
The 3 biggest factors for site speed are:
- hosting (we recommend BigScoots)
- the Feast plugin setup
- WP Rocket with proper settings applied
No amount of tweaking can fix a bad host, bad theme or bad pagespeed plugin.
CDNs
CDNs are not recommend or supported until you're earning over $1000/month in ad revenue and can afford to hire nerdpress. There's just too much complexity involved and it's simply not necessary.
BETA
Ignore anything in the BETA section. These are live features that are still in development (buggy!) and may change before final release.
Sign up for the newsletter to be notified when features are released.
Modern setups
The Feast Plugin entirely replaces the outdated functionality that the themes provided, including the homepage, sidebar, footer, recipe index and menu.
This means that the only thing that the theme contributes is the CSS - no functionality.
Leave a Reply