So you have an XHTML valid website template and you would like to put it on top of WordPress. Whether you are starting from scratch or moving your existing website to WordPress as a CMS, this guide will help you get the conversion done.

Keep in mind that these are the basics and this is not a guide on how to develop themes for public release.

What You Will Need

• An XHTML web template
• A WordPress install
• A text editor (Like Dreamweaver or Notepad++)
• An FTP client (Like Filezilla)

Getting Started

First, let’s set up our theme files.

Prepare your files

For this tutorial we are going to use the minimum number of theme files needed to create a functional WordPress theme. Your existing template files should include the following:

• An HTML Template File
• A CSS Stylesheet
• An images folder

You should rename your HTML Template File to ‘index.php’ and your CSS Stylesheet to ’style.css’. This is important and is how WordPress knows which files are which.

This is an example of what your theme folder should look like

Add WordPress Theme Info (video)

This is where your WordPress Theme gets your theme name, description, author link, etc. All you need to do is create a commented out area at the top of your stylesheet as follows:

/*
Theme Name: Rose
Theme URI: the-theme’s-homepage
Description: a-brief-description
Author: your-name
Author URI: your-URI
Template: use-this-to-define-a-parent-theme–optional
Version: a-number–optional
.
General comments/License Statement if any.
.
*/
CSS Goes here…

Adding Template Tags To Your Theme

Template Tags are bits of code that WordPress uses to populate your website with content. Different tags display different bits of information from the WordPress database. These are the main tags needed to make your WordPress theme work.

Page Title – (video)

Change whatever is within your <title></title> tags to:

<?PHP wp_title(”); ?>

Stylesheet – (video)

We are going to need to swap out the call to our stylesheet with:

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”<?PHP bloginfo(’stylesheet_url’); ?>” type=”text/css” media=”screen” />

Plugin Hooks – (video)

Next you will need to add Action Hook Template Tags so WordPress plugins can access your theme. All you need to do is add:

<?PHP wp_head(); ?>

to your header (Usually write above the closing </head> tag).

Then you should add:

<?PHP wp_footer(); ?>

to your footer (Usually write above your </body> tag).

Media and Script Paths – (video)

By default, your paths will most likely reference your site root. You will need to point all of your multimedia, scripts and stylesheets to your new theme folder within the WordPress file structure using:

<?PHP bloginfo(’template_directory’); ?>

The easiest way to do this is to do a search and replace for ’src=’ and add the appropriate template tags. This is not fool proof as not all template structures are created equal but it will work a majority of the time.

Search and Replace to change paths to WordPress theme paths

Adding The WordPress Loop

The WordPress loop is what handles all of your websites content. Its main components are:

• A header
• A permalink
• Some Content

First you will need to identify where your content starts/repeats (if it repeats). The easiest way to do this is to look for your content’s header and begin The Loop there. The Loop will usually end immediately after your content unless you are displaying extra information below your entries. You will also need to identify where your content begins and ends. Scroll to the end of this section to view some example code.

The Loop Code – (video)

Beginning:

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

End:

<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

Template Tags Within The Loop – (video)

The Title:

<?php the_title(); ?>

The Permalink

<?php the_permalink() ?>

The Content

<?php the_content(’<p>Read more</p>’); ?>

Example Code

So this becomes this.

Navigation – (video)

Most themes will have the navigation within an unordered list. This makes things easy for you. All you need to do is replace the list elements (everything between the <ul></ul> tags) with the following:

<?PHP wp_list_pages(’title_li=&depth=1&sort_column=menu_order&exclude=’); ?>

This is the most basic of menus and wont display child pages. You can exclude pages by simply adding the page ids separated by comas after “exclude=”. Learn more about wp_list_pages().

Upload and Activate Your Theme

Now all you have to do is upload your theme folder which should now consist of:

• An index.php file with custom code
• A CSS file with header information about the theme
• An images folder with all of your images

If all goes accordingly you should have a functional WordPress theme that allows you to add new pages and posts as well as use most popular WordPress plugins. It is important to note that you will not be able to add widgets to your sidebar and people will not be able to comment on posts. There may also be some other limitations due to the themes simplicity.

Feel free to contact me if you would like to learn how to bring your theme to the next level with a sidebar, comments and other interactive elements.

More Resources

• Theme Development
• Stepping Into Templates
• WordPress Theme generator

A couple years ago I would have said it depends. Now it is a necessity.

It doesn’t matter how big your business is or how much money you bring in. If you exist, I want proof of it on Google. I can bring up a business listing and even get reviews within minutes right from my cell phone anytime, anywhere.

We live in an on demand world where everything is a click, flick or a button press away.

But I Can’t Afford a Thousand Dollar Website!

Well me neither.

Luckily I make them for a living. For those not as fortunate feel free to learn more about how I can get you up and running with a customizable website for very short cash. The truth of the matter is, you really don’t need a thousand dollar website. There are tons of free content management systems and thousands of open source plugins on top of that creating endless possibilities for a completely unique, dynamic, out of the box website for your business. It’s not always about the glitz and the glam but about easily providing the information your audience needs.

