This is the first of the posts answering the questions that were asked in the survey below. If you have not added yours feel free to do so now. Your question may be answered here.
Previously I have posted as to what pages are so you can find that below. Now the question of how to use them. This blog is a perfect example. If you have something that you want to be permanently available from all parts of your blog a page works best.
The link will stay in your page index on the side bar until you delete the page. Depending on your theme it will create a tab or link in your header for easy access to any visitor.
On this blog I have two pages – an about page and a blogging 101 page. More may be added in the future. You can access them from the tabs at the top or the links in the side bar and they will be visible whether your reader is on the main page or any of the single pages. Most of your search engine visitors will come in on a single post page.
The unanswered part of the question is why? That will be different for each person and depend on what you are using your blog for.
For me the about page is a default in the standard installation and I feel that I should let people know who I am and what I do so they can decide if I am someone they want to listen to. The blogging 101 page has a podcast that I want to keep available so I added it as a page.
Just one or two other personal examples. I have a blog that I use just for selling my services for custom blogs. On that blog I have an order page that includes a form to get a quote. For the purpose of that blog even if I add additional information there I want that readily available for people along with the contact page so people know how to reach me. The form is nice but if you are going to spend your hard earned money you should have more than just an email form to contact me with.
Any item that you want readily accessible long term is a prospect for being done as a page rather than a post.
Hope this has answered the question and if not leave a comment about anything that was unclear.
Jeff Mills and I did a teleseminar this past Saturday. The recording is available here if you click the blogging 101 tab above.
It was a great session and actually lasted a bit over two hours. Thanks Jeff for inviting me. You can check out what Jeff does at Jeff Mills.com.
If you haven’t asked your question I would appreciate your clicking the ASK banner in the post below this. Your input will allow me to add the answers here to your questions. That will start with tomorrow’s post.
Yesterday I sent out a survey to the members of my Word Press Made Easy site and to another list from a blog traffic tips series that I deliver. It is a single question and if you are not on either list I would appreciate it if you took the time to answer it. Just click the banner below and submit your question.
The question is “What do you most want to know about Word Press blogs and blogging in general?” This will allow me to generate the content that people want and I will report the results here and in the newsletter for Word Press Made Easy members.
There is a new post at Word Press on the testing of existing plugins for 2.1. You can read it here. All of the plugins I use have tested fine and I have had no problems.
The spell checker needs some work and I have found it to not be reliable. That is more than compensated for by the code editor which I use extensively to get the look I want for my posts. Guess as a reader you’ll still have to live with my occasional typo.
Reviewing the list of plugins that aren’t working it seems to be mainly the visual editors and cloud items from my quick review. The only really popular one that I saw trouble with on the list was Ultimate Tag Warrior and there is a note that it was being worked on to make it compatible. If you use that you might want to check the author’s page for updates. Let me know what you think of 2.1 by leaving a comment.
If you have any questions on Word Press blogs or blogging in general that you would like to see addressed please leave a comment.
Askimet is probably my favorite plugin. It comes with the standard dwonload of WordPress for the last few versions. It will help you control spam comments.
One of the problems with blogging of late is the proliferation of these automated comment software. I just changed a blog over that was getting crushed with spam to WordPress just for the Askimet plugin. I was spnding all my time dealing with the penile enlargement, drug and porn spammers.
Haven’t had to delete one since I made the change. Askimet does the work for me. The spammers haven’t stopped but now Askimet deletes them and I can worry about providing content. The first 4 days it caught over 60 spam posts.
Now if you have a brand new blog this may not be a problem but eventually the spammers will find you. They have just started on this blog but Askimet makes my life easy.
To use Askimet you need to turn the plugin on in the plugin section. Then if you do not have a WordPress API key you will click the link on the Askimet configuration page and sign up at WordPress. They will email you the API key and all you need to do is add that key into the appropriate space and you have Askimet working for you.
It is not 100% but it will learn from posts that you mark as spam. I very rarely get garbage posts that it doesn’t catch. Take the time to add it to your blog today.
If you have any questions on Word Press blogs or blogging in general that you would like to see addressed please leave a comment.
Really should have posted this yesterday but wanted to finish the series on editing your theme. Two days ago WordPress released the latest version 2.1 named Ella thus the headline I used.
I actually wasn’t going to recommend to my readers to hurry and upgrade to the new version. After all, there have been 2 updates already this month. As this wasn’t a security update but a new feature update I really wasn’t keen to turn around and email my members again.
