I put them off too long.

It is time to do some WordPress blog updating.

I am not an early adopter unless there are serious security problems. In most cases, the Semiologic theme designers have a better handle on the security problems already. In this case, most of my blogs are on reasonably secure versions already and there is no hurry.

In fact, it has been recommended not to update to WordPress 2.6.

WordPress 2.6 has some serious bugs. There is a permalink problem and also security flaw. If you have not updated your WordPress installation to 2.6, you should wait till 2.6.1 comes out in a few more days. 2.6 was not a real security update so you are not taking much risk waiting.

I am updating at this time just to be prepared for further updates.

As WordPress and Semiologic Pro continue to advance, there is an increased possibility of problems with upgrades to blogs running older versions. I want to avoid this in the future. I am also considering host changes for many of my sites and I think it would be better to be using the latest supported versions on my sites and blogs if I decide to move anything.

I am sort of expecting a few problems with this update.

Mostly in the subscribe and bookmark plugins. I am also concerned about a potential feed problem. There were some bugs in these that may not be completely ironed out, but I think those are minor problems.

May I inlist your help?

Does my feed seem to be working right? If you are not subscribed to my RSS feed, now would be a great time to try and see if my subscribe plugin is working. Also, if you have found some posts here useful, why not test my bookmark plugin and let me know of any problems. Yes, I realize this seems to be a poorly masked attempt to get more subscribers and social bookmarks. It is, but I am curious to know if everything is working at this point. How’s that for honesty?

I have plans for more changes to some of my blogs.

I need to make a new header both here and at my photography blog (the header on the photography blog needs it really soon there is a real problem with it). I also plan to use some of the new features in Semiologic Pro to improve some things on the home page and add some interesting things. I am really excited about some of them.

So, lots of fun blogging stuff to do.

There are two ways to put post excerpts on your main page in WordPress.

They are:

• The post excerpt function in WordPress
• The “More” tag

Which is the best way to use excerpts for your blog?

Can you tell which I am using?  I’ll let you know at the end of this post. Both have advantages and disadvantages. In some cases, the disadvantages can be eliminated with a little modification of WordPress or with a plugin.

Lets start with WordPress’s built in post excerpts.

Actually almost nothing could be simpler that just activating the excerpt function. That is, if your theme or template has the option. If not, then it is not built in and you’ll need to make some changes in the code. You can also download a plugin that will add the feature.

The advantage of using excerpts instead of the more button is you can write an optional excerpt for each post.

This means you can have content completely different than the post the excerpts point to. This also means you have to write an excerpt for the best effect. You will need to write the excerpt both to tell what the post is about and create enough curiosity click through to read it.

Another advantage is that it affects all your posts when they are viewed on the main pages. No need to go through all your posts in order to shorten them.

For a great post about editing the WordPress code for excerpts check this post at Pro Blog Design.

For a plugin that lets you add excerpts check this post at Daily Blog Tips. This plugin also lets you choose to have a certain number of posts with full content while keeping excerpts on all the rest.

I have not tried either of these methods so be sure to make a backup of the files you edit before you edit them and see if the plugin is compatible with the latest versions of WordPress.

One disadvantage of using the excerpt function is, that by default, your excerpts may not have any link to the post other than the link in the title of the excerpt.

This can easily be unnoticed with some themes, leaving your blog looking it is full of scraped content. The post at Pro Blog Design gives a way to add a link at the bottom of the excerpt with a call to action to click the link (such as “click here to read the full post”)

There is one big disadvantage of excerpts that is shared with the More tag and that is partial feeds. We’ll talk about that in a bit.

How about using the More tag for excerpts?

This feature is in the WYSIWYG editor. Just place your cursor where you want the excerpt to end and click the button in the editor. No need to make any changes to your code. It is that simple. Place in a good spot and you will automatically create curiosity and tell what the post is about, at least, if you write your introductory paragraph with this in mind. This is the easiest way to go.

