It’s based on the custom WordPress Theme I designed for the Dad: About the Boy blog and will give any blog a clean, stylish and very readable look.

The 3 column design in cool blue comes configured ready to use Rob Marshes’ excellent Recent Posts and Recent Comments plugins (both of which need the Post Plugin Library as well) to really help show off your content. And if you haven’t installed Rob’s plugins the Theme degrades gracefully so you’d never know anything was missing.

Live Demo

Why not take a look at the live demo of Theme:

Demo 

Download

If you liked what you saw in the demo click the link below to download the Theme:

Download The ThreeColumnsBlue Theme!

If you do use the theme, please drop a link in the comments below, I’d love to see it in action!

That’s because two of the most important factors that Google uses when creating it’s Search Engine Results Pages are the number of and quality of inbound links to a site.

What Is Link Baiting?

In short, link baiting is actively encouraging people to link to your site.

You do this by writing content for your Web site that produces some kind of reaction in your readers, that hopefully makes them link back to your site.

As the name link baiting suggests, fishing is a pretty good analogy. You throw your content out into the great lake that is the Internet and hope that some users will bite. Or as the Search Engine Journal puts it:

“The article is the bait, and the link is the catch.”

Slightly less like fishing, successful link baits often spreads virally. Starting with just one reader linking to your site on their blog, their readers then follow the link and link to you as well. Before you know it you’re inundated with links - at least that’s the theory.

In reality the number of links you get depends partly on the quality of the article that you write and partly on the popularity of people who pick up on your article. If you write something that’s informative and interesting and gets picked up by a blogger with lots of readers, then you’re onto a winner.

What Types of Link Baiting Are There?

There’s some debate about how best to classify - mostly by continuing the fishing analogy by breaking link baiting techniques down into a series of “hooks”.

But, at a higher level, there are two forms of link baiting - negative link baiting and positive link baiting. With the “negative” and “positive” parts of the link bait done by you when your write your Web content.

If you want to write a negative link baiting piece write something that’s controversial, critical or just down-right provocative content. Content that annoys people but still gets you a link back to your site.

And if you want to write a positive link baiting piece write somethign that shares information, breaks some interesting news or entertains. Content that people like enough to link to.

What’s Best For My Business?

If you do decide to try out a bit of link baiting on your business’ Web site, it’s generally best to stick to positive link baiting.

It’s important to remember that your Web site is a part of your marketing strategy and the impression people have about it’s content helps to form the impression they have about you and your business.

Typically people’s responses to link baiting exactly match the type of link bait. If you write a negative link bait, people respond to it with negativity. If you write a positive link bait, people respond to it with positivity.

WordPress and Link Baiting

Stretching the link baiting/fishing analogy to breaking point, WordPress makes a great “rod” for link baiting.

Other than it being really simple for you to publish your content (dangling your “bait” on your “hook”), WordPress has another built in feature that makes it a great Web publishing tool for link baiters - the trackback.

The trackback is like a fishing “float” dancing on the surface of the water attracting potential catches.

Or more accurately, it’s a calling card letting you know who is linking to your articles and similarly let’s the authors of Web page you link to know you’re linking to them.

So 2 good steps to help get your link bait content noticed is t:

• Link to someone else’s blog (preferably someone in your niche) in your content.
• Turn on trackbacks on you blog.

By default WordPress is configured to “Allow link notifications from other blogs”, that is WordPress allows links from other blogs to show up on your WordPress site.

But WordPress isn’t automatically configured for outbound trackbacks - your fishing floats.

To switch on outbound trackbacks:

1. Log in to your WordPress Admin panel.
2. Click the Settings link.
3. Click the Discussions link.
4. Click the Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article (slows down posting.) check box.
5. Click the Save Changes button.

With this configured, whenever you link to another blog your article’s link with show up (assuming they allow incoming trackbacks on their site).

