You can use different customized templates, images and custom pages within your theme. You can use different themes for categories or posts. WordPress themes give you unlimited possibilities for your website or blog. You can go to the WordPress.org themes page and download any of the vast themes for free which have already been checked and inspected to make sure they operate properly.

When setting up a blog using WordPress.org the software, themes and plug-ins are free but you will have to purchase a good web hosting provider. There are many different providers which are reasonable and cost around $10 / £5 per month.

There are a multitude of different WordPress themes to choose from and more are added daily. One thing that is really nice and convenient about using WordPress themes is that a theme can be changed quickly and effortlessly in a matter of minutes. You are not “stuck” with a look that you are not happy with.

The theme categories are endless including simple, professional, or with a certain color scheme. You could think of a WordPress theme as the “foundation” for your site. When you add plug-ins and other features you can “build” your blog or website into whatever you want it to be.

First you should decide what type of image you are looking to present on your weblog and write down the things that you want such as the color scheme, how many columns, headers, sidebars, etc. You can go to the WordPress Themes home page and browse through the hundreds of themes and jot down notes about designs or layouts that you liked.

Another way to see which type of layouts and designs you might like is to do some research on the internet. Do some keyword searches using words associated with the topics you are interested in. This way you can get an idea of what other sites are offering.

Once you have narrowed down your design, go to the WordPress Themes web page and search the themes and pick out 2 or 3 that you think you would be interested in using. WordPress allows you to “test drive” a theme so you can go through the entire site and see if it is the one that fits your needs.

If you are familiar with CSS, and HTML you can customize the themes to fit your own needs. Just keep in mind that this should be only attempted by a person who is experienced in doing this. There are many resources available on the WordPress website. You should be able to find any information you want on designing and creating WordPress themes. You can also get your questions answered by using the WordPress forums. No matter which theme you decide to use you will find that by using WordPress themes you will save yourself time and effort in the long run.

A WordPress plug-in is a program written in PHP language that can add a specific feature or service to your weblog. These can be integrated seamlessly with your blog by using access points and methods provided by the WordPress API. The basic principle behind WordPress is to keep the core of the software relatively simple and to give it flexibility by allowing features to be modified by the use of plug-ins.

WordPress has over twenty seven hundred plug-ins available to date, and they are continually adding more by using feedback, comments and suggestions from users. If you have the technical knowledge you can create your own plug-in and submit it to the WordPress site for approval.

There are many different categories to choose from depending on what type of functionality you are looking for. For posting there is a variety of plug-ins to choose from including; contact forms, SEO optimization, affiliate links and various other ones to make your blog more flexible.

If you like widgets, there are hundreds to choose from for all types of functions. Depending on what features you would like to have on your site; whether it be a multilingual content translator or a guestbook with many features. If you are looking for plug-ins to help you analyze traffic on your blog there are a number of widgets designed for that purpose, including ones that collects information about visitors, spiders and keywords.

You can add so much flexibility to your blog or website and also create a professional looking site with the use of plug-ins. You can customize your site to meet the specific needs of your business and strategically use plug-ins to help in marketing your product or service. There are several plug-ins which makes it easy for your readers to bookmark, share and save your posts along with ones that allow people to subscribe to your blog by using a RSS feeder. There is a plug-in to add a “share this post” button to the end of your posts. All of these make it easier for readers to become return visitors, to create more traffic and to get your blog more recognition.

If you find yourself wanting some type of functionality that isn’t already available you can create a plug-in to fit your needs. If you are familiar with PHP programming and understand the basics functionality of WordPress; creating a plug-in will be relatively simple. There are many resources available to assist you in writing a program for a plug-in. There are step-by- step instructions, how-to articles, forums and a variety of reference materials to help you to create your very own plug-in.

By using plug-ins you can add any type of functionality to your WordPress software and to customize your blog or website to meet your specific marketing needs. WordPress is a all-in-one application that will handle all aspects of running a blog or website.

Domain name
This is one of the most important factors to consider when starting your blog or web site. Here are some ideas to follow when deciding what domain name to use to give you the greatest benefits. Think about and write down the top 5 keywords which are relative to your needs. Now using your keywords as a guide think of a name that is unique but also easy to type and remember. You should try to keep it as short as possible. You want a domain name that is simple and to the point so if possible try to avoid numbers, hyphens or underscores.

Articles
Articles are the key to getting and maintaining higher page ranks and getting more traffic to your site. Make your articles interesting and SEO friendly but don’t go over board with keywords. The use of too many keywords may cause the search engines to classify your article as spam and reject it.

