I've recently been doing some behind-the-scenes work on The Beatles Bible, specifically attempting to reduce the number of plugins I was using. Too many plugins can slow down page load time, particularly if they come with a load of unnecessary code. Continue reading
Category Archives: wordpress
Adding Amazon ads for different countries
UPDATE, July 2011: I'm now using the WordPress-Amazon-Associate plugin, so much of what's written below is no longer relevant. WPAA seems to do almost everything in one easy-to-use plugin, so give it a go if you're interested.
Some time ago I started looking into ways to add Amazon products to help monetise a WordPress site. My major requirement was to automatically set my affiliate IDs for a range of different Amazon stores, with products appearing depending on a user's worldwide IP location.
I was working on a site with a potentially global reach (aren't they all?), and didn't want to limit the potential by pushing people towards just one Amazon store. Here's how I did it. Continue reading
Adding h1 tags to your WP theme’s page headers
I recently coded my own theme for The Beatles Bible, which I documented elsewhere. However, earlier today I was doing a bit of reading on search engine optimisation, and learnt that many WordPress themes have the same h1 tag across the entire site - commonly linked to the site's name in the header.
I hadn't realised, but my theme was the same - the result of following a how-to guide I'd found on the web. Here's some information on how to make it work more efficiently and get that web traffic coming in better. Continue reading
Writing a WordPress theme from scratch
I recently completed a relaunch of The Beatles Bible - putting together a theme from scratch and styling the css myself, and I thought I'd write a brief update on my findings. Continue reading
Enabling Dreamhost site stats in WordPress
If you have a Dreamhost account and host your WordPress site with them, you may not be able to see your site stats by DH's standard www.yourname.com/stats url. Here's a little guide to getting them to work, as it's not immediately obvious without a bit of digging around. Continue reading
Ten WordPress plugins I cannot live without
One of the best things about WordPress, like Firefox, is that there are developers all around the world making plugins to increase its functionality. As with Firefox, some are good, others less so.
What your site needs depends on your particular requirements - if you have no interest in podcasting, for example, you won't need me to recommend you a plugin for it (although for some reason WP comes bundled with one anyway).
These are the plugins I install every time I launch a new site, no matter what its remit or scope. They help with security, troubleshooting, speed and SEO, and should take about half an hour to get up and running. In no particular order, they are: Continue reading
Why WordPress curly quotes are bad for your site’s health
The correct term for these is 'smart quotes'. Which is odd, as there's not a great deal that's smart about them. Continue reading