Your Online Identity Freebies

User moderated reviews and online discussions have become the corner stone of a business’s online identity. These sites dominate the search engines and our mobile phones when searching for information about businesses and therefor should not be overlooked. You should check these sites to see if your business is already listed and add/modify as needed.

• Yelp
• Google Maps
• ZoomInfo

These sites require more attention on your part if you decide to participate. They take time to develop interested audiences but can be well worth it in the long run.

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Don’t Be A Sucker

That basically just means don’t spend thousands of dollars on a crazy flashy website for your corner store boutique. Web developers are a dime a dozen – you can find them at your local college campus, all over Twitter and dominating craigslist. Be careful any way you go about it though. If you think you are getting ripped off, you probably are. Get a couple quotes for the same project and learn the lingo. Don’t go overboard with Internet marketing techniques like social media marketing and SEO. Get yourself a functional up to date website that provides your audience with what they want.

- Photo by Curious Expeditions

I think it’s pretty simple.

Hard Work and Dedication

It’s unfair to just write someone off because they use the word expert in their title. I understand there are a lot of people claiming to be experts and they have ultimately tainted the title, but it’s still a fair title. Chris Brogan even wrote a post awhile ago discussing his criteria for a Social Media Expert and why he removed expert from his title on his “about” page.

What Is An Expert?

Being an expert in anything requires proper guidance and a lot of time. Some research by K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely stated:

“.. even the most gifted performers need a minimum of ten years (or 10,000 hours) of intense training before they win international competitions. In some fields the apprenticeship is longer: It now takes most elite musicians 15 to 25 years of steady practice, on average, before they succeed at the international level.” – The Making of an Expert, p4.

Not just that, you also need to maintain a high level of expertise over time and deliver consistent positive results.

Luck also plays a large role as time and proper instruction cost money. Wealthier families are more likely to invest in their child’s schooling therefor logging their needed practice time early on in their lives.

I also think a large part of being an expert at something requires a certain curiosity and drive that not everyone possesses. Most people give up way before they get close to the number of hours needed to master anything.

So Are All These Social Media Gurus and Web Experts The Real Deal?

Well if you’re going to take the 10,000 hour rule literally, it’s very possible. This field is unique in that most of the true experts and pioneers are all somewhat  accessible via the Internet. This eliminates the luck component of the expert formula by creating access to needed information with little to no cost.

I have been making websites since 1999. Even if i had only spent 6 hours a day on my computer tinkering I would have reached my 10,000 hours within 5 years. Granted, some newer areas of interest haven’t even been around for 10 years, but aren’t these technologies mostly just advancements of existing ones. When the game changes the expert should be on top of their game.

So go ahead and call yourself an expert if you think you’ve put in your time. I wont criticize you, just back it up with excellence.

- Photo by akakumo

So you would like to celebrate Christmas and the holidays on Twitter? Well so do I so I’m putting together this little post to gather my thoughts. Here are some things you can do to help get into the Christmas spirit with your Twitter account.

Decorate Your Twitter Photo

Turn your Twitter Photo into an elf or Santa and even add some snow with Twixenate or add a Santa hat with Twibbon.com ( Other Christmas twibbons).

Change Your Twitter Background

You can always decorate your current background with some snow in Photoshop or use one of these templates:

• Christmas Themes on Twitrounds
• Christmas Themes on Twitter-Backgrounds.net
• Christmas Themes on Twitterbackgrounds.com
• Christmas Themes on TwitBacks
• Christmas Themes on Techie-Buzz.com
• Christmas Themes on snazzyspace.com

Help People In Need

The holidays are a time to give  and help where you can. On Twitter you can join a cause like the #twismas movement to raise money for a child or follow some popular charities on Twitter like:

• Make A Wish Foundation
• The Red Cross
• Charity Water
• UNICEF
• Kiva
• More …

Also be sure to check out TwitCause.

View Christmas Pictures

Using TweetGrid you can see all photos being posted to Twitter about Christmas in one place … and you don’t even have to update the page.

Track and Tweet With Santa

Norad has a special website and a Twitter account dedicated to helping you track Santa on his busiest day of the year. Also be sure to check what I believe to be the real Santa Claus on Twitter. Also, don’t forget to keep up with his blog.

- Photo by Steve took it

I mainly use BackTweets but am always looking for better solutions. I actually switched from TweetMeme to BackTweets once I learned about BackTweet’s advanced functionality and Google Analytics integration. But now I feel it’s time to take a look back and see where the world of Retweet counts, buttons and stats are really at.

Let’s start off with my current favorite. BackType is a conversational search engine that scans the web for comments about your posts not necessarily on your posts. Where their original intent was to connect blog comments from one blog to another, one can see why they eventually got into the Twitter game. Using their existing technology they expanded their offerings to a site called BackTweets which became one of my favorite sites in an instant.

BackTweets keeps a fairly up to date list of all mentions of your blog. You can search for all links back to your blog or for specific posts. The data isn’t much different than Topsy’s and TweetMeme’s, I just feel like it’s the fastest and cleanest, but that’s just my personal opinion.

