Short answer: Yes! If you’ve been to this awesome site before then you’ll know that I’m terrible at starting posts off. So I usually just start off with something totally random! However my main point here is to inform you that this is the first post of what will be a lengthy series on Beginner Mistakes in WordPress. You’ll see where I got the inspiration from by clicking that link

The Settings: Home? Front Page? Blog? Posts Page?

I know that everyone has been troubled by this since the dawn of…Well the first time it was added to WordPress. The thing I’m talking about is on the Settings -> Reading page.

Yes, choosing what goes where in these settings can be a little troubling. The thing you have to understand first is why have these options in the first place? Because at its core WordPress is not a CMS, I know most people like to think of it as a CMS but its really not. Its a blogging platform, just like Blogger; WordPress is just ten times better with much more custom functionality.

So considering that I’ll explain which to choose for your site, in an easy to understand diagram of which settings work when and where.

Okay then I’ll be the first to admit that its not really a diagram, more of list; But you have to say, it does look pretty cool!

So as you can see, and maybe to your surprise, WordPress is so customizable that with only 3-4 options you can really have any type of site you want. Now obviously for something such as the Twitter Update Service you would need the help of some outside coding but never the less it can be done.

Knowing What Goes Where and When

If you wish you can just keep coming back to our site everytime you want to know What Goes Where and When then by all means go right ahead. However it would be much more productive if you knew. Any WordPress coder worth his salt should instinctively know; So what you need to do is go an try out a few of the options above and see what works in your situation. After a while you should hopefully have leaned the difference. Also try coding a different style of site everytime you whack out the Starkers WordPress Theme to get to know when and where!

Conclusion

Although this has been a rather short post, I do hope that you subscribe to our site by e-mail to be updated when part two and beyond is released. If you’re more of an RSS type person we have one of those as well, just click here to subscribe to our RSS Feed. Could you also say if I messed anything up; I would like to be told, wouldn’t you?

Enjoy this post? Then say in the comments! Hate it? Then still say in comments!

P.S. You have no idea how hard it is to find high-quality free themes!

Free Themes

Bueno – WooThemes

Color Paper – Liam McKay

Irresistible – WooThemes

Dreamplace – NattyWP

Notepad Chaos – Evan Eckard

Paper Wall – InDeziner

Infinity – VikiWorks

Premium Themes

Depth – Obox

The Work Place – Press75

Smoke & Mirrors – WooThemes

Cafe Press – Press75

Optimize – WooThemes

Caulk – ThemeForest

f01.01 – WooThemes

Photographer (Marketplace) – Aaron Lynch

There are also more free wordpress themes on Mashable.com. Enjoy!

Now, I’ve noticed on a few blogs lately the one hurdle that many new wordpress developers stumble on is the whole set up of the blog it’s self, the code as well as the Behind-The-Scenes Dashboard.

Here’s A Big Stumbling Block For Some:

The main problem is how to use the files you have, for example: Do you use the ‘page.php’ file or the ‘archive.php’ file, (used for the categories), as the file to display your most recent posts on the site?

The answer is the ‘archive.php’ file, Do not mix this up with the ‘archives.php’ file, (used for an archive index like on Digging Into WordPress).
The reason is because wordpress is much easier to handle if you show a page listed with certain posts from certain categories, rather than just using the wordpress pages creator. Because the wordpress page creator makes pages that are, in a sense, very static compared to the use of the categories.

Can I Explain Deeper?

Why yes, yes i can, one of the best ways to show you what i mean is by explaining what the ‘Pages’ should be used for, then I’ll explain why the categories page, (‘archive.php’), is better for showing a list of certain posts.

Here’s a few examples:

1. Net.TutsPlus.com: Go to a page like ‘Tutorials’ and look at the URL, says /category/tutorials right?
2. Tutorial9: Go to the ‘Photoshop Tutorials’ tab, guess what it says?…yup that’s right /category/photoshop
3. Noupe.com: Go ahead and check out the ‘CSS’ nav link.