Besides regular daily posts you should use quality articles to increase popularity to your site and to add credibility to your topic. Good quality articles are longer, around 750 words and should include research and contain timeless information as opposed to current or “dated” materials, which will become “old” quickly. Even though writing original and unique articles is more time consuming you may find that your traffic will increase over time.

Post Daily
It is recommended that you should post daily to get the maximum results from your blog and if that is not feasible than you should post at least 5 times per week. By posting daily you are going to reach out to more people and will get more comments to your posts which in turn can mean more visibility and traffic to your site.

Some bloggers suggest that you carry a notebook with you at all times and jot down post ideas or any quotes or anything that may inspire you or give you creative ideas for your posts. Another suggestion is to have surplus content written ahead of time for those times when you get “writer’s block” and nothing comes to mind.

Comment on other peoples blogs
By commenting on other blogs you are getting your opinion and ideas out to a larger audience. This is a great way to network and to know what is going on in your industry or service. When you comment on another person’s blog and provide a link to your blog this means more people with be able to visit your site and comment on your posts.

Not only can this increase your visibility it will allow you to compare your site to theirs and you might find some ideas to try on your own site. By commenting and reading other blogs you will be able to determine what is popular and what is going on in your target market.

Get visitors to comment
If you know what the trends are in the current market for your type of product or service you can provide interesting and original content which will make people want to respond to what you have to say. You can also ask questions in your post which will make it easier for someone to respond to your post.

All-in-one SEO- http://wp.uberdose.com/2007/03/24/all-in-one-seo-pack/
This plug-in will help streamline your SEO on your blogs and give you on-page ranking factors to make sure that you are maximizing your blog or site to reach the highest ranking and to generate more traffic to your blog. This plug-in will automatically optimize your titles for search engines and automatically generates META tags.

Database Backup- http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup/
This plug-in will allow you to create backups of your main WordPress tables and any other tables you want to save in the same database. This is a versatile plug-in to insure that your data will be available in case your site or computer would crash.

Related Posts-http://wasabi.pbwiki.com/Related%20Entries
This plug-in will allow you to output a series of common or related entries or posts based on specifically chosen keywords. With this plug-in you can store specific keywords in a custom field and instead of using the post title the keywords will be used to find related posts.

Share This- http://sharethis.com/publisher?type=wpplugin
This plug-in allows for an easy way for visitors to post your site content to other social networking sites or for them to send a link through an email or from sites such as MySpace or Facebook. This is a simple and effective way to gain more visibility and to increase your visitors and your page ranking.

Subscribe to Comments- http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/
This plug-in allows a person who wants to post a comment on your blog the option of having an email notification sent to them when there are further comments posted on your blog. This is a nice feature to have because it keeps the reader involved; without the person having to keep checking your blog to see if there are additional comments.

WordPress Paginate Plugin-http://www.scriptygoddess.com/archives/2005/01/23/wppaginate-for-wp-15/
This plug-in allows you to group and number your posts which helps in organizing them in categories and topics. This plug-in has the ability to be customized according to your needs and the amount of pages you are working with.

Digg This- http://www.aviransplace.com/index.php/digg-this-wordpress-plugin/
This plug-in will detect incoming links from the website digg.com and will automatically display a link back to the source of the digg post.

Lightbox 2- http://www.4mj.it/lightbox-js-v20-wordpress/
This plug-in is used to make it possible to overlay images on a page by using JavaScript powered pop-ups.

RSS Signature- http://www.smackfoo.com/plugins/sig2feed/
This plug-in allows you to add a custom tag, signature or copyright message to a WordPress generated RSS feed. The only limitation is that the tag, signature or message has to be able to be displayed in a RSS feed.

WordPress.org is an open source blogging software hosting provider that allows a person to set-up their own blogs or websites. One valuable reason to choose WordPress is that is has a multitude of features and add-ons which are at no cost to you. There are paid upgrades available which include your own domain, extra storage and custom CSS. The reason they can provide this service for free is due to the fact that all their revenue comes from upgrades, blog services and Google AdSense banners.

By using WordPress.org you can set up a blog in minutes, which gives you more time to commit to your cause, whether it is personal or for business. When using Wordpress.org the software itself is at no cost but you will need to have a reliable web hosting provider. There are many good reliable web hosting providers available today, you should be able to find one that fits your needs at around $10 per month. This is a very small price to pay for all of the features and capabilities this software has.

