Do you get out the trusty old HTML editor, roll up your sleeves, and begin writing the HTML code from scratch? Well, if you have the skill to do it, and you have the time to do it, and you have the patience to do it, then that is one way to get it done.

Or maybe you just get out the trusty old checkbook and write someone a hefty check to do it for you. Well, if you have the money, then that is definitely the easiest way to do it. And then, when you need something added or changed, you can get out the old checkbook again.

What if you need it yesterday, not a few days or weeks or months from now?

What if you want a web site that is easy to add pages and content to, and you want to be able to do it yourself, quickly and easily and without having to get out that trusty old HTML editor, or the old checkbook for that matter?

What if you want a web site that search engines love, and you want to start getting some traffic without spending a fortune on SEO and then waiting and waiting to see the traffic?

What if you want a web site that you can change the look and feel of with just a few clicks of a mouse, and if you don’t like the new look, you can change it back with just a few more clicks?

Well partner, it sounds to me like you are in need of WordPress! More specifically, you need to learn just how powerful WordPress really is!

What kind of WordPress am I talking about when I say “powerful WordPress”?

I’m referring to WordPress “jazzed up” with all of the 100′s and 100′s of themes and plugins that are available to turn plain old WordPress into a thing of beauty as far as web sites go.

And before you roll your eyes and say that WordPress is just for blogs, you better take a closer look. In fact, WordPress, along with all of the readily available plugins and custom themes, can do just about anything you want, and it can do it either at no cost or very low cost, and it can do it very quickly.

You can have a WordPress site installed, configured with basic settings, and some popular plugins and themes installed, in just a few hours, and for zero cost. How’s that for fast and cheap?

• You can create a WordPress site that is a traditional WordPress blog.

• You can create a WordPress site that is suitable for the smallest business right on up to the largest corporation.

• You can create a WordPress site that is a membership site where members pay for your content.

• You can create a WordPress site that is an internet storefront to sell your products.

• You can create a WordPress site that is a content management system.

• You can create a WordPress site that is a combination of any or all of the above.

You can install plugins that do SEO for you, backup your database for you, create Google compliant sitemaps for you, handle product sales and delivery for you, handle membership signups for you, and on and on and on.

Do you begin to get the idea that I like WordPress and think WordPress is a great way to create a web site?

So, exactly what is WordPress, and how can you get it for free?

You can find out all about WordPress, and download it for free, at http://www.wordpress.org/. WordPress is an open source blog software package that anyone can download and install for free.

If your hosting provider has cpanel with Fantastico, and most do, then you can install it in a matter of minutes from there. If not, you can install the files manually.

WordPress makes it easy for anyone to set up, manage and maintain a website, and you can do it without being a total geek.

What if you get stuck and need help? Simply go to http://wordpress.org/support/ and you will find active forums full of people ready to help you solve your problem. How easy is that?

Since WordPress is open source, it’s free. That’s always a nice little benefit.

Since it’s open source it also has a thriving community of developers (geeks) constantly improving the software and creating those plugins I mentioned.

WordPress lets you quickly and easily create pages, which are basically content that is static, and not open for comments, and not organized by time.

WordPress lets you quickly and easily create posts, which are basically the blog part of WordPress, and they are usually organized by time-of-post, are usually open for comments, and they are the content to build out the meat of your site.

With WordPress, there are hundreds and hundreds of free themes available so you can easily manage your site’s look and feel. Check them out and download them for free at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ .

There are also some really great looking professionally designed themes available for purchase, most at very reasonable prices. These are well worth the money if you want a really professional looking web site. You can see examples of these at iThemes

There are hundreds and hundreds of free plugins available for WordPress, and you can take a look at them by going to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ . There are also many great plugins available that you will pay a reasonable fee for, but if you need a specialized plugin, they are well worth the money.

WordPress is highly customizable, so you can use it for just about anything, and make it do just about anything.

A Few Benefits of Using WordPress:

* Free Or Very Inexpensive! Using WordPress for your web site means it’s either cheap or free. WordPress itself is free, a custom theme is usually in the $50 to $100 range, many themes are even free. End result, you save loads of money compared to the cost of paying someone to design a web site for you.

* It’s So Easy! If you’ve got basic computer skills, WordPress is easy to use. If you can use a word processor like Microsoft Word or even lowly little Notepad, then you can use WordPress. It’s web site creation at it’s easiest.

* You Can Do It Yourself! Get ready Mr. Do-It-Yourselfer! No more need to find and pay a programmer to fix a tiny error, saving you time and money. Need to add some more content or a new page? No problem, you can do it yourself.

* Multiple Users And Accessible On The Internet. WordPress is accessed through an online administrative interface and can allow access to multiple administrators if desired, which means more than one person can login and fix problems that might develop, and you can access it from anywhere that has internet access. So, you lucky dog, if you’re on some beach in the Bahamas, you can access your site. Since your site is on a secure server through your web host, and you have a backup of your site and database on your own computer (you did create that backup, didn’t you?), you are well protected against data loss.

* Content Pleasing To The Great Google. WordPress makes it easy to have a web site that is search engine friendly. That means your web site is more likely to land on the first page of Google results, which means people are more likely to find you, which means people are more likely to spend time, and money, on your web site.

Since this is a rather long article on WordPress, I decided to break it up into three parts.

Coming up in Part 2, we’ll roll up our sleeves and get into the “down and dirty” details of installing and configuring WordPress.

As promised in part 1, part 2 will go into the basic steps to follow in building your WordPress web site.

If you’ve never even heard of WordPress, and you’re wondering what the heck it is, learn all about it at http://www.wordpress.org/

Roll Up Your Sleeves And Let’s Get Started…..

You need to master a few basics and understand a little of the WordPress “lingo”. So, here we go.

With WordPress, you can produce and manage several types of content very quickly and very easily.

Built right in and ready to go is the ability to create and edit Posts, Pages, and Links.

Posts are your basic blog content and are used for standard blog entries. You can create new posts, anytime you want and as often as you want, for your site visitors to read. Posts are normally arranged in chronological order and you can allow viewer comments or not, just as you please.