The More tag also provides a link to the post at the end of your excerpt, right where you place it.

This gives a call to action and encourages the reader to click through and read the full post. This goes back to those long sales letters you used to get in the mail. People are actually more likely to read, click, or go to the next page if you tell them to.

The disadvantages of the More tag are many.

The content is the same as used in the post. This is not really bad because the amount of duplicate content is not large enough to cause problems.

If you want excerpts for all your posts, you will need to edit each post and add it. This is a big problem if you have many posts. This type of excerpt is not blog-wide like the regular post excerpts.

I don’t particularly like the default text for the link. In some cases, it is just “More.” This is a relatively safe edit though, even if you are not familiar with code. The post mentioned above at Pro Blog Designs also shows how to edit the text in the link. Even I would feel safe with an edit of this type since you are just changing the text not any real code.

Again, the More tag shares its biggest disadvantage with the post excerpts.

Both methods will send a partial RSS feed. It seems like everyone believes that partial feeds are generally not as well accepted as full feeds. This can be fixed with a Full Text Feed plugin By Ronald Heft, Jr.

Ideally, your post excerpts are also used on both your Category and Tag archives as well.

This does require some code editing. If you want to tackle this job, I am going to send you off on your own to the search engine of your choice. As you can probably tell, I am not much into editing code myself. I would hate to go through the trouble now with a new WordPress version about to be released.

What method do I use for post excerpts on this blog?

I use the More tag, but with some special features. The Semiologic Pro theme I use here has both excerpts and a modified more feature. With Semiologic Pro the title of the post is used in the More link. Also, the test is easy to change to say just about anything you want to use.

With a bit of thinking, I came up with link text I think makes sense and provides a call to action. Also, the anchor text of the link is them optimized for all the SEO advantages you can get from an internal link using the keywords in the title. Much better than a link to pointing to your post with the anchor “More” or “Click Here.”

The Semiologic Pro theme also uses post titles automatically on the Tag and Category archives. This eliminates duplicate content on them. The Full Text Feed plugin is also already installed.

What is the best method for post excerpts on the main page for your blog?

That decision is up to you. If you’re just starting out, the More tag is the simplest to use. It is also well supported in WordPress. If you have a lot of posts, excerpts may be the way to go for you. If you can edit code, you may be able to get excerpts to do a lot for you. If you have many sites or blogs, or plan to, Semiologic Pro might be a good investment for your internet marketing business or as a good option as a semi-customized theme.

I am bringing AdSense back to this blog.

Most readers should never see them!

One of the many features of the Semiologic Pro theme is that is comes with the Who Sees Ads plugin built in. I am setting it up so AdSense only shows for readers who come from search engines. I’ll first show you a bit about the Who Sees Ads pluging then I will explain why, after no AdSense ads for over a year, I would bring them back.

Here is a screenshot of the Who Sees Ads plugin in the Semiologic theme.

The Who Sees Ads plugin allows you to control when an ad shows and who it shows to.

You can set an ad to show to a reader only the first time they visit or show for a particular number of times a visitor visits and then not again. The plugin allows you to have an ad not show until a post is older.

One other feature of the Semiologic Pro theme is that nearly everything on the blog is widgetized.

This makes arranging just about everything related to your blog as easy as arranging the widgets in your sidebar. It’s pretty cool.

Here is a screenshot of the widget admin screen in Semiologic Pro

Now, about the return of AdSense.

First, I do not feel that AdSense is something that would be appropriate for most of my readers. Let’s face it, most bloggers that would regularly read this blog avoid clicking AdSense ads out of habit. Also, for social network visitors, an AdSense block right at the top is a bit of a turn off.

AdSense does have an advantage for search engine visitors.

Often, a vistor from a search engine is looking for something related to what is on a page, but the information is not quite what they are looking for. These are the types of vistors that AdSense is good for. AdSense will serve up ads related to the post that may be closer to what the visitor is really looking for. I have posts that get search engine traffic that is probably not related to the main theme of this blog (making money, in case it is not too obvious). The normal ads that I have on this blog are not related to many of the searches that I get.

