Solutions To Your WordPress Problems
A few days ago I have made an offer to give back to community by providing solutions to WordPress problems. Post “Allow Me To Solve Your Biggest WordPress Problem” was well accepted and many people posted their questions. I have done my best to provide “quick hit” solutions where it was appropriate but some problems required more extensive research and longer answer.
This post will address following problems posted by my readers:
- How to get Javascript based ads and widgets to behave right in sidebars, headers and footers
- A way to add the logo seamlessly into the header in the most SEO friendly and seamless manner possible
How to get Javascript based ads and widgets to behave right in sidebars, headers and footers
This problem is actually in my personal experience comes from 2 different sources …
Problem One most common to ads and scripts pulled from outside source. What I have personally seen is that source site that gives you javascript to place on your blog sets the dimensions for the ad or widget to be displayed and in most cases there is no way to overwrite it. Couple solutions:
- Since we really have no control over dimensions on our own site we need to use tools provided by source site to make the widget or ad blog to fit our sidebar and for that you simply need to look at your theme css file and identify what width will work for you best.
- And if the source site doesn’t provide you with a way to set width, as was the example with BlogRush widget until version 2 was rolled out – the only way to solve it is to place it into location that will allow that widget to fit or discard it all together. I’m aware that some creative people did a solution of their own even with a BlogRusg example but it was against the TOS and in most cases it will be true, so I can’t recommend it.
Problem Two is less common but I have seen it from time to time and comes from an overlapping css styles that are defined in both theme file and plugins. This one is harder to track but generally will be seen after installing new plugin and can be tested by deactivating that plugin and then reactivating to see if problem reoccurs.
- There is really only one way to solve this one. Look at the source code of your page and see if you can find the class the defines a widget and then see if same class is also defined in theme. Try renaming the class in theme file and track down php file that might be calling it. I highly recommend you do a backup of your theme before doing it. It does require css and php knowledge so perhaps the better option is to find a widget that serves similar function and works properly with your theme.
A way to add the logo seamlessly into the header in the most SEO friendly and seamless manner possible
This question comes from Mark Pilatowski and actually has quite simple solution. He is using a Quadruple Blue theme and I have downloaded and installed it on one of my dev blogs so I could actually show the simple and yet SEO friendly solution. Similar approach will work for most other themes …
In this solution I will assume that Mark will use a logo with dimensions of 148px x 41px he is using right now …
Step One: Remove Underline from the Header of the Blog. While this is optional it creates unprofessional look when logo image is underlined …
Go to Admin->Presentation->Theme Editor and open style.css for editing.
Locate “header a” code and add text-decoration: none;
#header a{
color: #b6e1fe;
text-decoration: none;
}
Step Two: Add SEO logo.
I assume that logo with dimensions of 148×41 was uploaded into the root folder of theme for this exercise and named my_blog_main_keywords_logo.jpg, I just copied Mark’s logo so I don’t have to create one and renamed it for this example. Note the use of keywords in logo name, its important as it provides extra relevancy in search results …
Open header.php for editing and locate this code (sorry I had to use images because my blog attempts to execute code when I add it to post by design):
And add to it a code for logo …
Note above that I have added image for the logo. Couple thing I want to mention related to this:
- Name of the image file should contain your main keywords
- Alt description should contain your main keywords
Adding more relevancy to your images will not hurt you for search engine optimization. And here is how final result looks like (note: theme is removed as I have no intention to infringe on copyrights of logo author)
That’s All Guys! More of similar solutions coming in the feature and will be answered on First Come, First Served bases so make sure not to miss my news and subscribe to RSS via options provided below.
More Options Print This Page! Subscribe With RSS Reader Subscribe by EmailFiled under WordPress |
About The Blog Author
Alex Sysoef is an IT Consultant, Internet Marketer and ProBlogger who shares his passion and knowledge of WordPress, SEO, Social Media and traffic strategies on his blog WordPress Howto Spotter. Connect on Twitter or Facebook
12 Responses to “Solutions To Your WordPress Problems”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
-
[...] , an IT pro and an excellent WordPress Web 2.0 Spot-Er, has written a great post in his blog titled Solutions To Your WordPress Problems. I could not believe my eyes when i read this post. To test Alex, i left a comment and asked him [...]
Thanks for the fix. I will give it a go tonight. I really appreciate the offer and the extra effort you put into this.
Thanks again.
Mark Pilatowski’s last blog post..Google Website Optimizer Bug
No problem Mark.
This one actually might benefit not only you but other people as well, or so I hope
Alex
I think you’re on to something with a WordPress question and answer type column. I think you’ll find as more and more people find out what you’re doing you’ll be bombarded with questions. It’s a good idea. Good luck.
Jason A Clark’s last blog post..Robert Redford Destroys Tom Cruise’s Track Record With “Lions For Lambs”
Thanks Jason,
Just trying to give back and following the simple rule “give and you shall receive”
Alex
I think you can track css overlaps with firebug. It works very well on that.
Osmans last blog post..WordPress’ default theme and template are a complete mess
i have problem in my wordpress 2.6..
i just install a plugin of wordpress 2.7 in 2.6
so i am facing a problem when i login its says errror
“Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_object_page() in /home/glk616/public_html/aliengang.com/wp-content/plugins/adrotate/adrotate.php on line 60″
when i use ftp filezilla to use it says error also
login authenication error
i dont what should i do now plz help me.
noddy,
You got couple problems:
1. Contact your host and get the correct credentials to use for FTP client. Should be your main domain name and your cPanle login info.
2. Connect to your hosting account and navigate to /home/glk616/public_html/aliengang.com/wp-content/plugins/
3. Delete adrotate folder completely or rename it
This will bring your blog to life.
Upgrade your blog to latest 2.7.1 – been hacked is not fan, I can guarantee that current problem will seem like penuts compare to restoring from a hacked blog, if you don’t update!
I nearly have this exact problem but I cannot seem to figure out how to get my logo to appear on my wordpress page. I loaded the theme, Cordobo Green Park 2 0.9.502 by Andreas Jacob. I just wanted a very simple page to give very basic info on a company but I can’t get the logo to show up. I did everything I could think of but to no avail. His explanation of how to load a logo does not seem to work. It may be that I’m not loading the image correctly, I’m really not sure.. haha more lost then ever! Need help! Thanks
Sorry if this question sound dumb….I’m really bad with coding stuff. I’m just a photographer.
I tried using this tutorial to switch my text header to an image header…It was a no go. I think it’s due to the fact that the header.php code is actually different in my template than the example used here.
You can see below there is no H1 tag in my header.php and it looks quite a bit different from the header code in the example. I would love it if you could give me some help. Assuming my logo is called my_logo.jpg how would I recode and what section of header.php should I change.
Thanks in advance.
C
———————————————–
<a href="”> |
Menu
<a href="”>Home
Categories
0 ) {
location.href = “/?cat=”+dropdown.options[dropdown.selectedIndex].value;
}
}
dropdown.onchange = onCatChange;
–>
Archives
Search
<form method="get" class="searchform" action="”>
Sorry…this is header below:
—————————
<a href="”> |
Menu
<a href="”>Home
Categories
0 ) {
location.href = “/?cat=”+dropdown.options[dropdown.selectedIndex].value;
}
}
dropdown.onchange = onCatChange;
–>
Archives
Search
<form method="get" class="searchform" action="”>
Chazz,
I haven’t use code you provide – I recommend you ask either theme developer of the theme you have used or the author of the code you are obviously trying to use.