A professional WordPress theme that incorporates elegant simiplicity into 3-column layout and its color combination. Its generic design makes it suited for all kinds of blogs. You must not remove any attribution link (design/sponsor links) in the footer as this theme is released under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0).

A professional WordPress theme that boasts of artistic look and feel. The scratchy borders and the big red flower in the header make the theme very unique and modern. You must not remove any attribution link in the footer as this theme is free to use under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0).

Whether you spend a lot of time on the Internet or not, you have probably heard the term RSS feed somewhere before. Popular sites such as The New York Times have an option to receive RSS feeds. Many people who are familiar with the Internet still don’t really know what exactly an RSS feed really is. RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. Just as the acronym states, they are pretty simple to use and help simplify some of your web usage. The basic idea of an RSS feed is to receive frequently changing content (like blogs, podcasts or news updated) in one place so you don’t have to re-visit your favorite websites over and over to get the latest news. They also update almost instantly so when a new post or article is available, it can be found right in your RSS feed reader. RSS delivers the blog post or news story as an XML file which is called the “RSS feed.”

RSS is a very popular way to receive feeds but it is actually not a new concept. Other companies like Apple Inc. have attempted to do what RSS does now. Although other companies have created these feeds, none have become as universally accepted as RSS. Today, competing companies recognize the RSS feed icon (orange square with white radio waves) as the industry standard for RSS. Due to the increasing popularity of RSS feeds, large companies like Microsoft, Apple and the open source project Mozilla Firefox, have incorporated RSS feed readers into their Internet browsers to better accommodate their users. Other popular services like the peer to peer file sharing service, BitTorrent, have also incorporated the use of RSS feeds. The use of RSS feeds have become so standard that all the big players in the Internet news industry like CNN.com are also giving users the option to receive news updates via RSS feeds.

So you have somewhat of an idea about how and what an RSS feed is, but how do you go about receiving one? To receive an RSS feed, you have a few different options. You can use a web based feed reader or one specific to your computer platform that is a standalone program. One of the most common and easiest to use feed readers is Google Reader. This one is simple because all you need is a Google account and you are ready to go. No separate programs or services to sign up for. To start receiving a RSS feed in your feed reader program, you can enter the feed address right in the interface of your feed reader, and the latest news, posts or podcasts will instantly show up. If you come across a new site that you really enjoy or are unsure of the feed address of your favorite websites, look for the RSS feed logo or text link and it will direct you to subscribe to the RSS feed. It really is simple. When you use Google Reader, you can log in to the Reader service or have your feeds displayed on your customized homepage.

Google definitely recognizes the popularity of RSS feeds. The search giant, Google, just recently purchased a RSS management company by the name of Feedburner for $100 million dollars. This company is still fairly young but has had a big influence on the RSS world. Google will benefit from this acquisition by getting a better idea of what kind of feeds people subscribe to and which ones are the most popular. More importantly for Google, they can now advertise in the RSS feeds which is one advertising market they have yet to dominate.

A widget-supporting WordPress theme featuring a large header and menus on the side. This theme has graciously been released for free use under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0), meaning that you must not remove the attribution links in the footer while using this theme for free.

Google has been dominating the search industry for years now and we are only seeing the gap between them and the next best search engine widen. Many new search engines have come and gone trying to challenge Google and the ones that have been around for years seem to just be holding still. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has teamed up with Amazon.com to create a new Internet search engine that they hope will rival Google and Yahoo.

Wikipedia has chosen to use their existing open-access style web site to create this new search engine which is being called Wikia Search. Jimmy Wales and one of his money sources, Amazon.com, is creating Wikia Search, because they believe that with the enormous growth of Google, its search results have become susceptible to manipulation and spam. “Google is very good at many types of search, but in many instances it produces nothing but spam and useless crap. Try searching for the term ‘Tampa hotels’ and you will not get any useful results” said the 40 year old Wikipedia founder.

The creating of Wikia would be a completely new approach to the way search engines bring back results. Google, Yahoo and all the other major search engines have incorporated a computer algorithm which determines the relevancy of a web site to what the user entered in the search engine. Each search engine has a different algorithm and will show different results. Google is known as having the best and most relevant results for most searches. Wikipedia’s Wikia would avoid the computer algorithm all together and switch to its online encyclopedia style of human edited content. “Essentially, if you consider one of the basic tasks of a search engine, it is to make a decision. This page is good, this page sucks. Computers are notoriously bad at making such judgments, so algorithmic search has to go about it in a roundabout way” said Wales. Jimmy Wales’ theory will replace the computer algorithm with human editors who will decide which pages are the most relevant to a search term.

Wikipedia has become increasingly popular over the years and people seem to like the fact that the content is user generated and can be edited. This new style of search engine has the possibility to do well because of the already popular Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales uses the example of people manipulating Google and Yahoo search engines but with human edited search results, you can still have the same issues. What is to stop a Wikia editor from taking a bribe to rank someone number 1? It doesn’t even have to be that dramatic. The human editors of this search engine may unintentionally have favoritism for one web site or another. There is yet to be a strong contender to Google and only time will tell if Wikipedia’s new search engine can seriously compete with the search giant.

