Adding an Email This Button to Your Blog

Before getting to the code, I wanted to first say that this code is designed to allow readers to click on the button and have it open up their default email software and create a subject and link that point to the post the reader is currently visiting. This code is not designed to allow readers to contact the blog author. If you are wanting your readers to be able to contact you, I recommend you use one of the many great contact form WordPress plugins available. You should never embed your email address into some HTML code... [Read the full story]

Optimize your title tags

There are plugins available to help optimize your title tags, however, editing one line of code can help you avoid an additional plugin. To me it’s worth it - less plugins, better performance. So let’s do it. Locate the title tags in your theme’s header.php file. It will look something like this: <title><?php bloginfo('name'); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> » Blog Archive <?php } ?> <?php wp_title(); ?></title> Now change it to this: <title><?php if (is_single()... [Read the full story]

Creating a featured articles section from a particular category

Creating a Featured Articles section for your WordPress blog involves 3 basic steps: Create a new category called Featured. Place the code (provided below) into sidebar.php. Style the Featured section to match the rest of your sidebar. Featured Articles code Place the following code in the preferred location of your sidebar—or anywhere else you may want to display your Featured Articles: <ul> <?php query_posts('category_name=Featured&showposts=5'); while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?> <li> <a... [Read the full story]

Adding a Print This Button to Your Theme

If you ever visit our actual website, you’ve probably noticed the “Print This” button that we display below each post.  Depending on the type of website or blog you are running, having a button like this may be a good fit for your blog.  I’ve found it to be good to have this button available to readers for any type of website that offers tutorials, recipes, guides, or pretty much anything that might require a visitor to print something you’ve written. If you think you’d like to offer your readers the option... [Read the full story]

Making a Categories Drop-Down Menu

Tired of your old navigation?  So, what about creating a Magazine-style dropdown menu? I propose here a dropdown menu listing your pages and sub pages, including one last item to show up your categories directly in the menu. HTML and PHP We will start by using WordPress core functions in order to retrieve our pages and categories. Edit the header.php of your theme, and replace your old nav code by this one: <ul id="nav" class="clearfloat"> <li><a href="<?php echo get_option('home'); ?>/" class="on">Home</a></li> <?php... [Read the full story]