Pages are basically just posts that aren’t time-driven, they are more permanent content, not open to comments, and they don’t show up in your “recent posts” list. Pages are added as a link in your menu, if you choose to, and serve as the basic meat of your site.

Links are just what the name implies…they are links to whatever outside web sites you wish to make available to your site visitors. This is where you put links to sites you are an affiliate of, sites that are recommended resources for your visitors, and anything else you feel would be of interest to your site visitors.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…..

Before you start, you need to spend a few minutes and make some big decisions on what type of web site you want and need. If you don’t spend the time now, you may not end up with the web site you want, and then you will have to start all over.

The biggest thing to figure out is what you actually need your website to do. Will it be just a simple blog, will it be a news site, will it be an ecommerce site to sell products, will it be a membership site, will it be a place to post mp3′s produced by your rock band…..what exactly do you need it to be and how do you want it to look?

Once you decide what you want it to be, you need to decide what type of content you will have on it. What kind of content will you need to create and manage?

Do you need posts? Maybe, maybe not. If you’re not creating a blog, you may or may not need to use the post feature in WordPress at all. Or maybe it’s not a blog you’re creating, but you want a section to give site visitors your latest news about your products or services. You can use posts to do that. Since posts normally show in order by date created, visitors would see the latest posts first.

What about pages? Do you need pages at all? If so, how many pages will you need? Since pages normally show up as menu items, will your pages have a hierarchy type dropdown menu, or will each post be a top level menu item?

What about your homepage, how do you want it to look, what do you want to feature on the homepage? You may want just some basic text about your web site, what you do and what you offer, or maybe you want to feature your latest news or latest post.

These are a few of the questions you need to answer. Basically you’re trying to figure out what you want and what you need from your website. Once you have that figured out, it’s easier to find a theme that offers exactly what you want and need.

Next Step…..

Pick a theme that suits your needs and also looks like you want it to. There are free themes and there are professionally designed themes that you purchase, usually for a very reasonable price. If you are building a business web site, you will probably want to invest in one of the professionally designed themes.

The theme on the right is an example of the 100′s and 100′s of themes you can download for free for WordPress.

Now that you know what you want and need in the way of a web site, you need to be sure and pick a theme that can meet those wants and needs. Keep in mind that WordPress makes it very easy to switch themes, so if you find more than one theme that you like, you can install all of them, and switch back and forth until you decide exactly which one is the perfect fit for your web site.

Here are some things to consider when searching for that “just right” theme:

What type of menu system does it feature? Can it display the number of pages you plan on having? Can it handle the hierarchy your site menu will require? If you plan on having a fair amount of hierarchy (categories and sub-categories), a drop down menu might be a must.

How is the theme laid out? Most themes are laid out in “sections” or “boxes” and with various sidebars, such as sidebar left, or sidebar right, or both. Most have a large center box or section, or maybe several smaller ones side-by-side, so make sure the theme’s homepage is laid out like you want.

Very important, is the theme widget ready? If so, you can add and delete sidebar items, and possibly others, with ease. You can do it without widgets, but it’s much harder.

As mentioned in Part 1, there are hundreds of free themes available, and you can check them out at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

Two custom themes that I personally use and recommend are iTheme Custom WordPress Themes and StudioPress Custom WordPress Themes. These companies have specialized themes for most any application or niche you can think of.

iThemes has just introduced their new Builder Theme which is probably the most advanced and versatile WordPress theme on the market.

Once you’ve chosen your theme, you’re ready to install WordPress.

There are two ways to install WordPress, the easy way and the hard way.

The hard way is to download the WordPress files directly from www.wordpress.org and then do a manual install. Don’t worry though, even the hard way is not really that hard. Just go to http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress to view the very through instructions provided by WordPress.org. Follow the instruction and you shouldn’t have any problems.

The easy way is to install WordPress from the cpanel in your hosting account. Most hosting accounts have cpanel and a feature called Fantastico which make the install extremely easy.

Coming up in part 3 we will cover:

* Installing your theme
* Installing your plugins
* Entering your site details
* How to write pages
* How to write posts
* Using widgets on your site
* SEO for WordPress

So, be sure and continue with Part 3 to learn more about the power of WordPress.

Next Step…..

Once you’ve got WordPress installed, you’re ready to start setting up your site.

Once you’ve picked a theme and downloaded it, simply unzip it and upload the theme folder to your server at /public_html/wp-content/themes. Then login to your Dashboard, go to design>themes, and click on the theme to make it your active theme. You can click on any one of the themes that are showing to make them the active theme.

Plugins that you want on your site need to be downloaded, unzipped, and uploaded to /public_html/wp-content/plugins. Then go into your dashboard, go to plugins, and click on the activate link to activate any plugins you want to be active on your site. Remember, you can find free plugins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Go into settings and fill in the information on your site details. These items are pretty self-explanatory.

Go to Write>Page to start adding pages to your site. While editing a page you can choose the page parent to determine how it will show in your menu. Remember, the page title will become a menu link. You could write a page titled “My Family” and set it as “Main Page, No Parent” and then you could write a page titled “MY KIds” and a page titled “MY Wife” and set them to have the “MY Family” page as parent. That would give you a dropdown menu, assuming your template supports dropdown menus, with “MY Family” as the main menu item and “MY Kids” and “MY Wife” as dropdowns under it.

You also have the ability while writing the page to select if you want to allow comments or not, if you want it to be password protected, and a few other things.

Go to Write>Post to start writing posts to populate your site with content. As with pages, you can choose some options to determine how the post will display.

With posts, you need to first setup some categories under the settings>manage>categories tab so you can organize your posts into the order you want them in. For instance, you could have a category named “General Interest” and one named “Latest News” and one named “Cooking Tips”, and then organize your posts under the appropriate one.

Under Design>Widgets and Design>Theme Editor, you can customize widgets and theme files if you know a little html, php, and want to give it a shot. The widgets tab usually gives you a list of widgets and a list of sidebars and other areas where the widgets can be placed, and you simply drag and drop the widgets you want into the areas you want them in. You can then edit each widget to make it display as you desire.

Search Engine Optimization…..

