He gives a nice (EXTREMELY brief) tutorial/introduction to PHP, and then goes on to show how you can use it to make your AdSense and WordPress (or any PHP enabled website) admin a lot easier by having “templates” which contain your different AdSense units, and just using “includes” to put them into your pages.

This means having to change just one file containing your AdSense code, as opposed to changing every location where this code is used…

I think I might actually start using this idea. Thanks Eric

- If you add pages, it adds tabs to the top.
- It comes with built in functions for doing things you’d normally have to hunt the Codex for
- It Looks GREAT

You can see it in action here: “read all the info”

Either way, I think I’ve found my new favourite theme for WordPress.

Why is it so great? Well, the “3″ in 3K2 is for the 3 column layout that is used. I downloaded and installed K2, but I’m a 3-column kinda guy, so I didn’t really feel the urge to use it.

But now, with the 3K2 theme, there’s a good chance I will.

One of my blogs gets most of it’s visitors landing on the main page of each category. You can see what I mean by “Main Page” if you click the “Money” link on the left of this page. This is because the Category names are also keyword rich.

So, this tip is just a quick reminder to also choose your category names carefully. Don’t go naming your categories irrelevant names. Think of all the little things that will help with your blog’s Search Engine Optimization.

This is probably the slickest looking theme I have seen for WordPress. It is only a 2 column theme, and I do like 3 columns, but I will definitely have to use this theme on one of my blogs.

Useless Knowledge Rant: I changed the icons on one of the programs I use everyday in the office the other day, and a colleague of mine asked “Why Bother???”. Well the User Interface is such a key issue with me. Things HAVE to look cool. Why tell you this?!? Go take a look a look at the theme above and see for yourself…

But I think I should have it on this site as well, to have all my WordPress tips in one place…

The main reason you would want to optimize your page’s TITLE is because Google also looks at it for clues and keywords to the content of your site. You also have to remember a KEY point: It is your page’s TITLE that is shown on Search Engine results, and if it stands out, it is more likely to get clicked.

So, how do you go about doing this? You will need to edit your WordPress “Header” template for this. Here is a quick guide on doing this:

1. Log into the Admin console of your WordPress installation
2. Click on “Presentation”
3. Click on “Theme Editor”
4. On the right, select the template for your Header section, most likely named something like “header.php”

It is always a good idea to keep a copy of the original template in case you make any mistakes…

Now, you just need to find the code where it has your TITLE tags, and remove anything between them. Then, you can just paste the required code between your TITLE tags, so that it looks like this:

   <title>
      <?php
         if(is_home()) {
            bloginfo(‘title’);
            echo ‘ » ‘;
            bloginfo(‘description’);
         } else{
            wp_title(”);
            echo ‘ » ‘;
            bloginfo(‘name’);
         }
      ?>
   </title>

This will give you the Title of your Blog and it’s description on your homepage.
For example, on this blog it’s: “Easy Money » Getting paid to do the things you enjoy”

And on all your other pages, like your Category/Archive pages or single Post pages, it will be the Post/Category Title and the name of your blog.
For example, for this post, it’s: “WordPress SEO – Page Title Optimization » Easy Money

One thing that I have noticed is missing from a lot of free WordPress templates is a “Recent Posts” list. I think having this is EXTREMELY important. Here’s why:

1 – It gives a list of links to other pages in your blog. Remember, search engines like links.

2 – It gives readers a nice list of other posts that they might find interesting.
For example, if a reader lands on a page on your site via a Search Engine, let’s say Google, and they read what they came for, how would they know that there might be other info that they MIGHT like to read? Other than your absolute skill in writing in the current post. But, if there’s a readily available list of other topics you’ve discussed on your website, it will make life a lot easier (and possibly even enjoyable) for your readers.

So, if you have a WordPress Template that doesn’t have this “Recent Posts” list, here is the code that will give it to you:

<ul>
<?php get_archives(‘postbypost’,’9′,’html’,'&raquo;&nbsp;’,”); ?>
</ul>

As you can see, we have the “command” get_archives() with 5 parameters. Here is what they do:

1. ‘postbypost’ – This tells WordPress to give you a list of Posts, as opposed to Archives (for example, January, February).
2. ’9′ – This can be any number, and signifies how many posts to return
3. ‘html’ – This tells WordPress to return the list in <li></li> list tags. As you can see, I’ve placed these between <ul></ul> tags to generate an Unordered List
4. ‘&raquo;&nbsp;’ – This parameter can be any text that you want to appear before your link. It can even include HTML tags, like <br /> for example. I like to use the ‘»’ character. (Here I am using the HTML code for this character with a space).
5. ” – As with parameter 4, this is any text that you want to appear AFTER your post link. You can leave this paramter out if you don’t need it. (Leave it blank or just not put it in at all).

1 – Download pmetrics.php from “here”
2 – Copy it into your WordPress plugins directory – “wp-content/plugins”
3 – In the “Plugins” section of WordPress Admin, activate the plugin

And you’re A for Away… Of course, ensure you have signed up for a Performance Metrics account at Performancing.com

You can also keep up with the development on this plugin at the developer’s blog “here”

A SE Friendly URL is one that contains proper words, as opposed to parameters in the URL.

For example:

http://www.makingeasymoney.co.za/2006/02/15/creating-adsense-ads/

As opposed to:

http://www.makingeasymoney.co.za/?p=35

How to change this in WordPress:

1 – Log into the Admin Console for your installation of WordPress
2 – Click on “Options” at the top, and then “Permalinks” under that
3 – Modify your settings here. I use the “Data and Name based” option, which gives me an example URL of:

http://www.makingeasymoney.co.za/2006/03/18/sample-post/

I fully recommend doing this, and this is always one of the VERY first things I change when setting up my WordPress installation.