I think BackTweets really shines with their TweetCount widget which lets you customize everything from the color and source to weather or not you want it to be RT or “via”. Oh, and they automatically add Google Analytic parameters complements of Awe.sm. Doesn’t get much better than that. Thanks BackType!

Now on to the grandfather of Retweet tracking and indexing. TweetMeme is still my favorite Digg style Tweet aggregator for instant notification on hot topics and trends. Their RT button is probably the most used because of the websites popularity and is almost as dynamic as the BackTweet TweetCount button but falls short at color customization and Google Analytics integration. However, to compensate for the lack of GA integration, they have developed their own analytics that can track the viral nature of Retweets as they spread throughout Twitter. While I appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit, I prefer integrated analytics where available and prefer the BackTweets button for this reason.

I had heard of Topsy but never really learned what they are about. Topsy is basically a Twitter search engine that ranks links being shared based on relevance and influence of those sharing the links. They offer a Retweet Count button as well as a list of all tweets linking back to your posts. What really struck me was that they also displayed which shortened URLs were used as well as all tags and authors involved in the process. This could become my new favorite dashboard for viewing Twitter activity around a specific link but it will take a bit more before I switch over to their Retweet button.

Some Things Worth Mentioning

Bit.ly uses BackType’s data to display conversations relevant to your shortened links

TweetMeme has a site very similar to it called Retweet.com however it is pretty much just a ripoff of TweetMeme and TweetMeme seems to work much better

Sometimes, BackType’s data will differ from TweetMeme and Topsy however the BackType TweetCount widget seems to display correct data

Be sure to check out this post from SEOptimise for a nice break down of the Retweet buttons mentioned in this post.

- Photo by Steve took it

Most of the time when talking about RTs, we discuss the best times to post to Twitter and the number of characters you should be using and so on and so forth. But let’s step back a second and talk about how people RT from our blogs.

Do you know how many people are RTing your content from your blog vs on Twitter?

A lot of bloggers don’t even realize that they are potentially preventing their readers from RTing their content by not having functional RT buttons. I see a lot of buttons that do any one of the following:

• Post to Twitter with only an unshortened link (example)
• Post to Twitter with no link and only a title (example)

Both of which a lot of people might just abandon and you’ve lost out on a RT.

And then there are people who get very close but miss in the end by doing one of the following:

• Post to Twitter with an unshortened link and a title (example)
• Post to Twitter with a shortened link and a title with a default source (example)

Why do we all tout the same advice on Twitter about RTs and somehow we don’t take that same advice to our blogs.

Some Things Your RT Button Should Do

Shorten Your Link

URL shortening is important for a few reasons:

• Allows potential for measurement
• Creates more space when RTing

It’s also important to use the right URL shortener. For example I know of people, myself included, who prefer clicking on bitly links over owly links because of the way they go about opening content. I have recently become a huge fan of the URL shortening service Awe.sm because of their Google Analytics integration and ease of use.

Use ReTweetable Titles

Most, if not all, RT buttons will just use the page title as the title to be tweeted. This causes a problem with most blogs as most themes automatically generate a title that usually includes the blog name along with some nifty symbols to separate the name and the title. You eventually end up with something like:

Jon Bishops Blog // This Is My Post // Awesome Blog Stuff http://bit.ly/1JrOCZ

It just doesn’t look all that pretty and at first glance in the public timeline on Twitter could be interpreted as spam.

Give You Credit

If you are using a popular RT button like TweetMeme or BackTypes, be sure to change the default source to your own Twitter name. Wouldn’t you rather see a bunch of RTs with your name in it rather than @tweetmeme or @backtype. This one always surprises me and then I have to go and hunt down the bloggers Twitter name to give the proper credit.

Make It Simple

Don’t create extra steps for your readers willing to share your content. Use buttons that send them straight to Twitter, no middle man. I’ve never been a fan of http://twitthis.com/ for that very reason. It creates an extra step between me and retweeting a post when all I want is a shortened URL to share. I also don’t like allowing 3rd party sites because, well, I don’t trust anyone these days.

Easiest Solutions

I’ve compared a few of these services in further detail in a previous post but the easiest way to make sure you are using the best RT button is to use the TweetMeme Button or BackType’s TweetCount widget. Also be sure to properly configure it so that your title’s make sense and it’s not using the default source.

Click my RT button at the top of this post to see how it’s done ;)

As I submerse myself more and more into the world of Thesis from DIYthemes, I am gaining a huge appreciation for all of the enhancements it provides to the WordPress platform. Furthermore, I have developed a new found appreciation for developers who have taken the time to create WordPress plugins that integrate easily with the Thesis theme.

If you don’t know about Thesis yet, check out my post about why I am such a fan.

The following plugins all make use of the Thesis framework to make their installations extremely painless. Most make use of Thesis additional WordPress hooks to display content in places that were previously inaccessible. I’ve yet to find a solid list of Thesis ready plugins on the Internet so I took the time to put this list together for whoever is curious.