A lovely looking WordPress theme that features feminine look and feel. I bet you will be falling in love with this elegant and charming design done by AskGraphics.com. This theme has graciously been released for free use under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0). While you are free to use this theme, you must keep the attribution links in the footer as an acknowledgement of those people who contributed to this release.

A WordPress theme with widget-supporting sidebar and fixed width layout. This theme features a nice mix of blue background and sky image in the header. The design credit goes to AskGraphics.com, and it is free to use under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0), meaning that footer links must remain intact while the theme is used.

WordPress is becoming the king of the blogging community because of its amazing capabilities. It features options for the most advanced users but is also very easy to use for beginners. The ability to customize it to your needs has made it increasingly popular. But how do you customize it to be popular with the search engines? Everyone wants their web site to show up high in Google and other major search engines. Here are some must do tips to make your WordPress blog search engine (and user) friendly.

1. Content, Content, Content. That’s the whole purpose of your blog, right? Too many people neglect web site visitors when trying to optimize their web sites for search engines. You must remember that your site is intended for human eyes and it must be natural and reader friendly first, before making it search engine friendly. Using spammy SEO techniques may bump you up a little bit in the search engine results but if you notice the top results, they are always reader friendly.
2. Your first step towards making your WordPress blog search engine friendly should be to change your Permalink structure. The default WordPress setting is anti-SEO friendly. A typical blog post with the default Permalink structure looks something like this:
   

   http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=123

   Within your WordPress settings, they have some other Permalink structure options. You will want to select an option that uses the title of your posts in the URL. For example:

   http://www.yourdomain.com/2007/04/27/sample-post/

   This is one of the options provided to you but WordPress also gives you the option of creating your own structure. This is necessary for your blog’s SEO success because it makes the URL much friendlier to search engines, and also can provide some keywords in your URL which will always help your ranking status. It helps your web site visitors also because it gives them a rough idea about what your post is about. They are also more likely to link your blog postings if they have more readable URL’s instead of the “/?p=123” situation. It is important to change your permalink structure in the beginning stages of your blog. But if your blog has been around for a while with anti-SEO-friendly url structure, and now you want to switch to SEO-friendly Permalinks, you can try Permalink Redirect plugin, which will automatically redirect existing blog urls according to your new permalink structure by means of 301 permanent redirect. This plugin is useful when you want to switch to a new permalink structure without losing existing SERPs of your blog contents.

3. Page titles are a very important factor in search engine rankings and your blogs page titles are no different. The default WordPress setting automatically generates your titles to look like this: “Blogname – Blog Archive – Post Title.” To optimize your blog for search engines, you should switch the Post Title and Blog Archive positioning. When people use a search engine and come across your blog, this title is the linking text that they click on. The words they searched for will be bolded so you want those words to be to the far left as possible. Swapping these two positions will do that for you. In order to change this, you will have to edit your header.php file. You will want to find the code that looks like this:
   

   <title><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> Blog Archive <?php } ?> <?php wp_title(); ?></title>

   and replace it with this code:

   <title><?php wp_title(’ ‘); ?><?php if(wp_title(’ ‘, false)) { echo ‘–’; } ?><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?></title></li>

4. Sitemaps are a necessary part of any search engine optimization campaign. Sometimes creating a sitemap can be tricky with frequently updated contents. Fortunately with WordPress, there is a handy sitemap plug-in that will do all the work for you. All you have to do is install the plug-in.
5. Many bloggers using tagging as a way to list their posts in different social networking sites. The Ultimate Tag Warrior is another WordPress plug-in that will assist you in creating these tags. These are similar to the categories that are already implemented in WordPress but it is an additional form of categorizing that will help you in the “Web 2.0” sites like del.icio.us and Technorati. You will also want to take advantage of the Meta tags by inserting relevant keywords and page descriptions.
6. After you have optimized your WordPress blog with different plug-ins and options, you will want to get your blog listed in many of the blog directories available. Search engines count links to your sites as votes towards its popularity. You only want links (or votes) from sites that have similar content to yours. There are many blog directories out there that meet this criterion. Also, if you enjoy reading someone’s blog who has similar interests to yours, send them and e-mail and request a link to your blog. Listing your web site in your forum signature or e-mails may not give you credit for a link but if readers enjoy what you had to say, they may be more inclined to visit your web site and possibly link to it in the future.

A widget-supporting and xhtml-compliant WordPress theme with uncluttered two-column layout. This theme is designed by AskGraphics.com and released under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0).

A 3-column WordPress theme featuring beautifully laid-out sidebars. Main content area uses sophisticated design with harmonious color combination. Design credit again goes to AskGraphics.com. This theme is released under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0).