Welcome to Day 73 of our Divi 100 Marathon. Keep tuning in for 100 days in a row of awesome Divi resources as we count down to the amazing release of Divi 3.0 on the final day of the series!
There are 27 days left before the launch of Divi 3.0, and as the clock ticks towards that final day of the Divi 100 Marathon, our team is putting the last few touches on the new front end builder and getting ready for beta testing. Considering the size and scope of this monumental update, we are excited to get more people involved in the beta program and to begin testing as soon as possible. That is why we have decided to extend an additional 500 invitations to the Divi beta group. If you are already part of the Divi beta group and have participated in beta testing in the past, there is no need for you to apply again. Everyone who has participated in previous beta tests will receive an invite automatically. For everyone else, now is your chance to get early access and to help us make Divi 3.0 even better! Beta invites will be sent out within the next week, hopefully as early as next Tuesday, so keep an eye on your inbox!
Apply To Become A Beta Tester
To apply to become a beta tester, please fill out the following form and submit your application. You must have an active Elegant Themes membership to participate. We will be accepting new members on a first come first serve basis, so don’t feel bad if you aren’t accepted this round. Depending on the level of participation we receive during the first week of testing, we may send out additional invites in the weeks to follow.
I am so excited to finally put Divi 3.0 into the hands of our customers and to see what you think of the new visual building experience. I can honestly say that this is the best piece of software our team has ever created, and with a little help from the community I know we can make it even better 🙂
Divi 100 Day 73
The Countdown To Divi 3.0
This post is part of our Divi 100 marathon. Follow along as we post free Divi resources for 100 days in a row! This 100-day countdown will end with the game-changing release of Divi 3.0, including our brand new visual editor built from the ground up using React. Divi 3.0 will change the way you build websites with the Divi Builder forever!
Let the countdown begin.
i am genesis theme user, but i wanna try another new theme which is good in SEO. is it support for SEO purpose? i hope it include and integrating with AMP support 😀
Installed mine on a dedicated sub-domain. So far so good!
Where to download Divi 3 Beta? I am selected, I think and have signed up the terms. After 24 hours, no such thing for Updae on the plugin side. Can you confirm if someone get it done? If yes, how?
Sorry for the academic style of question which is my natural job here 🙂
emails went out today.
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/divi-resources/community-update-divi-3-0-beta-powered-by-divi-t-shirts-upcoming-wordcamps-divi-nation-short?
🙁
Someone received the email?
Nothing here on this side of the UK pond.
Hi.
What’s new about the selection process ?
When do you inform us by email ?
Thanks
Ludovic
When are they selecting the beta testers? Can’t wait to start testing it.
Last I heard, the [new] goal is today. Still working on finalizing beta.
But wow, after that teaser trailer today, I’m even more excited!
Hi,
When do we find out if we are accepted into the beta program?
{pins & needles}
Looks like it won’t be today… hopefully tomorrow!
Who will win the beta gold ?
Thanks for the heads up! Here’s hoping we get to participate ☺
Someone recived an email to beta test?
Assuming you and me are still in the running to be receiving a beta invite…
If ET is like any of the companies I’ve beta tested for in the past, they won’t release the beta build until they are happy it is stable enough to distribute to their test group.
There is nothing worse than installing a piece of alpha or beta software only to find it corrupts your OS more likely, in this case, your SQL DB. 🙂
Best – Mark
When do we find out if we are in the beta program?
I’m curious to know as well. I put my design site on hold, hoping to get an invite this week to test out the beta release
How do we find out if we have been chosen for divi 3.0 beta?
How do i know if iam accepted to the Beta?
I can confirm that Divi has enabled me to learn and master WordPress for small and personal level site development over the past three months of my use. Since then, I never tried other options like I did over the past 4 years. Thank your EG for giving me the Divi of my love now :). Definitely, the Beta is the wish I can think about now.
Thank you so much for the 3.0 beta, very much excited to test this version.
Happy to beta test 3.0
Unlike most, I don’t have Divi experience, although I have lots of experience with other good WordPress themes.
You might want a Beta tester of that type.
Where do i sign up?