Thesis OpenHook

Thesis OpenHook takes the process of modifying Thesis and simplifies it! I couldn’t properly make a list of Thesis ready WordPress plugins without including the grandfather of them all. This plugin lets you take full advantage of Thesis additional hooks.

Thesis Import/Export

With this plugin, you can download individual data files for Thesis Options, Design Options, and all OpenHook content.

Yoast Breadcrumbs

Automatically add breadcrumbs to your site with no Template tweaks as long as you are running Thesis.

Thesography

The purpose of this plugin is to make displaying EXIF data as convenient as possible, while using as much of WordPress’ native image handling as possible. It can be inserted automatically into the Thesis theme.

Javascript Nofollow Links

This plugin replaces the standard anchor tag for comment author links with a bold tag and adds javascript behavior on the new tag to allow it to be clicked. It contains code for Thesis theme users to remove the redundant link on comment avatars.

PixoPoint Menu Plugin

Adds an SEO friendly, accessible regular or dropdown menu to your WordPress blog. Uses wppagemenu() which is also used by Thesis so no extra steps are needed after installation.

Commentwitter

Gives commenters the option of Tweeting their comments with a link to your post. Uses Thesis hooks to automatically display necessary code below your comment forms.

Visual Recent Posts

This plugin gives the look of a magazine-style website with thumbnails and excerpts in a clean layout. Easily place your Recent Visual Posts by simply inserting your desired Thesis hook on the settings page.

FV Descriptions

Simple plugin which allows you to mass edit the description fields of your choice

Honorable Mentions

These plugins don’t use the Thesis framework like the plugins above however were developed with Thesis in mind at some point during their development process.

• Results Count Remix
• WordPress Menu Creator
• Ajax Edit Comments
• WP Greet Box
• Subscribe to Comments

It’s important to note that most other plugins would work just as well with Thesis than with any other theme. This is only a list of plugins made with Thesis in mind. If you know of any other WordPress plugins that make use of the Thesis framework, please share them below.

Disclaimer: All links to Thesis from this blog are an affiliate link. If you purchase the theme through one of these links I will receive a percentage as commission. This is the first (and probably only) product I would ever endorse for money.

Rather than reinvent the wheel here I’m going to share some articles I both agree with and have found helpful in the past. WordPress is extremely powerful in it’s simplicity but is made more powerful by it’s loyal users. The future of this platform is very exciting as we stretch the possibilities of traditional websites.

First off, we have an excellent article by Devlounge which poses some great questions:

• Things To Consider When Using WordPress as a CMS

Next we have a series of articles from Noupe convering some excellent WordPress as a CMS plugins, techniques and unique uses:

• 101 Techniques for a Powerful CMS using WordPress
• 40 Exceptional “CMS Enabling” WordPress Plugins
• 25 Unique uses of WordPress as CMS

Now WordPress isn’t the perfect CMS solution right out of the box, so NoScope.com discusses it’s shortcomings and some possible improvements:

• 10 Changes To Wordpress That Would Make It A Killer CMS

It would also be nice if you took the time to keep your WordPress CMS somewhat user friendly so we’ll turn to Stylizedweb for that:

• 10 Steps to a Client Friendly Wordpress CMS

And finally, a few lists of plugins that can help you successfully turn your WordPress blog into a fully functional content management system:

• 31 WordPress CMS Plugins via Jon Bishop (me)
• The Autopsy Of WordPress As CMS With 25 Great WP Plugins & Designs via Onextrapixel
• Use WordPress As a CMS: Plugins, The Bare Minimum via Themeshaper
• Top 10 WordPress CMS Plugins via Blueprint Design Studio

WordPress is what you make of it. For some it is a simple blogging platform no different than Tumblr or Blogger. For others it is an all inclusive content management system for their corporate website. Developers continue to recommend WordPress as a CMS because of all the extended functionality contributed by the community as well as it’s raw simplicity.

So I decided to put together a list of plugins that can help you turn WordPress into pretty much whatever you want it to be. All plugins link to the WordPress plugin repository and have been updated within the year. This list differs from previous plugin lists because of it’s depth and thought that went into comprising the list. I was very careful to not just repeat what other blogs have posted and hope you find something new and useful here.

SEO

HeadSpace2 SEO

HeadSpace2 is an all-in-one meta-data manager that allows you to fine-tune the SEO potential of your site. The is by far the best SEO plugin I’ve seen for WordPress. Makes it easy to manage meta data across the entire site or for specific pages/posts.

Redirection

Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have. This is particularly useful if you are migrating pages from an old website, or are changing the directory of your WordPress installation.

Image Editing

Scissors

This plugin adds cropping, resizing, and rotating functionality to Wordpress’ image upload and management dialogs. Scissors also allows automatic resizing of images when they are uploaded and supports automatic and manual watermarking of images.

Contact Forms

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.

MM-Forms

MM- Forms is the easiest form builder I’ve come across in the WordPress Plugin directory. It’s simplicity is no testament to how powerful it actually is which makes it the perfect add-on for any WordPress blog.