The various features and plug-ins available when using WordPress.org will give your site a professional look and feel. There are many themes to choose from when designing your blog and you are able to customize your sidebar using widgets. This software makes it possible for you to categorize and tag your posts which are automatically added to the global tag system. This enables people with the same interests as yours to find your blog which will increase traffic to your site.

Some features which enable you to produce quality looking posts include; rich text editor, spell check, previews, autosave and the ability to add photos and videos to your blogs. There is privacy options which give you control over who has access to your blog. You can choose to either have a public blog or you can create a private blog which can only be access by members only.

If you are going to use WordPress.org for marketing purposes there are several features that you may find useful. This software has an integrated stats system which gives you information on how many people are visiting your blog. It also gives you up-to-the-minute information on which of your posts are the most popular and what specific sites your traffic came from and what keywords terms were used on the search engines. This is a valuable tool to use to determine what people are interested in and what keywords should be used in your SEO content.

Another reason to use WordPress is that they are always improving and updating the features and adding new services. They use the feedback and suggestions from users to help improve their web-hosting software program. If you have any questions about using this program you have several options to find answers to your questions. There are user forums where you can find answers and ideas for your blog. WordPress also has an extensive support team which can be accessed by filling out a feedback or contact form to get expert advice.

No matter if you are a novice to blogging or an experienced blogger you will find that WordPress.org is economical, easy-to use and beneficial as a marketing tool for your blog or website.

The WordPress software is the foundation of your website and the template files are the building blocks which fit together to generate your web pages and website. You can have a blog as part of your website and will be able to write posts which will be automatically reversed in chronological order on your blog’s homepage.

For regular content instead of posts you can use pages such as “Contact”, “About your company” and product description pages just to name a few. With pages you can organize and manage any amount of content. Even though both posts and pages can have both titles and content and use the same theme or templates there are several key differences.

Pages can be organized and you are able to create SubPages. You can also have different page templates that include files, tags and other types of PHP code. However, pages cannot be associated with categories and they are not files. Pages are stored in your database the same as your posts, but do not cycle through your blog’s homepage.

Creating a website using WordPress is easy and can be done quickly. All you will need is hosting, the WordPress software installed and a theme of your choice. Then you can create pages customized for your target market and add any additional sub-pages and plug-ins you desire.

There are many good reliable web hosting providers available today. You should be able to find one that fits your needs at around $10 per month. After you have installed WordPress onto your computer you will then need to decide on a WordPress theme that is designed to fit your needs.

Once you have that installed you can modify the theme if you don’t want the comments and the words “posted by…” on the homepage. This way it will look more like a website rather than a blog. Now you can edit any part of the theme to give it the look you are looking for.

It is always a good idea to make a backup before you start modifying your theme just in case you accidentally do something wrong. There are many ways you can create your website by using pages and SubPages for different products, comments, and any other type of pages such as contact, about us…, etc.

You can use WordPress as a website because of the way that they designed this software it is like a combination CMS and blog software rolled into one. You can do many things without having a lot of technical knowledge. WordPress makes it possible for you to maintain content which can include images and creating categories for your content and also getting the right look for your website by using themes and templates. By using WordPress for your website you can also manage multiple users with different access rights. You have the option of customizing your site with plug-ins which will give you more functionality and easier maintenance overall.

When using WordPress for your website you get the best of both worlds. You get flexible content layouts that are organized by hierarchical menus as in a CMS and you get the various features of blogs including RSS feeds, comments and permalinks.

A RSS feed is basically a simple version of your site which is viewed by a feed reader or they are also known as news aggregators. The feed reader takes the information from the site and translates it into a viewable page showing snippets from recent posts or articles which can be looked at by someone in chronological order.

RSS feeds can be used by WordPress bloggers for getting additional and relevant content for your site. By using the feed reader you can scan many sites in a matter of minutes and decide if any of the content would be useful or informational for your site. You will be saving time and effort and can use your time for posting and gathering content that will appeal to your target market.

More and more people are using RSS feeds to gather information that is important to them. If you are not using feeds you might not be getting as much traffic or visitors to your site. Most people today would rather get their information quickly through feeds than taking the time to search the web for information. People like to have everything right at their fingertips and not waste valuable time search for something and RSS feeds gives viewers real time information.

Some benefits to using feeds to market your blog or site is that more search engines and directories are accepting feed submissions which in turn gives you a larger marketing area. You will be providing new and relevant information which will increase your return visitors.

RSS feeds can cut down on time and money because this can replace emails and newsletters used to tell users of relevant news such as; updates of new content, press releases and up-coming events. Feeds also allow for syndication of material from one site to another.