However, I did download the version and add it to this blog yesterday. Big mistake. Once I started playing with this version I just had to go and upgrade the rest of my blogs to this version. Course if I did it then I had to tell others so I did send out to my members to let them know my feelings.
If you want to see the new features you can check out the Word Press blog. Not much that shows upfront but they have done a kick butt job with the backend. Least this Old Bald Guy thinks so.
This is the 5th of 5 posts that will go over editing your theme and what the various pieces do to your blog. This should allow you to find the area you need to change to make your blog uniquely yours. This is based off the Word Press default theme and if you use a different theme it may have more or less options.
searchform.php – This sets up the form for your search function. Not a file to play with .
Sidebar – This is probably the piece most edited. On this blog this is where I added my ugly mug, a banner for my book and on others I have made extensive changes to it. If you are using widgets you need to be careful where you input the HTML code. You will see this code to check for widgets.
Normailly you will add your HTML right below the div file for the sidebar at the top if you want it to be at the top of the side bar. If you want it below the widgets then you will need to place it at the bottom. I strongly recommend you not try and intermingle them with the items you are pulling into the sidebar with widgets. As always make a copy first and if you make a mistake you can put the original back.
Single Post – This won’t need to be edited very often as it just pulls in the various pieces – header, body, side bar, footer, etc. to show your single post when someone has called the specific page.
If you have any questions on Word Press blogs or blogging in general that you would like to see addressed please leave a comment.
This is the 4th of 5 posts that will go over editing your theme and what the various pieces do to your blog. This should allow you to find the area you need to change to make your blog uniquely yours. This is based off the Word Press default theme and if you use a different theme it may have more or less options.
Links – This is a page that you don’t see in a lot of the available themes. It is set up simply to show a page of links and formats the page for the diaply within the main table instead of the sidebar. It pulls almost all pieces from other files so should not normally be edited.
Page Template -This is very similar to the Main Index Template iin that it pulls the various pieces together to create the page. Some templates will not have this file and create the pages off of the Main Index Template but if your theme does you can use this to customize the page and make it look different than the post pages.
Search Results – This controls the look of the page returned when using the search results function. It can be edited but only if you are comfortable with php commands because it draws in adn dispays the results from your data base.
Next time we’ll discuss searchform.php, Sidebar and Single Post.
If you have any questions on Word Press blogs or blogging in general that you would like to see addressed please leave a comment.
This is the 3rd of 5 posts that will go over editing your theme and what the various pieces do to your blog. This should allow you to find the area you need to change to make your blog uniquely yours. This is based off the Word Press default theme and if you use a different theme it may have more or less options.
functions.php – This is a file that checks your side bar and should not be touched.
Header – This will control the header portion of the blog. If you are using a plugin like SEO title tag or other such plugin this is where you will change the variable to allow it to work. You can sometimes change the header image here but it also may be controlled by the stylesheet. This is especially true if the theme is built with differrnt style options. In most of those cases the stylesheet controls the image displayed.
Main Index Template – This file will control the overall look of the blog. This file in most themes won’t be touched because all it does is pull the various pieces together in the proper order to display. You shouldn’t need to adjust this file. Adjust the changes in look that you want in the indivdual pieces NOT here.
Next time we’ll discuss Links, Page Template and Search Results.
If you have any questions on Word Press blogs or blogging in general that you would like to see addressed please leave a comment.
This is the 2nd of 5 posts that will go over editing your theme and what the various pieces do to your blog. This should allow you to find the area you need to change to make your blog uniquely yours. This is based off the Word Press default theme and if you use a different theme it may have more or less options.
Popup comments – This page controls the look of the pop up box that is used for comments. It is well marked but care needs to be taken not to remove anything that actually adds the comment to your data base. Not something you are likely to want to edit and most of the look of it can be changed within the stylesheet as that carries throughout the blog.
Comments – This page formats how the comments are displayed. You may or may not even have a comments or commnet popup on a lot of themes. Most of the themes I use regularly do not and format the comments from the main template.
Footer - This will allow you to edit the footer of the site. In the default theme it just says powered by WordPress with a link back as their advertising. You may want to add your copyright there. Some free themes require you to maintain a link back to the designers site some don’t. Please be sure to read the comments in the page as to what the designer requires for your use of the theme.
Next time we’ll discuss functions.php, Header, Main Index Template.
If you have any questions on Word Press blogs or blogging in general that you would like to see addressed please leave a comment.
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