Search

Relevanssi

Relevanssi replaces the basic WordPress search with a partial-match search that sorts the results based on relevance. It is a partial match search, so if user inputs several search terms, the search will find all documents that match even one term, ranking highest those documents that match all search terms.

Search Everything

Search Everything expands WordPress’s built in search functionality to also include tags, categories, revisions, images, attachments and more.

Admin Enhancements

Custom Admin Branding

The Custom Admin Branding Plugin allows you to re-brand the Wordpress login screen, the admin header and footer with your own custom images.

MailPress

With this plugin you will be able to send beautiful and styled html and plain text mails based on dedicated themes and templates for any e-mail notification issued.

WP e-Commerce

The WP e-Commerce shopping cart plugin for WordPress is an elegant easy to use fully featured shopping cart application suitable for selling your products, services, and or fees online.

Events Calendar

Events-Calendar is a versatile replacement for the original calendar included with WordPress adding many useful functions to keep track of your events. The plugin has an easy to use admin section that displays a big readable calendar and lets you add and delete events.

Magic Fields

Magic Fields allows you to create new “write fields” as the author calls them. This basically means you can create additional types of content like pages, posts and links.

WP-CMS

WP-CMS is a plugin for Wordpress that changes the functionality of the Wordpress admin backend to act more like a CMS. The blog functionality becomes optional and the focus is on writing pages to make Wordpress as user friendly for you and your clients as possible.

WordPress Admin Quick Menu

This simple WordPress plugin allows users to add quick menu items to the WordPress sidebar. It’s designed to help webmasters have easy access to external pages such as Analytics and shopping carts in their WordPress admin panel.

User Management

Role Scoper

Role Scoper is a comprehensive access control solution, giving you CMS-like control of reading and editing permissions. Assign restrictions and roles to specific pages, posts or categories.

User Access Manager

With the “User Access Manager”-plugin you can manage the access to your posts, pages and files. You only create a user group, put registered users to this and set up the rights for this group. From now on the post/page is only accessible and writable for the specified group. This plugin is useful if you need a member area or a private section at your blog or you want that other people can write at your blog but not everywhere.

Content Enhancements

TinyMCE Advanced

This plugin adds 15 plugins to TinyMCE: Advanced hr, Advanced Image, Advanced Link, Context Menu, Emotions (Smilies), Date and Time, IESpell, Layer, Nonbreaking, Print, Search and Replace, Style, Table, Visual Characters and XHTML Extras

WP-CMS Post Control

WP-CMS Post Control builds upon the new controls in WordPress 2.7 to give you complete control over your write options. It not only allows you to hides unwanted items like custom fields, trackbacks, revisions etc. but also gives you a whole lot more control over how WordPress deals with creating content! This helps you use WordPress more like a CMS, alowing you to totally customise what your authors see and us

More Fields

More Fields is a WordPress plugin that adds boxes to the Write/Edit page. These boxes contains input fields, so that additional (more) fields can be added to a post. For example, if you write about books, you can add a box where you can enter title and author, etc. The boxes can be placed either to the right or to the left on the Write/Edit page.

Side Content

Side Content enables you to define a set of widgets which are effectively placeholders. Each one is empty until you assign content to it when editing a page. This enables you to extend the content of the page into the sidebar

Page Blocks

The Page Blocks plugin extends your WordPress pages by combining the dynamic content of widgets with the static content of pages. Up to four “blocks” can be added to each page (two above and two below the page’s content), and widgets can be added to each block in the same way they are added to sidebars

Page/Post Management

My Page Order

My Page Order allows you to set the order of pages through a drag and drop interface.

Dashboard Pages

Rather than have a majority of the dashboard widgets focused on new blog posts and comments it puts the sites page listing front and center in the dashboard for easier and quicker content management.

pageMash

Customise the order your pages are listed in and manage the parent structure with this simple ajax drag-and-drop administrative interface with an option to toggle the page to be hidden from output. Great tool to quickly re-arrange your page menus.

Navigation

Wordpress Navigation List Plugin NAVT

The plugin gives you the ability to create unique site navigation from your pages, categories and users using a Drag ‘n Drop Interface; arrange the items within a group in any arbitrary order. Navigation groups may be composed of any combination of pages, categories, Authors, (Editors, Contributors, Subscribers), internal/external links and list dividers.

Multi-level Navigation Plugin

Adds an SEO friendly, accessible dropdown/flyout/slider menu to your WordPress blog

Core Enhancements

WP Super Cache

This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

Assorted CMS Solutions

WPML Multilingual CMS

WPML makes it possible to turn WordPress blogs multilingual in a few minutes with no knowledge of PHP or WordPress. Its advanced features allow professional web developers to build full multilingual websites.

Pods CMS

Pods is a CMS framework that lets you create, manage, and display your own content types. Don’t bother hacking blog posts into becoming something they’re not. With Pods, create entirely new data structures with only the fields you need. Like Drupal CCK, you can set up relationships, allowing for a whole new level of interconnectedness.