1. Checking Your Web Hosts Has the WordPress Pre-Requisites Installed
2. Installing WordPress On Your Web Server
3. Creating Your WordPress Theme
4. Uploading Your Theme
5. Adding Links to Your Web site

This time I’ll talk you through installing WordPress on your Web host.

Install WordPress on Your Web Host

WordPress is famous for its 5 minute install and the installation itself is very easy to do - you simply enter the URL of your blog’s homepage. However, there are a couple of things you need to do before you can begin the install:

Create a MySQL Database and a MySQL Database User

WordPress stores all of your blog’s post and page content, along with a few other important bits of information, in a MySQL database which you have to create before installing WordPress.

In addition to needing a place to store its data, WordPress needs to know the credentials of a database user that can read and write to the database.

You should be able to create both the database and user pretty easily through your Web host’s control panel - with just a few clicks and a bit of typing - but if you have any problems with this check out your Web host’s online help for more information about creating MySQL databases and users.

Once you’ve created them note down the name of the database as well as the username and password of the database user you’ve created, you’ll need them later on.

Create a Sub-Folder For the WordPress Files on Web Server

To keep things as uncomplicated on your Web server as possible, I find it best to keep the files used by WordPress separate from the rest of the Web site’s files. The easiest way to do this is by creating a WordPress sub-folder in the Web Root folder. For exmpale:

/public_html/wordpress/

It’s important to keep in mind that the name you give the sub-folder will appear in the URL for your blog. If, as in the example above, you call the sub-folder “wordpress” the URL to your blog home page would look like this:

http://your-web-site-name.com/wordpress/

So it’s best to name the sub-folder something sensible like “our-blog” or “news”.

Download the latest version of WordPress

This one’s an easy step, download the latest version of WordPress from WordPress.org.

When it’s downloaded, unzip the file on your computer.

Edit the wp-config-sample.php File

Once you’ve downloaded the WordPress files you need to edit the wp-config-sample.php file found in the WordPress root folder you’ve just downloaded.

Firstly, you need to change the name of the file from wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php.

The wp-config.php file is used by WordPress to connect to the database you created earlier on - as well as controlling a few other WordPress features.

Open the newly named wp-config.php in your favourite text editor (mine’s Notedpad) and edit the following lines:

define(’DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere’); // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere’); // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere’); // …and password

Replacing putyourdbnamehere with the database name, usernamehere with the database user’s username and yourpasswordhere with the database user’s password that you created earlier on.

Make sure that you keep the single quote mark and that the values enter exactly match those - including any capitalisation - that you created earlier on.

Finally, you need to specify 3 keys that are used to protect information stored in the cookies set by WordPress.

The keys should be reasonable complicated to increase the level of protection so it’s easiest to visit the link given in the wp-config.php file to randomly generate the keys for you. For example, these are the keys generated for me:

define(’AUTH_KEY’, ‘:dr+%/5V4sAUG-gg%aS*v;&xGhd%{YKC^Z7KKGh j>k[.Nf$y7iGKdJ3c*[Kr5Bg');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'TufWOuA _.t>#+hA?^|3RfGTm>@*+S=8\"\'+\"}]<m#+}V)p:Qi?jXLq,<h\\`39m_(’);
define(’LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘S~AACm4h1;T^\”qW3_8Zv!Ji=y|)~5i63JI |Al[(<YS<2V^$T])=8Xh2a:b:}U_E’);

Once you’ve set these, save the changes that you’ve made.

Upload the WordPress Files to Your Server

With the wp-config.php file successfully edited it’s time to upload the WordPress files to your Web server.

You’ll need FTP access to your server for this - which again is something you should be able to grant relatively easily through your Web host’s control panel.

With FTP access granted, upload the files to the WordPress sub-folder you created on your server in the step above using your favourite FTP client (mine is SmartFTP).

Install WordPress

Finally, you’re ready to run the WordPress install!

Open your favourite browser (mine is Firefox) then enter the URL of the blog home page in the Address Bar. For example:

http://your-web-site-name.com/wordpress/

And if you’ve completed all of the previous steps successfully, you’ll see the 1st page in the WordPress Installation Wizard.