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to optimizing your website’s position in search results. Many books have been written about SEO and websites are dedicated to it.

Showing up higher in search results usually means more traffic and more business. That is another reason why using WordPress is such a good idea, because WordPress is especially well suited for boosting your site’s rank in search engines.

How to make your WordPress site SEO friendly…..

You need to research the right keywords for your site and then put those keywords in the right places. Those right places include the title bar (the text that shows up at the top of your browser), any headers, headlines or bold text on a page, and the meta data (helpful information in a page’s code that is not visible in a browser).

How WordPress Helps Your SEO Efforts…..

Right out of the box, WordPress is SEO-friendly. It puts important information in the right places by default, so as long as you fill in the appropriate information in your dashboard settings, you’ll have a good start in the search engine rankings.

However,there are also a number of extra steps you can take to optimize your search engine rank, many of which are either built in to WordPress or easily managed with plugins that are available to download.

Permalinks are the direct urls to your content and optimizing how those links appear is good SEO. There is a place in your dashboard to change the way your permalinks are setup.

There is a plugin you can download and install that creates a sitemap, which is a widely adopted standard among search engines, and helps improve your search rank.

There are SEO plugins available that specifically deal with improving your sites SEO. They are worth the effort if you want to improve traffic to your site.

And Finally…..

Once you have your site up and running and optimized the way you want, you just have to keep it updated with new content. Updates are a breeze with WordPress, which means you can spend more time on your content and less time trying to figure out the tech stuff.

So, what are you waiting for? WordPress can be the right answer for just about any need. It can be the answer to quickly and easily building a professional looking web site for:

• The smallest “mom and pop” business right on up to a giant corporation.

• Service-oriented companies like home builders, plumbers, HVAC contractors, real estate agents, car dealers, etc.

• Consultants, freelancers, and coaches.

• Schools, nonprofit agencies, and churches.

• Bands, artists and creative professionals.

So, that’s it, you are now the proud owner of a great looking web site, a “WordPress On Steroids” web site.

Hope you enjoyed this series on installing and configuring WordPress.

A premium WordPress theme can be one of the best ways to really improve the looks of your WordPress web site.

Because WordPress is free you don’t have to spend money purchasing it,so with the money you’ll save you can afford to get a great looking premium theme—and it’ll still be cheaper than a custom-designed site.

When you purchase a premium theme you can avoid the somewhat shoddy work that sometimes shows up in free themes. That’s not to say free themes aren’t any good, because many of them are great themes, but often a lot of the detail work that really makes a theme special is missing.

Anyone can put together a free theme and offer it to the public, but it takes a lot more skill, care, and dedication to build themes people are actually willing to pay money for.

One the other side of the coin, just because you pay for a theme doesn’t mean it’s worth what you paid for it. There are bad premium themes, good premium themes, and great premium themes. And even the good and great ones may not work to exactly fill your needs.

This article is all about helping you make intelligent decisions when choosing premium themes.

Some things we will discuss:

1. Things to consider and plan for before you even start looking at themes.

2. How can you best assess a theme’s quality?

3. What you should be getting when you purchase a premium WordPress theme.

Item 1: Needs, Wants, and Expectations

The very first step to selecting a premium theme is to gauge your own needs, wants, and expectations. You surely can’t pick the right theme if you don’t even know what’s right for you and what you really need.

So, first step, before you start looking at all of the really cool themes and get excited about all of the really fancy designs, you need to sort out what it is that you really need and want. What do you really want your site to look like, and what do you want it to do?

And before you even do that first step, you should probably understand what you’re getting in a premium theme.

What, exactly, makes a theme a Premium Theme?

No discussion on premium themes would be complete if it didn’t answer one question: What is a premium theme?

There are a lot of different opinions on what a premium theme should include, including but not limited to:
customization, documentation, support, higher quality code, better “design” work, etc.

What it comes down to though is that a premium theme is a theme you pay for, it’s as simple as that. All the other potential extras and goodies depend on what the creator of the theme actually delivers to you.

You can see some demo sites featuring premium themes at iTheme and Revolution.

For sure, not all premium theme creators are equal, and not all premium themes are equal. Everyone has a different opinion on what makes a theme great. Where one premium theme creator may have a lot of professional experience, another may only produce themes as a hobby. Both themes may be equally good but you’ll get a different experience from each.

If you choose to buy a theme from a hobbyist you can’t expect the levels of support a pro-theme creator can offer. If you buy a theme from a company that offers premium themes as a second thought, you might get terrible or non-existant service. These are things you need to consider.

Bottom line, do your research, don’t let slick marketing fool you, and make your decision based on facts.

What Do You Need in a Website, what do you need it to do?

Before you start picking themes you need to make some decisions. If you don’t do your homework now, you may end up regretting it later. The most important thing to figure out is what you need your website to do.

• What type of content do you need to manage?
• Do you need blog capabilities (news, portfolio, press releases, catalog, etc.)?
• Does your site need a specific call to action (like an e-commerce component)?
• How many pages will your site need?
• Will those pages need a hierarchy?
• What do you want to show or feature on the homepage?

These are the sort of questions you need to answer. You’re trying to figure out what you need
from your website. Once you have that sorted out, it’s easier to find a theme that offers what you need.

What Kind of Theme Should You Buy?

One of the most common mistakes in choosing a theme is assuming it will fit your needs. Premium themes
come in all shapes and sizes and colors. Some focus on a specific need while others focus on generic blogging.

Some themes are designed to put the focus on the content. At the other extreme are the corporate themes. These tend to focus on static pages and relegate the blog content to a small news section. The key is to not make assumptions about what the theme will or won’t do.

Shown here is the iTheme eCommerce premium WordPress theme that can be used to sell your products through an internet storefront created with WordPress. This is a good example of a specialized premium WordPress theme, in this case the theme was designed to showcase an ecommerce web site.

Just because WordPress is a blogging platform doesn’t mean that any theme will be great for blogging. WordPress is extremely flexible and more and more themes are focusing on sites that don’t focus on blogging at all.

What Features Do You Need?