Flutter

Flutter is a feature rich WordPress CMS plugin that focuses on easy templating for the developer and simplifies content management for the admin by creating custom write panels that can be fully customized (radio buttons, file uploads, image uploads, checkboxes, etc).

Ryans Simple CMS

Converts your WordPress admin panel into a simple CMS. This is aimed at web designers who want to provide a simple administration panel for their clients to update basic static websites.

Ever stop to think about who is reading your blog? No one knows your readers better than you, so what are you doing about it?

Your blog should really evolve right along side you. A few things to consider as you learn more about your readers are:

• Is it easy for readers to contact you? Can you make it easier?
• Is it easy for readers to find you on other networks, like on Twitter?
• Is it easy for you readers to find some of your more popular articles?
• Do you offer anything worth promoting to your sidebar or home page?
• Are people using your search and are they finding what they’re looking for?
• Can people easily subscribe to your RSS feed?

Keeping your content fresh can go beyond just posting regularly. Keeping your blog fresh as a whole is an easy way to keep people interested. Just remember not to go overboard.

How Have I Put This Into Action?

First of all I acknowledged the fact that certain posts perform better on some days than others due to trending topics on Twitter and in social media. So I added a ‘Popular Posts’ section in my sidebar that shows the most popular posts over the past 2 days. This is just an easy way to take advantage of the spikes of traffic I get from social media by taking full advantage of a topics popularity within a time frame.

I also added buttons that link directly to the WordPress plugins I created from the sidebar because I recognize that this is one of the main reasons people visit my site and I want an easy way for them to find what they’re looking for.

Speaking of my plugins, my Socialize plugin allows me to selectively add social bookmarking buttons to my posts. After awhile it’s pretty easy to see which button are being used more than others and with my plugin I can easily go in and remove unneeded buttons. This is just to increase the overall user experience as well as to encourage more shares on the services that are already doing well.

And finally, I use the feedback of my readers through comments and on Twitter to come up with new topic ideas. It’s probably my main source of inspiration aside from my spontaneous brain bursts.

How Can You Put This Into Action?

Ask you readers! Seriously. If you can’t figure out what needs to be done through previous interactions with your reader base why not formulate a post asking for ideas and direction. Don’t just let your blog become a place to spill your thoughts, let your readers milk your brain for all it’s worth … maybe that’s where the gold is.

- Photo by Diogo Martins.

Awhile back I decided to start posting videos on my blog. Once I had a few videos up I began to rethink my approach. Ultimately I wanted to prevent videos from showing up where normal posts are displayed and instead display my most recent video in the sidebar.

To do this, I would need to:

• Suppress all video posts from being displayed with other posts
• Create an archive of all video posts
• Resize and place my most recent video in the sidebar

The first step was pretty easy. I just created a new category called “Video Post” and assigned it to all of my video posts. This would become a fairly intuitive list of videos people could access at their will.

Next I wanted to remove all video posts from being displayed among other posts on the home page. However, I still wanted my videos to be displayed in RSS feeds as well as archives and search pages. To do this, I just modified the default WordPress query used to pull the most recent posts by placing the following code before “The Loop”.

Be sure to change ‘-66′ to the id of whatever category you are trying to hide. How do I find the category IDs?

Also, if you are not sure where the WordPress Loop begins, it is usually located inside of index.php in your theme folder and starts with:

The last step is to display my most recent video in the sidebar. To do this I decided my best course of action was to save the embed code of my videos into a custom field as well as within the content of the post. This would allow me to easily pull the embed code and I would still be able to add text along with my video within the content.

In the example below I used the custom field ‘embed’ in my posts. Just paste this code in your sidebar where you would like your video to be displayed.

You will notice I also included a link to my last video however you can remove this or replace it with a link to your video archive. This code should work with most video embed codes. Be sure to change the width and height so everything fits nicely into your sidebar.

And that’s it. Now all you need to do when adding a new video post is:

1. Assign the post to your video category
2. Paste your embed code into the content and your ‘embed’ custom field
3. And Publish Your Post!

Facebook seems to be the king of social media for college students. One could easily argue that the demographics of the service support this. So why should they also care about Twitter?

Twitter and Facebook seem to fit the mold of Private vs Public. Facebook is a great means of keeping up with friends and family while sharing links, photos and seemingly random thoughts. The hump most new Twitterers (aka Tweeps) have to get over is

Why should I care about the seemingly random thoughts of complete strangers?

To me, its the same reason why you would go out to a bar over staying home with friends … you are interested in meeting new people. Twitter is one of the fastest growing social media sites out there and is the best medium for conversing with new like minded individuals. This mentality coincides with one of Twitter’s most useful functions. Tapping into the buzz of things that interest us. Twitter’s search capabilities in collaboration with it’s complete simplicity make it the perfect platform for crowd sourcing thoughts, ideas, questions and answers.

For example: If one were interested in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) they could follow the most popular MMA tweeps or even the MMA tweeps with the most interesting things to say. You could also set up a Twitter search for all mentions of MMA so you can jump in on the discussions and get the latest MMA news in REAL TIME.

You see, it’s not about the random thoughts of others but the thoughts of others that are relevant to you.