OK i think you get my point now, the basics of it are that ‘Categories’ work better than pages because they were designed to showcase recent posts in chronological order, however pages where designed to be static-ish pages, used for ‘About Info’ and ‘Favourite Links’ etc..

More examples coming up, and the same sites for more emphasis!:

1. Net.TutsPlus.com: The, (very well done), About page.
2. Tutorial9: The Write For Us page
3. Noupe.com: And the About page for Noupe.

As you can see, in wordpress there’s a place and a use for everything. Although some things just work better in certain places rather than others. As you can see. If you have any problems with this then drop a comment below and I’ll go into even more detail for you

Design of Thou Blog

You won’t see this very much, if at all, but there are a few cases where wordpress blogs are designed by some who wants to be different…but for all the wrong reasons.

Can’t You Be Different?

YES!, the most important thing to understand is that your blog should be and individual, just as you are, and everybody you know. Every blog should have it’s own personality.

However there are some people who tend to make these two classic mistakes:

1. Thinking that by copying another design and changing it up a bit, they’ll have 1 billion readers with the first month. Let’s face it, we’ve seen quite a few Tutorial9 & Noupe knock-offs over the past year or so.
2. Is thinking that by copying content then spamming people with it you’ll get readers…again, NOPE!

The main things to consider when creating a new wordpress blog are the following, Design, Development & Content. Then comes Social Media and Guest Writers etc… You’ll need to be heavily prepared to undertake the challenge of it all, you think that Collis & Cyan made a truck load by sitting there and waiting for the views? No, they took the initiative and got their name out there.

What If You Can’t Design or Develop?

Then find someone who can, i know your probably thinking:

Here’s where the Social Media comes in handy, there are always people who will do the job for you, hell, I’ll do it for you. But my point is that there are always freelancers out there looking for work.

Another good place to go are to freelance job boards, the few i know are the infamous FreelanceSwitch.com Job Board and the DesignM.ag Job Board.
Now i havn’t used either yet, however i hear from reliable sources that the FreelanceSwtich Job Board is the more premiere of the two. I only discovered the DesignM.ag Job Board a ffew days back so i can’t really give my professional opinion yet.

Conclusion/What More To Expect

Is that, you should use ‘Categories’ instead of pages to display your posts. Pages are for about, services and contact info etc… And that your design/content should be unique, if not, then that’s your fault I’m afraid.

By the way, did you all know that Bill Gates has got a new website out? You can read all about it here Anyway i hope you enjoyed my little article, i hope it has given you some insight.

Also I’ll be posting regular articles and tutorials, and maybe even screencasts. That’s right, I’m going to try and rival Jeffrey Way in the screencast department. Look out for it.

Hello everybody I’m KayRoseDesign…the man behind the curtain i suppose, (a.k.a. the main Developer here at BCM).

Anyway in this post you can submit links to great articles/tutorials that will be benificial to the web design/development community. Hopefully you have a wisdom filled article/tutorial to share with the world, maybe it’s about how to design a web site in Photoshop or it could be a video screencast on how to code an entire wordpress blog.

Below you’ll find a comment form in which you can submit links for our approval.

What we’re looking for:

• First of all it has to be about web design, web development, photoshop, social media or any other subject that can help the community.
• Please do the following when submiting an link:
  • Check it’s nothing to do with spam or computing killing virusus; if it is, then your barred!
  • Make sure your not linking to an illegal site, (such as online episodes of Dexter etc…).
  • NEVER post an affiliate link, (sorry for the out-burst but we don’t want to be refering people to something we have no idea about do we…)
  • And please don’t send a link that’s just worthless.

I think that’s the basic stuff covered, all i can now write, is to tell you to use common sense when submitting.

So go ahead, give back to the community!

]]> http://becreativemagazine.com/2009/12/community-link-feed/feed/ 47