Before you start shopping for themes you should decide what features you need. Some features may appeal to you when you read about the theme and view the demo, but if you don’t really need them then you may be paying for something you’ll never use.

In some cases those fancy features could actually interfere with what you do actually need. Finding the right theme for your needs is much more practical than finding a cool looking theme and bending and sacrificing your needs to make it work.

Here are just a few examples of some features that are available on premium themes:

• Featured post on the home page instead of the latest post
• Featured photographs from Flickr
• Featured video(s) from YouTube
• Advertising integration (Adsense, etc)
• Advertising management features
• Optional color themes to choose from
• Control panels for easily adding tracking code or feed URLs
• Header image replacement, resizing, and cropping capabilities
• Contact form (so you don’t publicize your email address to spammers)
• Tabbed sidebars
• Tabbed featured posts
• Multiple positions for sidebars and widget capable sidebars
• Multiple page layouts
• Menus auto generated from WordPress pages
• Menus auto generated from categories
• Menus generated from the blogroll
• Manual menu control
• Drop down menus
• Built in asides / sideblog
• Advanced search functionality
• Niche specific templates; e.g. real estate, auto sales, photography, etc
• E-commerce integration if desired
• Image / banner rotation if desired
• Reordering the home page
• Alternative graphics packs
• And more…

There are so many choices that you have your work cut out for you in choosing that “just right” theme.

How Much Customization Are You Really Capable Of And Comfortable With?

If the thought of writing or changing code or installing plugins makes you nervous, you better pick a theme that has everything you need out of the box. On the other hand, if you’re fine with tweaking code, installing plugins or adjusting the CSS, then you can be a lot more flexible when you pick a theme.

A lot of the features shown above are built right into some premium themes, and many of them can
easily be added to themes with plugins. If you’re OK making some of those changes yourself, it might give you a little more leeway in choosing a theme you like for other reasons.

Next up in Choosing A WordPress Theme-Part 2, we’ll cover specific details on what to look for when choosing a premium theme.

This is Part 2 of a 3 part series on choosing premium themes to use with WordPress web sites. If you missed Part 1 you can see it at:

Choosing A WordPress Theme-Part 1

In Section 1 we covered setting expectations and deciding on what you really need from a theme. In this section we’re going to look at some areas you should pay close attention to when you find a theme you like.

As mentioned previously, there is no standard for premium themes. The term “premium” means different things to different people. In my opinion though,it’s still reasonable to expect a high level of quality in a theme that you pay money for.

The question becomes…. just what is a high quality theme?

As with many other things, “the devil is in the details”. You will need to throughly examine the demo page, source code, tutorials, and any other details a premium theme creator offers when looking for the measures of quality listed below.

Valid code

One way you can assess a theme’s quality is to see how it stacks up against industry standards. You can use online tools to compare the page construction to specific code standards. The HTML markup validator (http://validator.w3.org/) should be run on the key pages, including the home page, single post page, category page, etc. If all goes well you will see a statement that says the page has passed. If it fails, the validator will report the number of errors.

The CSS validator (http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/) only needs to be run on the home page, because the CSS style information will be the same across the entire site.

The CSS validator will normally list both errors and warnings. Usually you can ignore the warnings, and getting errors doesn’t necessarily mean the theme is a bad one. There are some situations where errors simply cannot be avoided; however, you should generally expect few errors.

Browser compatibility

All themes should be compatible with the major browsers. The author should provide you with info about the browsers their theme is compatible with. If the author’s website doesn’t say his themes are compatible, you should ask rather than assume.

Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera are the main browsers a theme should be compatible with. Test the theme in as many browsers as possible to determine if there are things that don’t quite work the way they should on any particular browser. Be skeptical of a theme that doesn’t look just right in any of the major browsers.

Styling

In any web site there are a lot of different elements that can be designed with a specific look and style. Perhaps there are different styles for each level of header or perhaps pull quotes are treated with a special graphic. Check to see if these elements are styled in any theme you’re considering. That will give you a good idea of the level of detail the theme author has included.

Look through the demonstration pages for examples of the following:

Headers, levels 3 to 5
Blockquotes / pull quotes
Code blocks
Tables
Numbered lists
Bulleted lists
Nested lists
Definition lists
Images, particularly the spacing around them if they are included within the text
Links (click on links to see how they behave and how they look after being clicked)
If the demo site doesn’t include an example of these in any of the posts or pages, then contact the themes author and request that they add a post that contains them. You just never know, for instance, when you might need to include a table, and there is nothing that looks worse than a poorly styled table.

You can see examples of some high quality premium themes and some fully operational demo sites at iThemes Premium WordPress Themes.

There normally will be a default style for all of these items, so it is unlikely they will be unstyled, but you’re really checking to make sure you’re satisfied with the way these elements are styled.

Typography

One thing a theme must do well is to make your content easy to read. A good theme designer will have considered the type in some detail to decide what is an appropriate font size and line spacing, among other things.

The following points are a general guide to assist you in determining if type styles and sizes are appropriate.

First, simply read through a few of the pages. If you find them difficult to read for any reason, then that’s an obvious indication that something isn’t right.

Another thing you should look for is a regular rhythm. Consistent spacing between paragraphs, headers, and lists will create a rhythm on the page that makes it easier to read. Frequently asked questions (FAQ) pages can be used for judging rhythm because they most often have a number of headers and short answers all visible on screen at the same time.

Finally, it is a good idea to compare the theme’s typeface to some sites you regularly visit and read to see if it stacks up and decide whether or not any differences are warranted.

Comment styling

If you plan on letting users leave comments on your site, you should check the way the comment section works. You can leave a few comments on the demo theme to see how it handles comments.

Trackbacks are pretty useless when they appear within a comment thread. Most readers don’t like wading through piles of trackbacks to find the comments in between them. A well thought out theme would separate them, or at least provide that as an option.

It’s also good practice to make the authors’ comments appear different than those of visitors and to include gravatars (globally recognized avatars) for every comment. If you’re planning on using the site for business, you probably will want to have the option of turning the gravatars off. Be sure you find out how the theme handles that. Does it leave an empty space, or does it look as though the gravatars were never there?