This is my first day and first visit at your blog and I find it very interesting as I m already on the web business but wasn’t aware of Divi but now I do !! I will stay up to date for the remaining days od divi updates, thank you
Very cool! Done! I whant test this new version!
Hope to get selected want to test the WCAG compliance and backwards compatible for updates I’ll have to do.
Form sent. I don’t believe you will choose me but please surprise me 🙂
Here comes the moment of power..can’t wait to fly with 3.0 give a better assurance to my clients about editing their sites…
Thanks for choosing me in advance for his beta test.
Fingers crossed! I look forward to finding bugs to be squashed.
Fantastic! wow! is a great honor!
gratulations!!!
So after Divi 3.0 someone tell Nick to spend some money and send the team to Europe, it would be a nice thing wouldn’t it, considering we are as excited as anyone over the water about Elegant Themes and DIvi.
Bummer, I wish I had the time for beta testing. Unfortunately not so in the next 3 weeks :'(
Yes, I want to be a beta tester as well representing the beginner to intermediate users. We want user friendly functionality and and awesome features that make us feel like we don’t have to pros use Divi to build awesome websites.
All of us are web designers using DIVI to create websites for our customers.
I’m afraid since DIVI 3.0 customers will not need us anymore.
They will want to play with their webs so it’s time to start thinking better jobs.
We can start building a big DIVI hospital where all of us working as docs.
Please please, improve the DIVI roles editing setting to avoid a very big disaster… 🙁
And of course, don’t be so good and don’t make DIVI 3.0 so brilliant!
Agree, I would like them not to see it at all.
Divi has quite a substantial Role Editor. Is there something in there that you think is missing? Let us know!
Of course Nick!
Divi Role Editor by users! not by role…
Sometimes i assign an Editor role to my clients very similar to an Adminitrator role, but i always hide for them some plugins and of course some Divi editting capabilities!
Please consider it!
Cheers!
I have 4 websites using Divi. I also run a non-Divi website built for a senior citizen community. They do the updates to the website, but they aren’t extremely computer-savvy, so it’s tough for me to teach them. I’m thinking Divi 3.0 is going to be a good fit for them.
Form submitted! I’m a geek Divi 😀
Awesome! I can’t wait to test out Beta. My anxiety is through the roof!!!! 😛
My fingers and everything else are crossed 😉
Awaiting the birth of a remarkable evolution that will change my life.. Thank you!
Am i the only one whose going to use the beta on a real site. #CantWait
Probably not.
I also doubt you’ll be the only one that ends up in the Divi forums freaking out because Divi 3.0beta destroyed your site. 🙂
lol. will definitely make a full backup before doing so. but i just CAN’T WAIT
Thomas, I will use the beta on a real site as well. 😉 #fingerscrossed
This is awesome!
Can`t wait to “take it out for a spin” 🙂
Really looking forward to Divi 3. I’ve enjoyed building with Divi since it’s release and look forward to doing plenty more with all of the improvements you guys are making. I’ve even gotten use out of some of the resources released over the course of Divi 100 on my rebuilt company site.
I’ve always found ET themes well put together without the confusing fluff that’s found in many other so-called premium themes. As long as the dedication to quality continues, I’m sure to be at ET customer and advocate for life.
I Have submitted the form . Please accept my request . I’m so excited… Very Very Thanks. Can’ wait…
So you aren’t accepting beta testing from non-members? I thought you said you will be?
I’m surprised that you’re surprised.
Why wouldn’t members get an exclusive?
You’re missing the point as usual!
Gorgeous!!!
Hope i´m in. It´s so amazing.
The application has been sent..
Hope my application will be accepted because I want to be the part of Divi development. 🙂
Will Divi 3.0 allow us to fully customise our category pages at long last? It’d be great to see the builder extended into this part of WordPress.
Yes, Yes, Yes !!!
Steve Jobs frequently used the word “sex-appeal” when he was talking about new products!
DIVI 3.0 definitely has it!
Congrats keep up the amazing work!
Awesome! Looking forward for beta testing 🙂
YES! Survey sent!
Super Nice!
What form?
(Smartphone)
Applied, hoping I see the confirmation email!
Would love to be able to test with my client sites and plugins to help ensure a smooth transition. Love your work team, looking forward to seeing Divi 3!