So what kinds of things should you be Tweeting?

That is completely up to you but the best way to learn is to watch others you enjoy reading. The most resourceful way to use Twitter is to reply and communicate with others. Some people like to use Twitter to show off their own accomplishments (like the completion of a new blog post or the creation of a new piece of art). Others use Twitter to support their business by proving their expertise through helping others in need. I myself use it mostly to talk with others I’ve met through Twitter … simple enough. Here is a list of 25 Twitter tips for college students.

Twitter is whatever you make of it and can be extremely powerful despite its apparent simplicity. The best way to learn about it is to just dive in. It’s always nice to know someone too, so feel free to reach out to me (@jondbishop ) and I’ll do my best to guide you in the right direction to be sure you get the most out of it.

- Photo by tanakawho

We tread the line between opinion and judgment a lot in social media. Some are quick to call out others as being “too judgmental” when their own beliefs or opinions are being challenged. There’s no point in getting all bent out of shape over something as seemingly mundane as text on a screen, especially when we are putting our thoughts out there to be judged in the first place. Yet there is still some question as to how one should present themselves in a way that is both unaggressive and adds to the conversation.

The only difference between a judgment and an opinion is the existence of evidence to support an opinion therefore making it final or absolute. There is nothing wrong with a judgment of this type, however, the problem arises when we judge others in an aggressive tone.

Opinion: You might get more readers if you improved on the quality of your writing.
Judgement: You are not getting a lot of readers because of the quality of your writing.
Aggressive Judgement: Your content sucks so you are not getting any readers.

Opinions usually leave room for error in your thought process therefore leaving the recipient a little more at ease. Sometimes it’s as easy as adding words like might, i think, probably, maybe, etc. It seems kind of silly, but in a space where it’s so hard to express tone, it’s important to express these emotions through words.

So, in my opinion, the line between opinion and judgment is when we use an aggressive, absolute tone while expressing one’s thoughts. I personally don’t have a problem with judgments because I can see them for what they are … opinions expressed as facts. For the rest of the world, accept the fact that you might not know everything and leave some room for doubt. Doubt is ultimately what pushes us to explore further into our minds, and is there anything wrong with that?

- Photo by ★ spunkinator

There are 3 main reasons I love Thesis and why I use it for my blog;

• SEO
• Awesome Layout
• It’s constantly being optimized

I guess what originally hooked me was the fact that most of the blogs I was reading by professionals within my industry were already on the Thesis theme. You’ve got Chris Brogan (who wrote about it here), Darren Rowse (who wrote about it here), Brian Clark (who wrote about i here), Matt Cutts and more.

So now a little about what makes it so great.

Matt Cutts recently spoke at WordCamp San Francisco 2009 where he discussed WordPress’s ability to satisfy 90% of your websites SEO. WordPress itself takes care of the obvious things like pretty URLs, syndication, interlinking pages, hiding duplicate content, etc. However, one thing WordPress does not control is the layout of the theme you are using. This is where Thesis comes in and satisfies several immediate needs:

• Cleanly laid out HTML for easy indexing by search engines
• Extra fields that allow editing of header meta on a page to page basis
• Clean, easy to read typography

But if everyone had the same theme, wouldn’t that get kind of dull?

Sure, if everyone was using the same settings. Thesis comes with two new settings pages under the appearance tab of your admin panel. You can move sidebars around, change major content area, and control all your fonts across the entire site.

Now while every other theme out there may eventually become outdated, I know I’m safe with Thesis because they are consistently releasing new versions. Their unique method for customizing the theme allows for easy upgrades and a lot more control. They have even added several new wordpress hooks that developers have already begun integrating into their plugins for easy one-step setup.

But I like it for the cutting edge look and feel

This was probably the culprit for the themes instant appeal in my eyes. Out of the box, the home page of the theme allows you to display excerpts in a slick boxlike fashion. You also get a dynamic content area in your sidebar that you can change on a post to post basis, great for promoting services relevant to the content your readers are viewing. Finally, they’ve added options to your posts and pages that allow you to display images in your posts that are automatically resized for the excerpts on the home page.

I’ve never promoted a product on my blog because I feel money can dilute an honest review by making it slightly more biased in any one direction. However, with Thesis I will make an exception. Ever since I’ve started using it I’ve been able to focus a lot more on content creation and less about SEO and blog maintenance. I very much look forward to future releases and hope you can too.

Disclaimer: All links to Thesis from this blog are an affiliate link. If you purchase the theme through one of these links I will receive a percentage as commission. This is the first (and probably only) product I would ever endorse for money.

One of my posts about Facebook privacy was featured on Brazen Careerist and I think it brought forth some interesting discussion. There are those among us who believe my generation is a little out of hand with their Facebook usage. That our party pics and crazy wall post antics could prevent us from getting choice jobs in the future or even affect our status with our current employers. We even hear horror stories of people losing jobs over Facebook and private events being made public. But are these problems directly related to Facebook or could they have been avoided altogether? Yes I do think we should be aware of the content we are making public however I think it is becoming less of a problem than it was in the past.