You should also check to see how a theme handles a post when comments are turned off and whether or not it displays a message when comments are moderated.

Pages

The WordPress theme API allows specific page types to have their own templates. This feature means the information that is displayed on a page can be tailored specifically to the need. You should visit the following types of pages and see how the themes author has used this functionality:

The home page (see if it is the same as a single post?)
Any single post
A category page
A tag page
A static page (such as the about page or contact us page)
The search page
Monthly archive page
Sitemap (If there is one)
When viewing these pages you should pay particular attention to the content of each post; i.e. is it an excerpt or is it showing a full post? Full posts might possibly make your site less effective with search engines since you can have multiple pages with the same content.

You should also pay close attention to the way you navigate between pages. Are there links from each post on the category page to the monthly archive page, or to the tag page for the tags that apply to that post? If there is more than one page of results, are the default next/previous page links used? Hopefully the theme author has gone that little bit further and included a list of page numbers so you can quickly navigate straight to page five?

Next, check the error pages. What happens when you search for a term and there are no results? What shows up when you change the URL to try to access a page that doesn’t exist, or a post that doesn’t exist?

Pay close attention to the details as well. In addition to post titles, does it also display authors, dates, categories, etc.? When it gives an excerpt of a post is there a user-friendly “read more” link of some type?

Most of these cases apply to blog-type content, but even if you’re not all that concerned about blog functionality you’ll probably want to see how the pages use the sidebar or widgets. For instance,is the sidebar the same on every page or is there some type of variation?

Theme options panels and commented code

It is quite possible that you will want to amend the theme to some extent, so you need to know how easy it will be to do that. Hopefully,the theme will provide you with a Theme Options (administrative) panel that will let you swap out images, change the feed URL, add in tracking code, choose between various color schemes, or control your menu. You will definitely want to know the details concerning the functionality that would be available to you without changing any code.

When you do need to change the code, a great theme will provide detailed comments in the source code to make it as easy as possible. Since comments will rarely show up in the source view, you won’t be able to check this without the original files. It can’t hurt to ask the themes author for a sample of a relatively standard section of code so that you can see what kind of comments it contains.

As you can see there’s a lot of things for you to think about here.

It’s not likely that a theme will be perfect in all of the points raised, and different theme authors will have different views on the importance of each one. It’s therefore possible you may have to compromise on one feature in order to get another more necessary one.

At this point in time, you should know how to gauge a theme’s quality, which will be a tremendous help in picking a theme that is right for you.

In the final part of the discussion, coming up in Part 3, we’ll consider the value of a good theme.

Choosing A WordPress Theme-Part 1

Choosing A WordPress Theme-Part 2

Section 3, What Do I Get For My Money?


In Section 1 we discussed finding out what your needs and wants are and setting your expectations. Section 2 looked at how to go about determining the quality of a theme. In this section we’ll take a look at what you actually get when you purchase a premium theme.

What you actually get when you purchase a premium theme may vary significantly between sellers. Some theme authors are simply out to sell themes while others are trying to build a business around it and are willing and eager to provide everything you will need to get the best out of your theme.

The prices may possibly differ between the two, but not necessarily in the way you would expect. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of correlation between the price of the theme and the extras you get. The extras aren’t always listed, so you may need to ask what’s included and what’s not included.

Page templates

Page templates are technically a part of any theme and you’ll get them anyway, but we’re including them here because it’s not always evident what kind of page templates are included.

When you write a page in WordPress you will have the option of applying a page template to it. The templates can be very minor variations on the basic theme. As an example, it might have the sidebar on the opposite side of the page, or no sidebar at all.

Where these page templates really start to do some important work for you is when they represent alternative core functionality.

WordPress allows you to replace the default home page with a different page if you wish. If the theme author has provided page templates with different styles of home page, you can apply these to a WordPress page of your choosing and assign it to be your home page to change the way the theme works.

If you purchase a theme that was intended to be used as a normal website instead of a blog, the default home page may not show any of your posts. If you should later decide you want a normal blog it’s easy to make the change if the theme’s author has provided a blog style page template.

If the theme does include page templates they may be limited to different styles of home page, or they may include more variations such as pages that have a featured post at the top, several variations on sidebar position, multiple posts in different layouts, etc.

A really neat looking feature that has just become available from one premium theme provider is flash-like fading photos on the front page. These create a really great looking effect. Take a look at the demo of Titanium Premium WordPress Theme to see this in action.

Instructions

With a new theme you will probably have choices for new ways of putting your content together. Features such as adding an image to represent the post, changing the theme header, or using images with captions can be difficult to figure out at times without some guidance from the themes author.

The quality and quantity of the instructions you get with a premium theme can vary widely. You may only get a “read me” file in the theme itself, or you may get multiple video demos of the functionality and even tutorials in PDF format.

Although you are not necessarily paying extra for these instructions, and very often they are available free on the website as tutorials (which makes them an excellent source of information before you buy), they can absolutely make the difference between a new theme that works well and one that just causes you a lot of headaches and frustration, so it’s worth considering what kind of instructions are available as part of the cost.

Photoshop files

Even if the instructions are detailed and you know how to change the header, actually changing it without the original Photoshop files can be difficult at best. You may need to find the correct dimensions, determine what typeface the original is in, duplicate all the styles involved, etc., so having a Photoshop file to work from can make it a whole lot easier.

In some cases a Photoshop file is included with the theme by default, and may not even be mentioned as a selling point. In other cases you will have to pay extra for it and you will then need to decide whether it is worth the extra cost or not.

For those simple themes where the header is a regular background image, there isn’t necessarily a need for it. For more complicated themes, especially those where the header text is a key component, it can be very difficult to do without it.

Compatibility with feature upgrades?

The theme you buy should be compatible with whatever version of WordPress you are currently using, or that you are planning on using, but what happens when WordPress upgrades, which they do quite often?

If a feature is changed in WordPress or a new feature is added (tagging and sidebars are good examples of relatively recent feature additions) the theme may need to be updated to match the new version of WordPress. The important question is whether you are entitled to a free upgrade of the theme or not.

