NOT a Guru!
Keeping it simple, without the hype. PC tips and Internet advice for mom and pop businesses.
Keeping it simple, without the hype. PC tips and Internet advice for mom and pop businesses.
In yesterday’s post, we installed a template. Today, we’re going to change it around a bit.
These are general instructions. Depending on what you decide to do, you might need some html and css knowledge. To get some general information on HTML, be sure to sign up for the Newbie Tutorial Giveaway and get the HTML Guide that I wrote about here. This offer expires on January 31, 2009, so don’t delay in signing up. It’s free.
Here is what Laura’s blog template looked like as of yesterday.
Changing the Blog Title.
One of the things we’re going to want to fix is the titles, which are scrolling across an image called “YOUR AD HERE.” If you have an easy-to-change template, the solution could be very simple. All you would need to do is to shorten the title of your blog. To do so, log in to your wp-admin area and click the settings link that you will see in the left column.
When you click settings, you are immediately taken to the general settings page. As you can see, the blog title is the first line.
In the screen shot below, I made the title much shorter. We’ll take a look at the result later. For the less complicated templates, this will usually fix any weird title wraps. To get easy to configure blog templates, I highly recommend that you download the free “gold” templates at Themes Preview.
While you are at the general settings page, you might as well go through and make any other changes that you want. I do not recommend that you allow people to register. If you do, they can make posts directly onto your blog. You’ll have a gaggle of spammers, guaranteed.
Be sure to save the changes; otherwise, your general settings will revert back to what they were.
How to Change Your Blog Template’s Universal Appearance: The Stylesheet.
In the blog example that we’re using, I don’t want the 468 x 60 ad (referred to as YOUR AD HERE above) to show on the blog. To get rid of it, I will need to edit the template itself. To edit your templates, go to the “Editor” function under the Appearance menu that you’ll see in the left hand column of your dashboard.
At this stage, you need to know something about html and css. The first thing that shows is the CSS style sheet, which is basically a “universal” code that will make each page in the blog appear a certain way. Sometimes ads will show in the header, sometimes in the sidebar and, in this case, in the stylesheet. I’ve highlighted where it appears in the screen shot below.
I’ve simply deleted the “topad” so it will not show up in the blog. To make any template editing changes work, scroll down to the bottom of your editor page and you’ll see a “save changes” button. If you did not adjust the permissions yesterday, you’ll get a warning that you need to make your file writable in order to save changes. See yesterday’s post about CHMOD.
You can make many other changes in the stylesheet, such as:
- Font sizes;
- Font colors;
- Linking behavior;
- Background colors;
- Anything else you see.
If you screw up, don’t worry. Just FTP the original version back into your site.
My changes went through, and here is a snapshot of what the blog looks like after the fact. You’ll notice that the banner is gone and the blog title has changed.
A Quick Look at Template Images.
In its raw form, the blog template that we are using has some side ads that are 125 x 120 pixels. If you have images on your template that you want to change, you can see where they are on your server by right clicking on the image and then selecting properties. You’ll be able to see the name of the image file, its location and so forth. You could then create new replacement images by making them the exact dimensions as the original (for instance, 125 x 120 pixels), naming them exactly what the original images are called, and then FTP-ing them to the exact location where the original image was located. Most of the time, the images will be stored in an image subfolder within your template file.
How to Change Your Blog Template’s Universal Appearance: The Sidebar.
The sidebar also contains information that you can change. In the example below, I highlighted some configurable text that came with the blog template. If I wanted to keep this component in the blog, all I would need to do is edit that text that is shown so that is said what I wanted.
As with the other template files (i.e., Stylesheet), click the “save changes” at the bottom of the screen so that your template will be modified. This is not shown on the screen shot.
Working with Widgets for Quick & Easy Sidebar Modifications.
Widgets make blog modifications super easy. Under the Appearance menu (discussed above), you’ll see a Widgets link. When you click that, you can see all sorts of widgets that you can easily add to your sidebar (there might be more than one sidebar, depending on the template that you use).
All you need to do is click “Add” and the widget will automatically appear in your sidebar after you save the changes. Initially, you will see them in the right hand side of your widget screen. Please take note of the following:
- Adding a widget might override code that is already in your sidebar. For instance, if a search box or a special welcome note was in the sidebar.php file, any widgets that you add might “erase it.” You might need to go back into your editor and change the sidebar.
- For maximum search engine traffic, add the tag cloud. I have found that this makes a huge difference in search engine results.
Once you have added the widgets that you want, you will see on the right hand side of your screen a widget list that looks like the image below.
You can easily re-order your widgets by dragging them with your mouse. So if you wanted “Categories’ on top, for example, all you would need to do is drag the categories button to the top. Click “Save Changes” and you’re done.
Your “Text” widgets can contain advertising codes, blurbs that you write, or whatever. Click “edit,” fill in your text title and information, and then click done. After that, you’ll need to click the “Save Changes” button for your text coding to take effect.
How to Change Your Blog Template’s Universal Appearance: The Header.
Going back into your “editor function,” the header is generally something that you will want to change. In many blog templates, there is an image that appears in the header that you may want to modify. In this example, the only thing that I am going to be changing are the links that appear on the top of the page. I’ve highlighted the basic code so you can see what will eventually be modified.
How to Change Your Blog Template’s Universal Appearance: The Footer.
Depending on the template that you download, there might be information in the footer that you want to change. In the case of Laura’s blog, I’ve added in a general disclaimer about medical and health claims because of the nature of her content. You can see this in the image below.
When it comes to footers, never remove the blog template author’s links. I’ve highlighted them in the screen shot so you know what I am talking about. This will violate the terms of service if you have downloaded a free template. On top of that, it’s just downright selfish. People who’ve spent a lot of time creating a gift for you should have their acknowledgments.
Conclusion.
What I discussed above is the basic knowledge that you’ll need to make general changes to your Wordpress templates. In the example blog, I’ve made quite a few other changes that would take pages and pages of discussion and coding tutorials. When you’re starting out, I suggest that you get “easy” templates and just make the basic changes, such as images and adding in widgets.
Here’s what Laura’s blog now looks like, with all the changes.
~~~ Quick Navigation ~~~
Yesterday: How to Install a Wordpress Theme Template.
Tomorrow: How to Write and Publish A Basic Blog Post.
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