First you need to look at the status of you work/life balance. Do you live to work or do you work to live. Furthermore are you happy with your life and with your job. Now would you be happy at a job that monitored your Facebook profile for proof that you were on the straight and narrow. I personally would not. I also don’t believe that the way I present myself in a social environment should have any bearing on my professional capabilities.

I think Saad Handoo summed it up quite nicely in a comment to my post on Brazen Careerist. He says:

Are we to assume that our managers cant disassociate our personal lives from the professionalism we keep in the workplace? Any rational being knows that the behavior you put on at a house party will be dramatically different from that of a work setting.

He goes on in a reply saying that, in the near future, Gen-Y will be the ones making the hiring decisions and future generations might have less to worry about.

Something Rebecca Thorman points out in one of her own video posts is that Facebook and other social media sites are a great place to look back and see how you’ve evolved throughout the years. This is one of the main reasons I keep my Facebook the way it is. It’s my ultimate journal of the last 5 years of my life that I am willing, and excited, to share with the rest of the world. Yes I am drinking in some of the pictures and yes some of the conversations are a little out of whack, but it’s part of who I am because it’s part of who I was.

Finally, I want to share a post with you from earlier last year by David Eaves that provides a little more insight on how Gen-Y approaches Facebook based on their history with the platform. We are very aware of who is looking at what we are posting and we might not care us much as you think we should.

It seems like a majority of Gen-Y still doesn’t understand how to maintain their public image. Just because you’ve created a LinkedIn account for your boss to check out, does not mean he’s going to overlook your party pics on Facebook. We’re smarter than this.

So what am I getting at? Well, some people say you should remove all the party pics and immature comments from your social media profiles but I think that’s a bit much. I joined Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family first and foremost. I don’t want to ruin a perfectly good channel for immature communications when I want it.

So learn to control it!

Look into setting up groups and privacy settings so that only the people you want can see the information you want them to see. Think twice about the most appropriate place to complain about how you lost your phone in a toilet last night … then be sure only the right people will see the photos leading up to you losing your phone.

There is no reason why you cant have a normal social life and use Facebook like you did back in college while at the same time maintaining a clean public image. The lines are slowly blurring between personal and business relations but it’s up to you to make sure that line still exists to some degree.

It’s your life, take control.

- Photo by rpongsaj

You can save me 200 bucks? Prove it.

You can design awesome WordPress themes? Where’s your portfolio?

You know a lot about social media? Who have you helped?

It’s not about what you say you can do, it’s about doing it. Stop saying you can help people with their problems and start helping them. There are people begging for WordPress help on Twitter right now, why don’t you track them down and lend them a hand Mr WordPress expert. Social Media is not about broadcasting your capabilities but rather an excellent platform for displaying them.

There are tons of people creating real relationships in social media because they are communicating. They help and recommend each other. You need to create some sort or tangible social proof. The problem is numbers are a a dying (dead) form of social proof. Your Twitter followers and blog subscriber numbers can both be manipulated. That leaves your actions and thoughts, and the more conversation the better.

So put up a portfolio that proves your artistic capabilities. Reach out to others regularly to both learn and educate. Interaction and communication is your key to developing tangible social proof.

- Photo by Aidan Jones

ReTweet buttons have taken social media by storm and are an easy way to encourage the sharing of your content on Twitter. There are dozens of solutions similar to the 3 buttons listed below, but these seem to be the most promising and include a “Tweet Count” on the buttons themselves.

I’m often surprised at how many great blogs aren’t using these buttons yet when it seems like a no-brainer. The only reason I could see not having one of these buttons on your site is if you don’t want social proof of your blogs failure. In other words, you don’t want the rest of the world seeing how many people are not sharing your posts. But then again, if that’s the case, maybe adding one of these buttons to your site is the first step to getting a solid new following.

TweetMeme retweet button

TweetMeme’s retweet button wasn’t the first of it’s kind, but it definitely sparked the trend that eventually led to this post. This button is probably the most recognizable throughout the blogosphere because of it’s unparalleled support and cutting edge website. Past attempts at aggregating retweets into a “Digg style” website fell short due to shortcomings in functionality and bandwidth.

My only quarrel with the TweetMeme button was the fact that it automatically added “RT @tweetmeme” to your tweet unless you had some sort of high level clearance to get it customized. However, it seems they have fixed this and you can now customize it, as you should be able to. This was an especially smart move considering the launch of BackType’s retweet widget that allowed you to customize itself to your heart’s content.

Backtype Tweetcount Widget

This is the retweet button I am currently using because, at the time, TweetMeme wasn’t allowing me to customize my tweets. The main difference between BackType’s widget and TweetMeme’s is that BackType counts all Tweets pointing to a post where TweetMeme only counts each tweet once. You can also change the color of the widget to match your website’s theme. I’ll probably stick with this one for awhile.

Real Retweet Button

This guy popped up just the other day. Besides being a TweetMeme ripoff … well it’s a TweetMeme ripoff. The only reason I would even consider using this button is if I wanted to try something different.

So which RT button do you use?