Change Your Admin User’s Password

OK, I said the step above was the final one, and WordPress should now be installed on your Web server, but there’s one last thing you should do before going onto part 3 of this guide - change the Admin WordPress user’s password.

As part of the install WordPress creates an Admin user and gives it a randomly generated password.

This password is a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters and special characters making it something you’ll probably never remember. Experience has taught me that there are few things more frustrating then trying to log into WordPress for the second time only to find you can’t remember the password!

So log in to WordPress - using the credentials displayed in the final page of the WordPress Installation Wizard -and change the Admin user’s password to something you will remember.

Installation Summary

This was quite a long post so here’s a quick summary of the main points:

1. Create MySQL database and user - And note down the credentials
2. Create a sub-folder for WordPress files - Remebering the folder name with form part of your blog’s URL.
3. Dowload the latest version of WordPress.
4. Edit the wp-config-sample.php file - Used to connect to your MySQL database and control some WordPress features.
5. Upload WordPress to your server - You’ll need FTP access to your server.
6. Install WordPress - It only takes 5 minutes.
7. Change the Admin WordPress user’s password - Unless you have an amazing memory, you’ll regret it if you don’t change the password.

Next Part

In the next part I talk you through creating your custom WordPress Theme.

Get 7879 Designs To Do It For You

If you want an even easier way to integrate a WordPress blog into your existing Web site, just ask 7879 Designs to do it for you.

Not only are we pretty experienced at integrating WordPress, we really enjoy it too!

It’s never designed, it’s typography is non-existent, it just sits in a narrow column, squeezed by screen clutter, broken up by the occasional image (that never fits the column). Online content is no longer king. It’s be dethroned by usability and findability, by adverts and chicklets.

So I’ve been looking at ways to present online content in a creative and interesting format.

Ways to break out of such a restrictive grid layout and into something that allows designers and publishers more freedom.

And most importantly, ways that put the content back at the heart of a WordPress site.

With this in mind, over the next few weeks I’ll be completing the development of a new “magazine” style WordPress Theme.

The Theme will have some support for multi-column layout (OK, Mozilla, IE6 and IE7 only) and have built in CSS hooks to enable users to quickly and easily change the way content is laid out on screen.

SiFR will be built in to produce more attractive screen typography whilst maintaining flexibility and accessibilty.

The Theme will also support custom style sheet uploads to individual Posts and Pages giving publishers even more control over how Posts and Pages are displayed on screen.

And the Theme will, in addition to a standard blog chronological publishing model, support an “Edition” model of publishing - enabling you to organize Posts into a single edition of your magazine, published when you choose to publish it.

Most importantly, this Theme will be released under the Creative Commons licence for free.

It’s something I’m passionate about and this Theme is something that I’m getting quite excited about so please check back in a few weeks when the Theme will be ready to downlaod.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this site, integrating a WordPress blog into your existing site is a great way to add new, relevant and timely content to your site. And thanks to the flexibility of WordPress Themes you can make the blog look exactly like your existing site.

The good news is that integrating a WordPress blog into your existing Web site is relatively straight forward and can be done in just 5 steps:

1. Checking Your Web Hosts Has the WordPress Pre-Requisites Installed
2. Installing WordPress On Your Web Server
3. Creating Your WordPress Theme
4. Uploading Your Theme
5. Adding Links to Your Web site

Some of these steps are a little more convoluted and time consuming so require a bit more explanation than others - hence, the series of posts - but I really can’t impress enough how easy it really is to integrate a WordPress blog.

In this post, the first part of the series, I’ll cover step one - checking your Web host has the WordPress pre-requisites installed.

Checking Your Web Hosts Has the WordPress Pre-Requisites Installed

Although WordPress is an extremely powerful Web publishing tool it only needs 2 pieces of software to allow it to work. And if you want to run WordPress you need to check that your Web host has these pre-requisites installed on their server.

