If you really want to improve SEO on your WordPress site (as opposed to wanting a quick fix), here are a few tips:

• Choose a theme that uses H1 or H2 headings for your post titles and provides unique meta-titles for every page or post (displayed in the top left of most web browsers).
• Turn off all CSS in your browser. Or try browsing through your site with a text-only browser. That should give you some impression of how a search engine bot “sees” your site.
• Imagine you’re reading a post/page out to someone over the phone. Does it all make sense or would you have to add extra explanations? if it’s the latter, your content needs some attention.
• Use headings properly and in order. For example, an H3 heading should follow an H2. Headings aren’t just for big, bold, text. Used correctly, they give your pages structure – an important factor in search engine indexing. When abused, they turn your pages into an illogical, jumbled, mess.
• Provide keyword-rich link text that makes sense when taken out of context. Phrases like “click here” make no sense and waste a significant opportunity for improved SEO.
• Ensure that image links have concise and descriptive alternative texts. Don’t assume that every visitor to your site can see your images. Googlebot can’t…
• Employ front-loading copywriting techniques by starting each page/post with a short keyword-rich summary of what the rest of the post/page is about.
• Use reciprocal link swaps to generate good quality, incoming, links.

Good SEO takes time, care and patience.

The Benefits

Conditional comments can be used to serve additional, version-specific, CSS to IE browsers — allowing you to deal with inconsistent displays in earlier IE versions in a way that doesn’t impact on the display in the better browsers.

Unlike CSS hacks, conditional comments won’t “bite back” every time a new version of IE is released. And they also offer version-targetting that is extremely difficult to achieve using standard hacks.

Conditional Comment Syntax

The basic syntax of a conditional comment is:

<!--[if condition]>
(what to output if the condition is true)
<![endif]-->

Specific Examples

<!--[if IE]>[...]<![endif]-->
If the browser is Internet Explorer (any version)

<!--[if IE 7]>[...]<![endif]-->
If the browser is Internet Explorer 7

<!--[if lt IE 7]>[...]<![endif]-->
If the browser is less than Internet Explorer 7

<!--[if lte IE 7]>[...]<![endif]-->
If the browser is less than, or equal to, Internet Explorer 7

<!--[if gte IE 6]>[...]<![endif]-->
If the browser is greater than, or equal to, Internet Explorer 6

<!--[if gt IE 6]>[...]<![endif]-->
If the browser is greater than Internet Explorer 6

Additional Style Sheet For All Versions of IE

<!--[if IE]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/ie.css" media="screen" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->

Additional Style Sheet For IE7 And Earlier

<!--[if lte IE 7]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/ie7css" media="screen" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->

Serving Up IE Specific Javascript

<!--[if lte IE 7]>
<script src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/focus.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<![endif]-->

Happy commenting!

Occasionally, you want to add an image to a page but don’t want it to appear in that page’s gallery. How do you do that?

The answer is a lot simpler than you might think…

Don’t upload the image whilst working on your post or page.

Instead upload the image using Media-Add New option within the Administration area. Because this option is available outside of any Post or Page edit screen, no post, or page, association is created for the uploaded image. It is simply added to the Media Library where it is available for use in any page.

When you want to add the image to a post, or page, use the “Add an Image” option and then select the Media Library tab. If you have a large number if images in your Media Library, use the “Search Media” box to find your image. This is one time when giving each image a human-readable title really comes into its own!

When you have located your image, use the “Show” link to open up the standard image insertion options.

Tip:

If you don’t want an image to appear in the gallery for Post X, don’t upload it whilst working on Post X.

How To Create A WordPress Gallery

Upload your images — using the “Add an Image” option — whilst editing/creating the post (or page) that will contain the final gallery.

This is crucial!

Uploading images whilst working on a page allows WordPress to create a direct association between each image and its parent page. It is this association that is used to create your gallery.

Tip:

When creating a gallery, try to ensure that the images you’re uploading are all roughly the same size (e.g. 1000 pixels wide by 750 pixels high). The final gallery of thumbnails will look a lot neater as a result.

Once the images have all been uploaded, check that each image has a human-readable title. No titles like abc2864.jpg, please. Give your images real titles like “My Dog” or “Roses”. If you have made changes to the image titles, remember to select “Save All changes” to record your amendments.

Now close the Media Interface and go back to your post/page content. Place your cursor where you would like your new gallery to appear – leaving one blank line before (and after) your cursor and any text.

Select “Add an Image” again. Scroll down to the bottom of the Media interface to the Gallery Settings section.

Link thumbnails to:

• Image File: When people click on the small image, the raw full size image will be displayed
• Attachment Page: When people click on the small image, a larger version will be shown within its own WordPress page

Order images by:

• Menu order: Display images in the same order as they appear in the Media interface. You can change the order of the images using the Order box. Insert a number next for each image, then select “Save all changes”. The images will be re-arranged into your preferred menu order.
• Title: Order by image title
• Date/Time: Order by upload time
• Random:

Order:

• Ascending: From A to Z or 1 to 9
• Descending: From Z to A or 9 down to 1

Gallery columns:

How images do you want in each gallery row? To display 4 images in a row, enter “4″. However, bear in mind that your design may not accomodate that many images in a line and that you may have to try again if the gallery doesn’t look so good.

When you have finished entering your Gallery Settings, select “Insert gallery”. Then save your updated post, or page.

If you want to achieve the reverse and keep an image out of a gallery, see Avoid Adding Images to a WordPress Gallery.

If you found this article useful or think we’ve missed something, please leave a comment.

First, login to your WordPress Administration area. If you want to find a specific page id, navigate to Pages. Obviously, go to Posts to find a post id.

Once on the relvant listing page, place your cursor over a page/post title and examine the web address being displayed in the bottom left of your web browser. It should end with `&post=xxx`.

The xxx number is that page’s, or post’s, id.

Here’s how…

1. Enter your email address into your post
2. Highlight this address
3. Select the Insert/Edit link button
4. In the Link URL field, delete http//:
5. Enter mailto:your_email_address
6. Ensure that the Target is not set
7. Select “Insert”

For those who are interested, the final XHTML markup should look something like:

<a href="mailto:your_email_address">your_email_address</a>

What’s wrong?

The most likely answer is that your theme is missing the crucial bit of CSS (display) code that would allow the post text to wrap around your images. Try adding the following to the bottom of your theme’s stylesheet:

.aligncenter {
	display: block;
	margin-left: auto;
	margin-right: auto;
}

.alignleft {
	float: left;
}

.alignright {
	float: right;
}

But you do want to display a “Read more” link. Here’s how…

1. Edit the index.php file in your theme.
2. Look for <?php the_excerpt();?>
3. Immediately after, add <span class="readmore"><a href="<?php the_permalink();?>"><?php the_title();?> - Read more</a></span>

What can you do?

WordPress comes with a default search form. But, before it displays the default form, it will check your them to see if it can find a searchform.php. If it finds searchform.php, it will use whatever is in that file. Otherwise, it will use the default form.

So all you need to do in order to have a custom search form is create it and upload it to your theme.

The easiest way to do this is to view a page on your blog that currently uses the default search form. Once that page is in your browser, right click and use View Source to see the underlying page markup (XHTML).

Look for <form id="searchform". That’s the start of the form.

Then look down a few lines until you see </form>. That’s the end of the form.

Copy the form markup (that’s everything from <form to </form>) into a text editor. Save the new file as searchform.php and upload it to your theme. Check your new search form works correctly and then edit it to your heart’s content.