I am hoping that AdSense will monetize some of this traffic.

Otherwise, it is wasted traffic. At the same time, I want to keep the number of ads for my regular readers to a minimum. I also like to keep some control over ads to regular readers since there is an implied endorsment since they are on my site.

So, if you are a regular reader, no AdSense for you.

I just converted my How To Take Better Photos site to WordPress.

Originally, I created the site in Dreamweaver.

It was a bit of a chore learning how to do it. Additionally, whenever I wanted to add content, it took a lot of time.

This is what it used to look like.

Clicking on the image will take you to the new page.

With a static site, adding a page has some extra work to it.

Once you write the content, you add it to a page template. Then, you must change the links on the rest of the pages on the site to point to it. For me, this is enough to make me not add much in the way of content since the site was built.

The conversion from static site to WordPress took a while to accomplish.

The first task was to enter the content into the blog. I created a WordPress blog offline on my computer to do this. I used some free software called XAMMPLite to create the server to run WordPress.

The trick was to keep the content and pages with the same addresses they had in the static site.

You do not want to lose any links your site has built up already. You want to take advantage of any traffic you are already getting.

I used the permalinks feature in WordPress to reproduce the link structure of the original site.

One problem I had was I used subfolders for the various articles originally.

This was a problem. I was able to create a permalink structure that gave nearly every page the same URL as it had before. At least I think so. There are a few pages I was not able to keep with the same URL. These pages are not important anyway and should not have any links to them.

Once I had entered the content, it was time to convert the site.

I used the WordPress export feature to export the content and categories to a file.

I deleted the original site on the host.

I created the MYSQL database for WordPress. I edited the wp_config file to show the database, user, and password before I uploaded. I then uploaded the WordPress files to the server. I am using the Semiologic Pro for the theme and content manager on the site, so I had all the files I needed.

Only two major steps left

First, recreate the permalink structure I has used offline. Next, import the content file I had exported. All the pages were there in the right categories. Just a little fine tuning to do.

A few things needed to be fixed.

Links in the content from the static site no longer worked. I needed to find these and point them to the right pages. For a photography site, I have had (still have) very few images, but they needed to be uploaded to WordPress and replaced. Also, I needed to put the ads back on the site.

Semiologic has an ad managing system.

I want to take advantage of this so I did not keep the ads that were on the original pages. The next version of Semiologic has even better ad management that I think will be an asset, not only to me, but to regular readers.

I will be able to show AdSense to search engine traffic and new viewers and show fewer or different ads to regular readers.

I will be updating this site to Semiologic Pro soon also. I think my regular readers here will really appreciate it also. I should be making the switch within the next couple weeks.

In all, I have managed to keep much of the original look of the site.

I now have a 3 column layout. Right now, I have a mostly white theme where it was white and grey. I am planning to change this later.

Most importantly, it is now fast and easy to add content.

I am hoping to get an article up tonight. It will be about ghosts in pictures.

I hope you will check my photography site at http://www.photographybyjet.com.

Let me know what you think about it. If you have any questions about converting to WordPress from a static site, let me know here.

Ok, so you have the plugins from part one, right?

If not, you can check part one of this guide for the links to the plugins I use to add Google Adsense to the Semiologic (Semilogic) Theme for WordPress.
Unzip the plugins and ft them to the plugin directory of your WordPress site. Then just activate them.

The next step is to get some Google Adsense ads to use with your WordPress blog.

  It is usually suggested that you use colors that blend with the theme of your site. I am using the Minimalist Skin for the Semiologic WordPress theme so the standard setting actually seems to look close.

You will also need to decide what size and shapes of Adsense ads you wish to use on your blog.

