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.

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/

I am thinking of changing this theme to a less graphic one

While using Google to see if this site is linked anywhere, I noticed that some of the themes features end up showing up in the description of the page on Google.

 I do not think that is good for search engine optimisation

This is typical of what the pages show:

 Website Developement and Internet Marketing. Bigger Bigger Font Size Smaller Smaller Font Size Left Align Left Align Justify Justify Align Right Align Right …

This cannot be helping me get more viewers to the site

It will be a little bit before I get to changing it. I am working on a large article for www.photographybyjet.com 

I am now currently changing the theme. It may take a few days to figure out where everything is supposed to go.