You can think of RSS feeds as an extension of your blog or website since this is an easy way to create solid SEO content while building up your reputation with current and prospective customers. Since you are able to control what is seen in the feeds you can produced relative and interesting articles to entice readers to visit your site for more information.

There are no limits to the ways you can benefit from using feeds to gather information for your site or by having RSS feeds on your blog or website. If you are in a particular industry or niche market you can use feeds to market, promote and form networks with others in your field. This in turn could lead to new prospects and more traffic and interest in your site.

Building a static Wordpress site is fairly simple now. Just follow these simple steps and you can have a working Wordpress static site in a few hours. All you need to do is add your content and your are ready to go.

First you need to find a nice template that you like. There are many free Wordpress template sites. It is very easy to find Go to Google or any favorite search engine and do a search for” Free Wordpress Templates” or “Free Wordpress Themes”.

Static Wordpress site rarely need the the blog items like calendars or archives etc. A simple solution is to navigate in your Wordpress administration panel to design>widgets. You can then add or subtract the widgets you want and you can make the sidebar look exactly as you like. This way you don’t have to touch any code.

Now for the plugins. I recommend these basic plugins.:

Add the all in one seo plugin.

Add the privacy policy plugin. Optional, but I always have a privacy policy on my sites.

Add a sitemap plugin if you want. This is very good for search engines to find all your content.

Add a Google Sitemap and register it at Google. This is very important and will help you do well in Google.

If you want AdSense or affiliate banners add the ads manager plugin or any of the other Wordpress plugins available. I like and use ads manager. It is very versatile and it can also can be used to easily add other types of banners to a page and control it by the Admin panel. With ad manager you also need the exec php plugin. This is really important this if you are going to hard code includes into the template. I use it to add banners to the sidebar via widgets and the text widget. If you don’t know what this means then you can forget it.

Find the plugins at Wordpress.org or do a Google search for each of the above plugins. If I am looking for some type of plugin I usually do a Google search by “keyword” and then “wordpress plugin.” I always navigate to the authors site for the latest plugin and instructions on how to use the plugin.

Activate the plugins in your Wordpress admin panel. They are located in the plugins link to the right if you are using Wordpress 2.5. Again, I recommend that you read the instructions that are on the individual author plugin sites as to how to use each Wordpress plugin.

Create a page. Label it whatever you like. Scroll down the page writing panel to the “all in one seo” area and add keywords and description to your page. This is the same as adding the keywords and descriptions to the meta content in the head portion of your template.

Scroll down some more to comments and pings and turn off “Allow Comments” so you won’t see a user comment box. I want my site to look like a static site so I don’t need commenting. If you want also un-check Allow Pings. It is up to you. I always un-check both.

At the bottom of the page you will see a “page order” area. If you want to have a certain order to your pages in your category menu then name the page you want on top of the menu 1 then the next page you create 2 etc. You can later change the order of your pages by using this feature. This is good so that maybe a sales page will be on top.

I also tend to use the subcategories Parent - child a lot. As an example, I will make a page called “articles” and then add different article pages as a subcategory to articles. I then add some form of introduction to the main article page and have the other articles easily accessible off the main article page. A nice touch for me is that I like to find a template that has a horizontal menu bar with drop down lists. I think it looks very classy. For me everything is then neat and orderly. But this technique is up to you.

In the Wordpress admin panel go to settings>reading. On top you will see reading settings. Then “front page displays”. In the front page displays check the radio button “A static page (select below)” and then from the front page drop down menu click the page you want to use for your front page. That page I usually title Welcome or I will add a keyword rich title. If you don’t want any title leave blank.

With just these little changes you have the start of a static website with Wordpress. The key is to use pages instead of posts, add keywords and descriptions via the “all in one seo” and your site is a really nice static website. Remember you can control the way the sidebar looks with widgets.

Do not choose templates that make use of the Wordpress tagging feature initially. Some of these templates are called newspaper themes. They are a little harder to do and take a little more to understand. Once you master the basic look then you can branch out and try the tagging features of Wordpress.

You can add to this basic formula to make your site even more user-friendly. Again, the above tips will give you a basic static and great looking website.

About the Author

For more Wordpress tips and tricks and Wordpress tutorials visit the WordPressWebPro.com website. Ken Katz has been installing Wordpress on a daily basis for clients. He loves to discover and learn new tricks and he tries to pass it onto his readers on an ongoing basis. ]]> http://www.brokerthemes.com/building-static-wordpress-websites-fast-and-easy/feed