Hmm – form has now appeared. Survey Monkey iframe issues.
Hope I get on the Beta, looking amazing so far… viva la Divilution! Does that work? good enough for me 😉
This sounds great! Hopefully 🙂
Nice! Hope I’m accepted!
Yay! An opportunity to test compatibility! Fingers crossed.
Applied and ready to go testing 🙂
Just signed up for Beta. Finger crossed. Hope I get chosen for the program. I love Divi and using it on all of my new sites.
I hope I make the cut, can’t wait to try this out on my filled test site.
Done 🙂
If I want to test a buggy theme/pagebuilder/kitchen sink that will most likely break my site and cause hours and hours of frustration I’ll just wait for Divi 3.0 to be released.
Wait……what……? 🙂
3 cheers for Divi 3.02. I can hardly wait.
That’s the spirit Ron, and when you find something not quite to your expectation on v3.02 you’ll be the 1st to scream and point fingers.
You have a great opportunity to help by Testing DIVI Beta and if you think Testing on a Live Site is…… Oh why do I bother?
I’m not interested in “helping” with a product that I PAY for. ET can do their own beta testing as far as I’m concerned.
And if there’s a critical issue with 3.02 you’re damned straight I’ll be screaming.
Someone’s got anger issues. Are you always this way.
looking forward to using the beta
Survey completed and sent. I’m keeping everything crossed that I am accepted into the Divi 3 beta group.
Count Me In.
Gorgeous!!!
Thanks for the great work done.
RSVP sent to be a beat (see your text) tester 🙂
LOL. I was beginning to think I was the only person left who could spot a typo.
form submitted, I hope I get chosen to test out beta.
Just filled in, hopefully I’ll get in now 🙂 Thanks for making 3.0 in advance 🙂
Survey sent. Divi 3 is exactly what I have been waiting for regards enticing clients who find editing and updating their own sites daunting.
I’m looking forward to seeing 3.0. It looks like a serious game-changer.
My invite has been sent.
So excited to see Divi 3.0 with my own eyes. I’m excited about the flexibility it will provide my users who aren’t always comfortable on the back end.
I have applied for the same…. look forward to it !
Form submitted 🙂
Now the waiting begins! That’s torture lol
Yeah., The longer the time we have to test the better the end product will be.
Nick,
We definitely love your products. You have a god-gifted knack of producing beautiful looking themes.
However, over and above aesthetics, I wish you push your team little more to focus on themes optimized for SEO and speed. Last theme I used (Magnificent) didn’t have proper microformats (hentry date, author) which messed up our snippets in Google.
Current Divi theme has comment title as h1 which didn’t make any sense as normally we keep h1 for post heading. Moreover Divi pages (posts are fine) are missing microformats as well.
Most of the times, most of us, when we purchase premium themes, we take for granted that these factors must be already accounted for. It’s only when we start seeing issues in Google Search console or an audit that we realize the issue.
These are minor things, which won’t take much time at your end but definitely help with optimization.
All the best for launch!
This isn’t an issue which resides soley with Nick and the Elegant Themes team.
I do understand peoples concerns, but WordPress Themes in 2016 are far and away easier to edit than they were 10 years ago.
It’s great that Divi is making life easier for the less techy. But if you are serious about your website being SEO Optimised. You will need to accept no theme is a ‘one size fits all’ and learn to edit the theme files yourself.
It may seem daunting when you start off. But if spend a bit of time in notepad++ looking at the theme files starting with index.php and single.php. You’ll soon see references to other files/folders and slowly find the right ones that make up your pages and and so on…
I also agree, a lot of the customer base (from what i’ve heard on social media, forums etc), have also stated this. I think after 3.0 they should totally focus on Optimization and SEO Optimization.
These are definitely important features to address. I have finally decided to dive into and start using Divi, so proper SEO structure is a must. Thanks for listening.
Couldn’t agree more Ankur. Actually, there are a number of areas where Divi, and other ET Themes suffer in the SEO department, microformats being one of the bigger issues I have had (although I do love Divi).
There was a survey released here a number of weeks back, asking the community to weigh-in on what they thought was more important, speed and optimization, or more customization options.