I use the large rectangle and 160×600 wide skyscraper sizes most. The Semiologic WordPress theme (Semilogic theme) has sidbars that are wide enough for the 160 width skyscraper. You may need to test if your WordPress theme has sidebars wide enough. I suggest you also get Google Adsense for Search for your site also. I find that it fits best only on the far right sidebar. I also make the Google Adsense for Search as small as possible while trying to still make it look useful.

On the option menu of your WordPress blog you will find the options for the Adsense-Deluxe Plugin.

The option page for Adsense-Deluxe has excellent instructions for using Google Adsense. You may also want to check the readme file that was with the plugin.

All you have to do is copy and paste the Google Adsense code into the box on the Adsense-Deluxe page.

I suggest deciding what size ad you will want to use most in posts and making that the default ad. You can then just ad the Adsense-Deluxe code where you want the ad to appear in your posts. Adsense-Deluxe takes care of making sure you do not have too many ads on a page so you stay within Google  Adsense TOS.

Although the Adsense-Deluxe website says you should be able to type the code in a post I usually find the spot I want to put the code in the HTML source instead of the WYSIWYG view.

It only takes a moment longer to do and seems to work better.

Using Adsense-Deluxe in the sidebar is done a bit differently.

You could add the PHP form of the code (there is an example on the option page) directly in the template. I find that way time consuming, difficult to change, and confusing.

Use the PHP Executable widget.

You can then move the widget around the sidebar anytime you want or just remove it. Just add the PHP form of the Adsense-Deluxe code into the box of the widget. I use the 160×600 skyscraper Google Adsense ad in the sidebar right now.

The Google Adsense for Search code is just pasted into a text widget.

You are only allowed one search box on a page anyway. Real easy.

It is important to note that if you decide to ad an Adsense ad to your site without the Adsense-Deluxe code, you could end up with more Adsense ads on a page the the TOS allows.

It is best to always use the Adsense-Deluxe code to avoid this. No worries.

I have found that the Semiologic theme gives great results with the Google Search Engine.

It has many features that make it easy to work with. The Semiologic Pro theme had even more features and some form of ad management. It may be worth looking into. 

How I add Google Adsense to the Semilogic Theme

It is not difficult to ad Adsense ads to a WordPress Blog.

 For those that are at ease modifying code and that understand PHP, this article is probably not for you. What I am will show here is the easy no hassle, non programmer way to use Adsense. If you do not know a footer from a header, this article is for you. You could say this is the idiots guide to adding Adsense. I use several plugins to make it easy to manage Adsense on this blog.

If you have the Semiologic Pro theme there is an ad management system built into it.

 the Pro theme is designed to make blog management simpke and push button easy. This guide is for the free version.

Once set up, this is almost as easy.

I use:

• The Sidbar Widgets Pluging for WordPress
• Adsense-Deluxe
• Executable PHP widget
• and of course the Semiologic Theme

Widgets allow easy changes to the sidbar.

They will let you test different placement of the Adsense ads in the sidbar.

Adsense-Deluxe handles the management of Adsense ads.

 Using this plugin, you will not have to worry about too many Adsense ad getting placed on one page and breaking Googles term of service. It also makes it easy to have several different sized ad ready without having to cut and paste.

The Executable PHP widget is used to place Adsense ads handled by Adsense-Deluxe into a sidbar widget.

 You could just use a text widget and past the ad in it, but then you will lose the management of the ad Adsense-Deluxe gives you. You would then need to be careful not to have more than the three ads allowed by
Google on one page. You’ll need the Executable PHP widget to use Adsense-Deluxe in  sidbar widget.
I suggest you download the plugins. Unzip them and upload them to your WordPress Plugin diretory.
Next time I’ll go through some of the details of using these plugins with Adsense.