The themes themselves most likely won’t remain without change either. Customer feedback and requests and new trends mean that themes will likely add new features or change their look over time.

You may possibly be entitled to get new versions that have been upgraded for compatibility free of charge, or you may be entitled to any new version that comes out, also free of charge, or you may be required to pay extra to upgrade to the next version.

Support

When you ask what a premium theme includes, the answer usually mentions support of some kind. If you pay for something, you normally expect support if it doesn’t work. How much support you will actually get, and on which issues and problems, can vary, though.

Some premium theme sellers offer their customers forums to cover basic support issues. These forums normally aren’t something you will have to pay for and they are a way of taking support responsibility away from the author, but they can also be very helpful for finding your answers. I have found forums to be an excellent means of quickly getting questions answered and problems solved.

If there aren’t any forums provided, or they fail to answer your question, you’ll need direct support from the themes author. If you’re using the theme as it was intended, on a compatible version of WordPress, and something just simply isn’t working right, then basic support is normally available.

If, on the other hand, you have made any changes to the theme code or are trying to change it to make it work with an earlier version of WordPress, it is by no means certain that you will get help from the themes author.

Providing support can be time consuming and very expensive for the theme creator. Just a few hours a day providing free support to customers can put a huge dent in their income. For that very reason, you shouldn’t automatically expect a theme author to provide endless support on everything you want to do simply because you have purchased a theme from them.

To wrap it all up: As you now know, there’s a whole lot of things to consider if you want to get the most out of a premium theme.

• First you have to sort out your own needs, wants, and expectations.

• Next you need to assess what a theme has to offer you, and will it match your needs.

• Finally you need to know what you’re paying for.

The good news is that most premium themes are not really very expensive, all things considered. Despite being inexpensive, however, not all premium themes live up to that cost, whatever it might be.

So…..consider your needs and wants, do your research, and you will be in a position to make an intelligent and informed decision on choosing that perfect theme for your web site.

Many people making their first attempt at creating a personal or business web site will not even consider using WordPress. After all, WordPress is just for blogs, isn’t it?

The answer is, absolutely not! WordPress is arguably the best platform there is for creating a blog, but it definitely is not just for blogging, it is so versatile and so customizable that it can be used to create just about any type of web site you can imagine.

What with the hundreds and hundreds of plugins available for WordPress, and the hundreds and hundreds of free and premium themes available for WordPress, it becomes a simple matter of choosing the correct plugins and themes to create the perfect web site to suit your needs.

Plugins, in case you are not familiar with WordPress, are little applications coded for WordPress, and they are extremely easy to install and configure. These applications make it so very simple to allow WordPress to perform complicated tasks, completely automated, and without any further effort or involvement from the site owner.

Here are some examples of what WordPress plugins can do for you…..

• Control and practically eliminate the spam comments that your site may receive
• Automatically create a Google compliant sitemap for your web site
• Automatically help to make your site SEO friendly for the search engine spiders
• Install a contact form on your site so customers can contact you
• Make it easy for site visitors to refer your content to the Web 2.0 sites
• Install Adsense ads on your site
• Turn your site into an ecommerce site complete with shopping cart
• Automatically upgrade your site to the latest version of WordPress
• Create RSS feeds for your site and submit to Feedburner
• Automatically backup the database for your site
• Convert your site into a membership site and handle subscriptions and member management

And the list goes on and on…..

Same thing with WordPress themes. There are hundreds and hundreds of free themes that you can download and install on your web site. If you want a theme that is specialized and loaded with extra features, then there are premium themes available at very reasonable prices, and they are available for almost any type of site you can imagine.

Premium WordPress themes are available for…..

• Social web sites
• Business web sites
• Corporate web sites
• Photo galleries
• News sites
• eCommerce web sites
• Grunge type web sites
• Music web sites
• Real estate web sites
• Auto sales web sites
• Sports related web sites
• Church web sites
• School and team web sites

And again, the list goes on and on…..

Some good demonstrations of premium themes can be seen at iThemes.

So, when it comes to building a web site, whether you are a raw beginner or an experienced site builder, it will pay you to consider using WordPress. You can literally install WordPress, install your plugins and theme, and start adding content in just a matter of minutes. In no time at all, you can have a great looking web site up and running, and you can do it with very little cost and very little experience.

If you have no desire to tackle the project yourself, there are sources available that will install a custom WordPress web site to your specifications, and again, at very reasonable cost. More Info

Build A Great Looking Web Site….. The Fast And Easy Way….. Using WordPress

Are you a raw beginner when it comes to building web sites?

Are you finding it really hard to learn the coding skills necessary to build web sites? Is HTML, PHP, and CSS all Greek to you? Don’t feel bad or alone, most people fall into that category.

Perhaps, on the other hand, you are fairly experienced at building web sites, but you find it just takes up too much of your valuable, and limited, time. Even using one of the WYSIWYG editors that are available to help with the coding, it just flat out consumes too much of your time, and time is something that most of us just don’t seem to have enough of anymore.

Well, cheer up, because there is a way to build great looking fully functional web sites and it is very fast, very inexpensive, and very powerful. You can learn to do it without spending a lot of time or money, and you can turn out professional quality web sites in no time at all.

If you just plain out don’t want to tackle building the web site yourself, you can have someone else do a basic install for you, and then all you need to do is make a few basic settings and begin adding your content or products or whatever.

In case you haven’t guessed what I am talking about yet, I’m talking about using WordPress to build your web site. And just in case you think that WordPress is only for creating blogs and putting a bunch of mostly useless and uninteresting (at least to other people besides your friends and family) content up on the internet, then you better think again.

The fact is, WordPress has become so powerful and so versatile that you can create just about any kind of web site you can imagine, and you can do it without spending much time or money. Since time and money are precious to most of us, that is a deal that is hard to beat.

You can register a domain name for around ten bucks, purchase some hosting for another $5 to $15 per month, and you are ready to go. Most hosting accounts now come with cPanel and Fantastico, and you can login to your hosting account and do a WordPress install in about 5 minutes or less. I use InMotion Hosting for a lot of my sites because they give you a free domain registration when you purchase their hosting, so you’re not out the $10 or so that it costs to register a domain name.