Though the results were almost tied, there was a slight lean in favor of customization > optimization, which I found quite telling of the kind of user the average Divi patron happens to be.
I really hope Nick Roach and his team can see that there are enough serious developers/designers (as opposed to people who don’t understand the importance of SEO yet) on here to warrant a bigger investment in optimization and SEO strategies.
What’s distressing is the lack of acknowledgement from Elegant Themes on this important tag and microformat issue.
Divi does support microformats and has relevant hentry classes on posts and pages. Pages simply do not display meta information such as Publish Date, Author, and other meta info is often irrelevant to pages, such as Category, Tags, etc. If you are building page with the Divi Builder, you can add the entry-title class to an H1 of your choosing if you want to add that piece of structured data to the page, but I don’t think this will affect your SEO as google is pretty good at knowing the title of your page via your meta title 🙂 Or have I misunderstood your concern?
When it comes to the use of H1-H6 on the page, there are a lot of opinions out there, but even Matt Cutts himself has stated that multiple H1’s are not bad and that headers should be used for semantic/visual hierarchy. Rand from Moz.com found that keywords in H1’s specifically did not produce any notable results. It’s ranked in Search Engine Land’s “36 SEO Myths That Won’t Die But Need To.” It’s not bad to use lots of headers, in fact it’s a great way to structure the page. That’s what they are made for.
In the end, however, what matters most is the user experience of your page and the quality of content on your page. The more people that like your page, the more people will share your page and the more authority your page will gain in the eyes of Google. This is the way of modern SEO.
Divi uses headers as best as possible to create visual hierarchy on the page so that people will have an enjoyable reading experience. For example:
Post Title = H1
Big Slider Title or CTA Title = H2
Small Blurb Header = H4
Smaller Accordion Title = H5
and so on. Again, this is the purpose of H1-H6. Replacing these with spans and using CSS to create the feeling of a header just to reduce the amount of headers on the page to satisfy SEO speculation is counterintuitive. Google is really good and reading your page and you don’t need to try and tick it! If here are specific improvements to that hierarchy that you think we could make, let us know and we can add it to our list of things to do! 🙂
Interesting discussion Nick. At some stage after the launch could you get Nathan B W to do a Divi Nation video tutorial on setting up a post template in your library for SEO optimisation. I’m self taught non tech blogger who loves Divi. Using Yoast plugin. I’d love to do the best I can with SEO and make writing posts as quick as possible.
Congratulations, this has been very impressive launch.
A Vote up for you Jennifer, I would love to watch it as well.
Nick, it surprises me that you say “Divi support microformats and relevant hentry classes on posts and pages”. A while back I had a support ticket about hentry errors in Google Search Console (GSC) and support claimed it is caused by WordPress because Divi does not do anything with hentry classes. Now you say Divi does support them…
My ticket was about Google Search Console reporting hentry errors because the author, entry-title + updated fields are missing. All errors came from page content and from the each tile of the portfolio module (grid) on the page.
My concern are the errors in GSC. I don’t know if that causes SEO problems, but in general I think it’s just not a good sign if Google reports any errors.
As far as I am concerned, if Divi adds a hentry class, it needs to be done correctly with all required elements. If – for whatever reason – that’s not possible, then don’t add them at all.
Hi Jogn-Pierre,
Basically Divi provides structured data for content that exists on the page, but does’t allow you to create additional structured data for content that does not exist. There are lots of other plugins out there that you can use to help you with that.
So blog posts will have a title, authors, date, etc since this all exists in the meta data at the top of the page, created by Divi.
Adding additional structure data would require a new interface and doesn’t really feel like something that should be part of Divi to me. We could add a new meta box to all posts/pages with a bunch of fields that you can use to input new data, but plugins already exist for free in the wp.org repo that do that. Then we get in a situation where we need to take into account that people are already using these plugins, and begin to offer compatibility options for each. This is already an issue with our various SEO options in ePanel, which are duplicated in all the most popular free SEO plugins. If we could go back in time, it might have been better to never offer these options, much like we are choosing new to offer additional structured data options.
There may be a happy medium here, and we will definitely look into it more. One thing we could do is automatically add entry-titles via javascript for pages that don’t have physical titles on the page, which would probably clear up most of those errors that you are getting.