The chances are your host does have the WordPress pre-requisites installed on their servers - both pieces of software are free to use and extremely popular with Web hosts. In fact, you’ll be hard pushed to find a Web Host that doesn’t have the WordPress pre-reqs installed.

However, the bottom line is: if you’re unlucky enough to be with a Web host that doesn’t have the WordPress pre-requisites installed then you can’t use WordPress. At least you can’t integrate WordPress into your existing site without either changing Web host or hosting your WordPress blog on a different host to your main site.

The easiest way to check if your host meets the pre-reqs, fairly obviously, is on their Web site but if you’re unsure whether your Web host has the pre-requisites installed drop them a quick e-mail (those lovely folks at WordPress have created an e-mail template for you) telling them you want to use WordPress and asking if that’s possible.

Although this is an easy step to complete, and maybe an obvious one too, the time to do it is now - before you go on to do any of the time consuming steps.

Next Part

In the next part of my WordPress Integration How To I’ll be talking you through the process of installing WordPress on your Web server.

Get 7879 Designs To Do It For You

If you want an even easier way to integrate a WordPress blog into your existing Web site, just ask 7879 Designs to do it for you.

Not only are we pretty experienced at integrating WordPress, we really enjoy it too!

But there are some things that you can do to change it to give your site’s a better chance in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

In this post I’ve come up with 3 quick WordPress SEO tips to help your WordPress site in the SERPs. Those tips are:

• Changing your Title tag structure
• Changing your permalink structure
• Writing high quality content.

1. Changing Title Tag Structure

Ah, the Title tag - just a few words near the top of the page - so easily forgotten, so easily overlooked.

But Search Engines love your Title tags and Google gives quite a lot of weight to Title tags when working out it’s SERPs which makes them one of the most important parts of your site’s content.

Google only displays the first 66 characters of your Title tag though so it’s important to get the keywords you’re targeting near the start of the title by changing your Title tag’s structure.

An easy way to customise your Title tags’ structure is with the All in One SEO Pack Plugin.

This Plugin is packed with great SEO features but in particular it lets you change the structure for your Title tags.

In addition to letting you create a Title tag template which every Post and Page will use you can also specify the content at individual Post and Page level.

Giving you a great amount of control over the keywords that feature in your Title tags.

And once you’ve changed the structure of your Title tags, It’s important to remember that the keywords you include in your Title must still relate to the contents of the Page to really wring the SEO value out of them.

2. Permalinks and URL Format

The content of your Page and Post URLs are also used by Search Engines to help determine your position in their SERPs.

By default WordPress URLs are in the following format:

http://example.co.uk/?p=123

Where p=123 is the ID number for the Page or Post that is being displayed.

The Permalink settings in WordPress enable you to change this to something more meaningful, for example:

http://example.com/my-post-example

This not only helps users remember the address of the page more easily, it lets you add targetted keywords to your URLs which in turn helps Search Engines apply a value to the page.

To change the format of your URLs:

1. Log into your WordPress Admin area.
2. Click the Settings tab.
3. Click the Permalinks link.
4. Select whether you want to change your URL format to one of the predefined formats or create a customised format. If the date the post was published is important to the content I recommend using one of the two predefined date formats (”Day and name” or “Month and name”). However, if your content I recommend using as simple a format as possible (typically just using “/%postname%/” to display the name of the Page or Post).
5. Click the Save Changes button.

It’s a change that takes 2 minutes to do but can have a big effect on your SERPs.

3. Content, Content, Content

The final SEO tip is the one that’s hardest to achieve - writing high quality content.

This requires time, effort and a little bit of skill.

But it’s worth investing in writing high quality content because if it’s good enough and people start linking to your content from their site it will have a massive effect on your SERPs.

And, just like anything that requires skill, you’ll find the more you write the better you’ll get.

On top of this one of the beauties of Web publishing is that you can go back and edit everything you’ve written and re-publish. So even if it’s not perfect at the start you can always improve your content.

I’m currently working on a custom WordPress Theme that uses category and sub-category archives extensively to create a document library.