To Be Continued

I could not be more impressed with the Semiologic Theme

I am using the Semiologic 4.0 (beta) theme by Denis de Bernardy on this blog

This theme comes with several plugins and the author has several more for it that really make it easy to work with. The theme has four skins that allow you to change the look of the site almost like changing a theme, but keeping the same format. There is also an easy way to choose a font family for the blog without having to learn CSS or figuring out how to change the styles. This makes it very easy to use if you are new to blogging and do not know how the code stuff works.

The Semiologic theme makes it easy to customize many things

Captions, under the Presentation menu allows you to change things on the blog like the "more’ when you want to shorten a post on the main page. I have changed it to "there is more to this post." You can place several links at the top like a regular web site (I just have a the Home link up now).

What about the Semiologic Pro Theme?

I do not have the Semilogic Pro theme but many of its features show as disabled in the regular Semiologic theme

The Semiologic Pro theme has several more options for the format of the blog. There is a flexible format also that will adjust to the users browser size better. I have found that this format works well at most of the sizes I have seen but the flexible format should work even better.

The Semilogic Pro Theme has a Features submenu under the WordPress presentation menu

These options are disabled in the regular theme. These features provide push button access to many plugins or features that you would probably end up downloading from other sources. There is also a feature called SEO for search engine optimization. With the great job I find with the regular Semilogic Theme on SEO, my guess is it should work awesome. There is also an enhanced Wysiwyg editor among many features.

Denis de Bernardy has done a really good job with the Semilogic themes

It seems to be well written. It really does a great job. It make the blog very easy to use. I plan to try this theme on some other blogs I may develop.

What if you want a unique look to your blog?

I am not completely sure yet. You can learn to make your own skins. I believe this is done with the CSS. If you really want a totally unique site this may not be for you. I personally think that a good theme that provides the content clearly to the viewer is more important than a completely unique theme.

Is the Semilogic Pro theme worth the price?

If time is more important to you than money, yes. The Semilogic Pro theme seem to be designed for the new business blogger, who is using a blog to promote another business. The Semiologic Pro theme takes all the time of setting up the blog and makes it push button easy. It has improved SEO features and other features that I think will make it a good investment. Denis de Bernardy also provides more support for the Pro theme vs. the regular Semiologic theme. This all makes it valuable to someone that just needs a good blogging platform and does not want to spend time hunting down plugins and setting up the blog. You can still do as much customizing as you can with any other theme.

If you are unsure about the Semilogic Pro theme download the regular theme and see how it works

You will be able to see the features that are disabled and decide they are worth the price. I think you will like it. No theme will ever be perfect, but the Semilogic themes are a great way to run a blog.

You can get the Semiologic themes here at http://www.semiologic.com/

What a difference simply changing a theme can make!

When I checked Google’s listing of my site with the old theme, I knew I had to change it.

I liked the way the old WordPress theme looked. It also allowed a viewer to change the font size to make it easier to read if they needed it. When I chose it, I thought having the content on the left column would help the search engines like Google read it.

But the listing on Google showed that it was working terribly

  I will not go too much into what was showing up as the description for every page because I am trying not to have any more pages listed with useless words. You can read a bit about what was happening in the post I wrote about it here.

Since Changing to the Semilogic theme the listings look much better

All the descriptions show up from the content of the posts. It is reassuring to see all the pages showing up in Google with descriptions that are accurate.

Before the switch, the descriptions were all the same

I had thirty or so pages that Google indexed. Nearly all of them had the same description, which was caused by the viewer font changing ability of that WordPress theme.

If you are using WordPress, I suggest you make sure the theme you use will give you good results with the search engines

Because, no one will be interested in looking at a site of thirty pages about font size. The way your theme presents your content to Google and other search engines is important. Even if Google knows the page is about something else, if the description is bad, no one will look at the post.

I would also suggest if you use WordPress to take a look at the Semilogic theme

It comes in two versions. The free version is the one I am using here. The Semilogic Pro version is a bit expensive but has many features that I think make it worth the price if you have any income on your blog. You can purchase the full version here.

Take a look at the free version and give it a try

It has a lot to offer.