Thanks for explaining Nick, I understand you can’t add something that’s not there. That’s not what I a asked though. I asked to not add the hentry class at all if you can’t add all it’s required fields (author, entry-title, updated date), because that is what triggers Google Search Console.
But, I think these 3 fields can always be added for posts, projects AND pages because they exist in WP. So even if they are not visible on the page, they could still be added as meta data.
WordPress adds hentry by default, not Divi, so it’s not something we want to change. Other plugins likely rely on this class being added to body automatically.
Now I am confused.
– Support says WordPress adds hentry, not Divi.
– You say “Divi does support microformats and has relevant hentry classes on posts and pages”.
– And 6 comments latere you say “WordPress adds hentry by default, not Divi”.
Nicely said Nick.
Nick,
Thanks for your response. Allow me to answer point wise –
Microfomats: I would believe in the advice coming straight from Google (Matt Cutts/John Mueller). Rest of the “gurus” – I take it with a pinch of salt. (there are several factors – controlled environment, limited sample set etc)
As far Microfomats are concerned , Google wants everybody to mandatorily have “entry title”, “author” and “last updated” hentry on every page. (http://microformats.org/wiki/hentry) If it is a category page and you have 5 snippets of articles , there should be 5*3 = 15 such entries on the page. But still how can I be so sure? Please have a look at my Google search console screenshot which is giving these very errors for last updated and author for my “category pages” and other “pages” ( I already have entry title for all those articles)
http://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/1473968/78afba67bbab587f06035940c11a46fe
Tags: Yes, of late with the adoption of HTML5 gaining stream there has been a discussion on this whether a page can have more than one h1. However, XHTML/HTML 4 would still want you to have h1 as “the most important title on your page”.
Till things get much more clear -as tech evolves- why not we keep things simpler for us.
Moreover, while I am fine with other tags (h2-h6), when it comes to a given blog post or page, I would want a single h1 and definitely NOT want h1 for Comments heading. [As I see, even for this blog theme, ET uses h1 for comments heading.]
No doubt google is much more smarter than us but following basic guidelines set up by none other than Google won’t hurt.
As an added suggestion- As far as I remember, you took services of Sucuri for security audit purposes , you may want to hire a 3rd party independent consultant (like Yoast ) for theme seo purposes.
Divi would be a killer once optimized for seo and speed.
+1 from me
Agree. Between Divi and Avada I love Divi for the security edge, but the SEO edge for Avada keeps me going back from time to time. There should be an auto-h1 for page titles and everything else starts with h2 – easy way to help people who aren’t fluent in SEO with one basic thing that will help them throughout their site.
An auto h1 would be good… and not really that hard to code in. However, I think the reason it’s not there is because if you add in a full width element, you might not want an h1.. or you would of course want it below the full width header if you did want to include it. Again, these wouldn’t be impossible to code in, but I don’t think an auto h1 is ideal for every scenario.
The way I got around the problem and it speed up my hole entire process was to make a template post with all the attributes need and also with the design to meet my costumized Divi theme. Saved me so much time when writing a new post since all the elements for SEO and focus are there. Made it a lot more professional too. Started this 1 month ago, and I’m loving it.
http://www.paulabressann.com.br
agree
would be a boost to all if divi had microfromats
I here this.
The time and effort I put in to obfilter the Divi output to then amend and correct Divi poor (sometimes downright anti-social) SEO features is tiring.
Compulsory H5 accordion headings, anyone?
This and I would love to see a more clear separation between content and design, especially when working with global modules.
Example:
You now have the tabs “General”, “Advanced” and “Custom CSS”
If only they could be:
– Content Only
– General Settings
– Advanced Settings
– Custom CSS
I also second this.
I second Verdi’s comment. This would be a huge benefit, and make Divi much more attractive for sites that have a lot of content.
I third that! Better seperation of content and layout, and some love to the divi library and global modules! 🙂
I totally Agree!
The best Page-Builder ever….THX
Finally Sign up for beta Testing…. Please allow me for beta… i am just waiting for this update.
haven’t been this excited about a Beta in a long time!
I would love to join the beta please! very exciting!!!