So what is a WordPress “Theme”?

Posted on July 19, 2010

You’ve probably heard of CMSes and Blogging software and you’ve probably heard that it’s free to download and use on your website. So why does your designer of developer want to charge you for creating a website using WordPress?

WordPress comes with a default “Theme” or “look” that means all the content you create will be displayed in a certain way. If you want to customise the way your WordPress site looks, you need to develop a “Theme” which changes the way the information you enter it is presented to visitors to the site.

At their most basic, a Theme can be just a single .css file. At their most complex they can be a large collection of .css, html, javascript and php code, that working together creates the exact visual appearance you want. Typically you’ll get your web designer to visualise the site for you, then it will be passed to the web developer who will take that collection of pixels and convert them into search engine and user friendly html.

A ‘free’ CMS or blogging system is just a way of you getting your hands on £100,000 worth of developer time for nothing. If you want your website to stand out from the crowd, you’ll need a theme…

Interesting in using WordPress to power your websites, but have very specific design needs? Sweet-Apple creates pixel perfect WordPress themes for small businesses and design agencies in and around Bath, Bristol, Wiltshire and Somerset – why not get in touch?

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Avoiding comment spam in WordPress

Posted on July 16, 2010

By default, WordPress is set to approve comments automatically from people who have previously had a comment approved. Ever wondered why seemingly random people leave comments on your blog saying things like “Hi, I found your blog really interesting”? There are two possibilities.

  1. They are nice people, but don’t have much to say
  2. They are trying to post spam comments on your site

Someone sends you a nice comment; you feel all warm and fuzzy so you approve it – suddenly you get an avalanche of porn comments posted before you can blink.

To avoid this, make sure at the very least you have WordPress configured to email you whenever anyone posts a comment, or better still configure it so an Administrator has to approve every comment.

Comments can be a powerful method of generating content for your site, but can also leave your website damaging your brand – use them with care and respect. If you’re in Bath, Bristol, Wiltshire or Somerset and need advice on WordPress security, please give us a call .

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Gotta a Mac? Like games? Get Steam

Posted on July 13, 2010

Back in the day the only way to get games for the Mac was to phone up MacGold. Then came the internet. And eventually Steam came to the Mac. So if you’ve got kids, a husband or boyfriend moaning about the lack of games for the Mac, you’ll be amazed by Steam. Hundreds of games from £5 – I heartily reccomend World Of Goo…

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Cheap refurb iPod Touch, MacBook Pro 13″ and 21.5″ iMac

Posted on July 11, 2010

Apple have some rather nice deals available at the moment for refurbished kit.  You can find out more about what a refurbished mac is and what warranty it has here.

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How long before Google will see changes to my site?

Posted on July 9, 2010

People often assume that changes they make to their website will instantly be picked up by Google. This isn’t the case. It can take anything up to a few months before Google indexes new content on your site, although this would be an extreme case.

Search engines use “spiders” – automated systems that hop from site to site, following the links they find to discover new content and add that into their databases. Existing sites that are already in their databases will get revisited periodically to check for changes. The frequency that they revisit depends on how often the content on your site changes, how easy it is for them to index that new content, how well ranked your site is and how frequently you have asked them to reindex*.

3 days after switching on my new web site redesign, all the new pages have been indexed. The old pages haven’t however been removed from the index, so it was important to have redirects in place for those old pages to make sure visitors didn’t get “missing” 404 pages.

The lesson in this is that Google aggressively finds content. Anyone that tells you resubmitting your web site frequently to search engines is a good idea is usually just after your money, clueless or both. However, there’s little harm to be done by doing occasionally, so if after a couple of weeks your new content isn’t being found, give it a try. Just don’t pay someone to do it regularly as part of an Search Engine Optimisation plan…

* You can set this via meta tags

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