I wanted to add breadcrumb navigation to the site to show the relationships between the categories and sub-categories and to add an extra level of usability to the site.

So here are the few lines of code I’ve written to create the category breadcrumb navigation:

<?php
$category = get_the_category();
$current_cat = $category[0]->cat_ID;
?>
<p class=”breadcrumb”> <a href=”<?php echo get_option(’home’); ?>/”>Home Page</a> &raquo; <?php echo get_category_parents($current_cat, TRUE, ‘ &raquo; ‘); ?> <?php the_title(); ?></p>

Note: This code must be added inside the Loop to ensure it works as intended. I’ve added this to both the archive.php - plus all category specific Template files - and single.php Template files.

Let’s look at the code a little closer.

Getting the Current Post’s Category

The first section looks like this:

<?php
$category = get_the_category();
$current_cat = $category[0]->cat_ID;
?>

This code uses the get_the_category() to get the category ID for the currently displayed category archive or post and passes it to a variable - $current_cat – for use later on when discovering the category hierarchy.

Creating the Hierarchy and Displaying the Breadcrumbs

The next section of code is used to create the hierarchy between the categories and to display the breadcrumb links to the user.

<p class=”breadcrumb”> <a href=”<?php echo get_option(’home’); ?>/”>Home Page</a> &raquo; <?php echo get_category_parents($current_cat, TRUE, ‘ &raquo; ‘); ?> <?php the_title(); ?></p>

The first part of the code:

<a href=”<?php echo get_option(’home’); ?>/”>Home Page</a>

simply adds a link back to the site’s home page.

The clever part of creating the category hierarchy and breadcrumbs is done by the get_category_parents() function. This creates a list of the parents categories of a category.

I’m passing 3 parameters to this function:

• $current_cat: This is the category ID of the current post for which I want to return the parents.
• TRUE: This ensures that each parent category is displayed as a link.
• ‘ &raquo; ‘: This is the character I want to use to separate each category in the breadcrumbs.

The final part of the code looks like this:

<?php the_title(); ?>

If the users on a Post page this displays the title of the Post, otherwise it’s blank.

Pros & Cons

Using this code to display category breadcrumbs is a pretty straight forward way to add extra level of navigation to a WordPress powered site.

However, there are a few draw backs:

1. It’s only category based navigation - If you want to add similar functionality for Pages and Sub-Pages additional code is needed.
2. Posts can belong to only one category - This is a fundamental part of creating a hierarchical breadcrumb navigation: when writing a post it’s essential to only add it to only one category.
3. Categories are always displayed as links followed by the separator character - This is great if you’re viewing a single Post; it’s exactly what you want - a link back up to the parent categories. But when viewing a category archive, it can look a little bit odd.

If you use this code and discover any other issues or any ways to improve it please feel free to add a comment below.

About the Project

This is the WordPress Theme for the parental blog Dad: About The Boy.

Project Role

• Theme Design
• Theme Build
• Identity Creation

Launch Project Site

View Project

It’s been an extremely long time since I last posted anything on 7879 Designs but not because 7879 is the latest in a long line of neglected ideas I’ve had.

In fact it’s been quite the oposite.

I’ve been pretty busy with work over the past few months so much so that I’ve only just got round to upgrading the 7879 Deisgns site to WordPress 2.5.

And as you can see, the good news is that the site is still here. The upgrade was as straight forward as ever without any errors in my pretty simple theme.

I’m slowly getting used to the new admin interface too. I’m still not convinced that all the changes are good ones - why put the Settings, Plugins and Users options all by them selves over on the right? - but I do like the redesign of the Write Post page.

Anyway, hopefully I’ll get around to posting more frequently now I’ve gone to the extreme length of upgrading and keep this site a little more up to date than it has been in the past.

That’s not a promise though.

About the Project

This is the WordPress Theme for The Humphrey Awards the official blog awards for WordCamp UK.

Project Role

• Theme Design
• Theme Build

Launch Project Site

View Project