Do you cover your eyes, use the vertical scroll on your mouse and just click something randomly? How about skim through www.wordpress.org until a color scheme jumps out at you? Or scour the internet to find the perfect theme, and hope and pray it doesn't cost an arm and a leg? Whether you use method A, B, or C, or are looking for a new theme selection process, please heed this warning: Check the theme author's reputation first!! You are downloading this piece of software to your server, so treat it like it is a piece of foreign software. Here is selection method D: Look for … [Read more...]
2 Ways to Have a Home Page
October 19, 2009
There are two ways to have a front page, and you need to be aware of which method your theme uses, so you don't wreck it! We use StudioPress themes for a number of Premium Professional WordPress Designs. And sometimes we just add the templates ourselves, depending on the theme set up. What we do with this type of front page, is create a template that WordPress will automatically use for the front page (home.php). So you do nothing except select which categories you'd like to show up on the corresponding "blog" template. Since WordPress 2.5 (I think?) they have integrated an option for … [Read more...]
How to Add a Landing Page
October 13, 2009
A landing page or also known as a "static home page" can be an excellent branding tool for your online image. It is the familiar face that greets your visitors and lets them have a central location to see all the important things right up front. Here is the tutorial that I guest posted elsewhere a month ago. How to Create a Landing Page or Static Home Page Enjoy! … [Read more...]
StudioPress User's Cheat Sheet
October 8, 2009
This cheat sheet is for any custom design based on StudioPress themes. The Featured Content Gallery(FCG) - this is the slideshow that is across the home page. 1. To get an image to show up in the Featured Content Gallery: create a new post with title, text (if desired), and images (if desired, not necessary) upload the picture for the FCG to your flickr account or media library from Media>>Add New copy the picture's URL to your clipboard go back to the post you added, and below the post >> edit box, find the "Custom Field" box. enter "articleimg" in the Key box, and … [Read more...]
The scoop on Widgets and Plugins
September 30, 2009
Updated for WordPress 2.8: I had an interesting question from a client last night, wondering how come her gorgeous sidebars disappeared when she put widgets in them. Here's the scoop: Sidebars: Most of the time, the theme you are using gives you two options. First, you can just leave the sidebars without widgets and the default stuff will show up. Usually Categories, Archives by month, Search, Pages, and Meta Data. And the second option is to use Widgets. To use the default sidebars: In your administration panels, go to [Appearance] -> [Widgets]. Remove all widgets from within … [Read more...]
How to Create a Static Landing Page
September 21, 2009
I guest-posted at Tech Talk for Moms yesterday - a video on how to create a static landing page. Go check it out! (this video will be added to the tutorials section soon) … [Read more...]
Cool Themes for business sites
May 11, 2009
Just this month, I've discovered some great themes. These are just the ones that I've run across - there are countless others as well. These are FREE, and can be customized by following the instructions. Most are customizable right from your admin panels in the back end of your blog. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The first one is another template "system". I'm not fond of these yet, but then again, I'm not fond of anything with a learning curve. So we'll see which of the 'systems' ends up staying around. I'll let you know how my first edit of this one goes soon. Alex King … [Read more...]
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