Once you get WordPress installed on your domain at your hosting account, you can then login to your dashboard on your new WordPress site and begin making your basic settings and getting your site organized the way you want.

Next step is to go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ and browse through the plugins that are available, most for free I might add, and decide which ones you will want to download and install on your new WordPress web site.

Plugins are simply great little code snippets that you install and activate in WordPress, and they can do tremendous amounts of work and save you tremendous amounts of time. As stated above, many of them are absolutely free, and they are invaluable in getting your WordPress site to accomplish the tasks you want it to, and with a minimum amount of effort on your part.

Here are some examples of what WordPress plugins can do for you…..

Control and practically eliminate the spam comments that your site may receive
Automatically create a Google compliant sitemap for your web site
Automatically help to make your site SEO friendly for the search engine spiders
Install a contact form on your site so customers can contact you
Make it easy for site visitors to refer your content to the Web 2.0 sites
Install Adsense ads on your site
Turn your site into an ecommerce site complete with shopping cart
Automatically upgrade your site to the latest version of WordPress
Create RSS feeds for your site and submit to Feedburner
Automatically backup the database for your site
Convert your site into a membership site and handle subscriptions and member management

And the list goes on and on…..

Next step is to go to http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ and take a look at all of the free themes that are available to download and install on your new WordPress web site.

If you are building your web site more for personal use rather than as a serious business type web site, then I recommend that you choose a free theme that suits your needs and install and activate it on your web site, and you will instantly have a great looking web site ready to start adding your content.

If you are building your web site as a serious business or professional web site, or as a serious blog in the hopes of making money from it, then my personal preference is to use a premium WordPress theme rather than a free one. Premium themes are available to suit almost any need, and they are reasonably priced and well worth the small expense required to purchase them.

Premium WordPress themes are available for…..

Social web sites
Business web sites
Corporate web sites
Membership web sites
Photo gallerys
News sites
eCommerce web sites
Grunge type web sites
Music web sites
Real estate web sites
Auto sales web sites
Sports related web sites
Church web sites
School and team web sites
Professional blog web sites

And again, the list goes on and on…..

I personally use and recommend premium themes available at iThemes because they have themes available for just about any type of web site you can imagine, their themes are professionally designed and coded, the prices are very reasonable, and you get great support and training . Their new Builder Theme is probably the most versatile and advanced theme available, there is not much you can’t do with it as far as creating a custom WordPress web site.

So, when it comes to building a web site, whether you are a raw beginner or an experienced site builder, it will pay you to consider using WordPress. You can literally install WordPress, install your plugins and theme, and start adding content in just a matter of minutes. In no time at all, you can have a great looking web site up and running, and you can do it with very little cost and very little experience.

As stated above, if you have no desire to tackle the project yourself, then take advantage of our expertise and let us install a custom WordPress site for you, it’s fast, easy, and very reasonably priced.

Also see Building A Custom WordPress Web Site

Google loathes duplicate content!

Google is trying to index and categorize the billions of pages on the web and calculate each page’s relevance to specific search queries. Therefore, to have any chance of attaining appearance in Top 30 SERPs (search engine results pages), pages must be accurately described…

Keep in mind that Google is an entirely automated text indexing system doing its absolute best to deliver the most relevant content to its core users. Those core users are NOT website owners! Google’s main focus is on its search customers.

If you want your website to get noticed, you’ve got to assist Google et al in every way possible, by accurately describing your own content. Make it clear and unequivocal what each page is about. Ensure it is original content, properly described, and easily accessible.

Apparently, there are over 200 elements that Google assesses as it’s trying to calculate a page’s relevance to a specific search query. Individually, some of them are almost insignificant. Collectively they add up to prominence or obscurity! The thinking man understands that the more elements you get right, the higher the probability of appearance in Top 30 SERPs.

Here’s a dozen of the primary indicators of unique content to an SE spider;

1. URLs: precise control of every page URL, carefully using primary keywords / phrase. Use Permalinks wisely!

2. Title Tag – 70 characters limit: Accurate, carefully using primary keywords / phrase. The single most important element for every page!

3. Meta Description – 150 chars limit: Accurate, carefully using primary keywords / phrase. By default, its used verbatim in Google SERP’s. Its very important to write a catchy phrase incorporating primary keyword phrase, one that impels viewers to click on it! I always use All In One SEO because I’m a “content control freak” and want to make sure every word is in the right place. Dynamic meta-tags are better than no meta-tags – but the ability to manually input as many elements as is possible is what makes the overall difference to SE Rankings.

4. Meta Keywords: Accurate, carefully using primary / relevant keywords and phrases. This should NOT be vaguely related words! It should be a set of long-tailed keyword phrases specifically relevant to the page content. I’d never use more than 8-10 phrases separated by commas.

5. 1st On-page Title/Heading: Headings offer limited space, but ALWAYS try and get at least one primary keyword into the title, and the tag must be H1 or H2, not an ‘imitation’ with large/bold text.

6. First Paragraph: Very important to get the primary keyword phrase into the beginning of the first sentence!

7. Last Heading: If you use one, reiterate a primary or secondary keyword phrase.

8. Last Paragraph: Quite important to get the primary or secondary keyword phrase into the beginning of the first sentence!

9. Images: Use keyword-rich image file names! Provide a descriptive and accurate image ALT text that uses a primary keyword phrase. Don’t overdo it – just lightly reinforce the page content descriptions.

10. Anchor Text: Provide links to other Internal Pages from primary/secondary keyword phrases within page content. Don’t waste the opportunity available to give clues to content on other pages! Using “Click Here For More” is not productive.

11. Menus: CSS drop-down menus are good. Text menus are good because they (usually) describe briefly the content of the page at the end of the link, providing an additional clue/reinforcement for the SE spiders. JavaScript menus are a disaster because they are completely invisible to Google et al.

12. Latent Semantic Indexing: Within the overall content, don’t use excessive primary/secondary keyword repetition. Instead, employ a sprinkle of similar words having the same meaning… and variations of the primary words; e.g. mortgage, mortgaged, mortgagee, mortgagor, lend, lending, lender, financing, funding, loan, loans, loaned etc… Reinforce the primary / secondary keyword phrases with supporting content. LSI is based on a mathematical probability that if a page says its about something, AND general content also contains related words / phrases, then it IS accurately described and IS specifically relevant to related search queries.

13. USE Google! They’ve got two absolutely essential items designed to help you! The first is the Google sitemap, and there are plugins available which totally automate generation of the sitemap.xml file every time you add or edit page or post content. The 2nd is Feedburner… Create a Feedburner account, and add your RSS Feed to it. That gives you an intravenous pipeline directly into the belly of the beast! I’ve regularly got blog posts and page content appearing in “Google Alert” distributions within 2 – 3 hours of publishing the post or page! Feedburner also offers you a managed email subscription service which routes your new content directly to interested users…

The above SEO tips provided courtesy of iThemes Premium WordPress Themes ]]> http://easywordpresssite.com/seo-tips/feed/ 0 http://CopingWithAlzheimers.com/alzheimers-disease-a-guide-for-caregivers/ http://CopingWithAlzheimers.com/alzheimers-disease-a-guide-for-caregivers/#comments Sun, 28 Nov 2010 22:28:29 +0000 Lewis S Poteet http://CopingWithAlzheimers.com/?p=169 This website has been created to provide a place where I can share my experiences as a caregiver for a wife and mom who both have Alzheimer’s Disease.

It also is a place where hopefully other caregivers that are coping with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and caring for wives, husbands, parents, patients, or others can share their experiences, feelings, and knowledge with each other.

Alzheimer’s disease is a much worse disease than I ever imagined until I found myself having to care for a 72 year old wife and a 95 year old mom, both of whom are afflicted with this terrible disease. Stressed and frustrated to say the least.

I thought Alzheimer’s disease was just forgetting where your car keys were, or where you put the TV remote control. I never dreamed that it has such a debilitating effect on persons afflicted with the disease, and I surely never realized just how difficult and stressful it can be for caregivers.

Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disorder and it was named for German physician Alois Alzheimer, who first described the disease in 1906. Scientists have learned a great deal about Alzheimer’s disease since that time.

Here are some facts about Alzheimer’s:

• Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive and fatal brain disease. It is estimated that as many as 5.3 million Americans are afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease destroys brain cells. It causes memory loss and creates problems with thinking and behavior. These problems can be severe enough to affect work, hobbies and social life.
• Alzheimer’s normally gets worse over time, and it is fatal. You may be surprised to know that it is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States.
• Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia. Dementia is a general term describing memory loss and other intellectual abilities that are serious enough to interfere with daily life. Alzheimer’s disease accounts for a whopping 50 to 80 percent of dementia cases.
• Currently, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. However, there are treatments for symptoms and these treatments combined with the right services and support can help make life a little better for the millions of Americans living with Alzheimer’s. There are worldwide efforts under way to find more and better ways to treat the disease, or to delay its onset, or prevent it from developing altogether.

What Causes Alzheimer’s?

Doctors and scientists are still trying to answer that question. They are pretty much in agreement that plaques and tangles are a major factor. They also agree that there are risk factors that affect a person’s likelihood of developing the disease.

What Are Plaques and Tangles?

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by a build-up of proteins in the brain. While this can’t be measured in a living person, autopsies have revealed this to be true, and the build-up manifests itself in two different ways.

One Of These Is Plaques, which are deposits of the protein beta-amyloid that accumulate in the spaces between nerve cells.

The Other Is Tangles,which are deposits of the protein tau that accumulate inside of nerve cells.

Doctors and scientists still don’t know exactly how plaques and tangles are related to Alzheimer’s disease, but they do have some solid theories. One such theory is that they block the nerve cells’ ability to communicate with each other, and this in turn makes it difficult for the cells to survive.

Autopsies have shown that nearly everyone will develop some plaques and tangles as they age, but those with Alzheimer’s disease will develop far more than those who do not develop the disease. Scientists still don’t know why some people develop more than others, but they know it is true.

Known Risk Factors For Alzheimer’s

Factor One–Age

Simply getting older is the number one risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s.
Fact– One out of eight people over the age of 65 has Alzheimer’s.
Fact–One out of every two people over the age of 85 has Alzheimer’s.
Fact–The odds that you will be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s nearly doubles every five years after age 65.

Factor Two–Family History

Those people who have a parent or sibling that had Alzheimer’s disease are two to three times more likely to develop the disease than those with no family history of Alzheimer’s. And, if more than one close relative has the disease, the risk increases even more.

Scientists have identified two kinds of genes that are associated with this family risk factor. The first, known as ApoE 4, is thought to be a “risk gene” that increases the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s, but does not necessarily guarantee it. In addition to ApoE 4, scientists note that there may be up to a dozen more risk genes that are yet to be discovered.

The second kind of gene is a “deterministic gene”. These are much rarer than risk genes. Deterministic genes are only found in a few hundred extended families around the world. If a deterministic gene is inherited, the person will almost surely develop Alzheimer’s, and most likely at a much earlier age.

Factor Three–Lifestyle Factors

Age and family history are something we can’t control, but scientists have also identified several lifestyle factors that can possibly influence a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. A connection has been shown to exist between serious head injury and future development of Alzheimer’s. In view of that finding, persons who practice safety measures such as wearing seat belts and not engaging in activities where there is a high risk of falling are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s.

It is also likely that exercise and a healthy diet lead to a reduced Alzheimer’s risk. Also, avoiding tobacco, limiting alcohol consumption, and staying socially and mentally active have been shown to have a protective effect against Alzheimer’s disease.

Finally, there appears to be a strong link between heart health and brain health. Persons who are free of heart disease or related conditions are at a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or another kind of dementia than persons who have cardiovascular problems.

Stay tuned for more information…..

I will be making regular posts giving information on possible causes, treatments, and cures for Alzheimer’s disease. I will also be outlining my experiences coping with Alzheimer’s as a caregiver, and I invite readers to make comments and share experiences that may help all of us provide care for loved ones while at the same time maintaining our own health and well being.

Lewis S Poteet