Copyblogger as framework for customisation

First bear in mind that we will use Copyblogger as only the basis for customisation. The customization can change the design radically.

This theme was designed by Chris Pearson, a them designer renowned for his attention to both design and search engine optimisation (SEO).

* Design customisation

For a start, the theme was made for design tweaking and customising.

To enable this Pearson included a custom stylesheet on top the base stylesheet.

Pearson himself says:

“Judging from the overwhelming response to my Cutline Theme, the one thing that users crave the most is the ability to customize, tweak, and apply their own personal touch to a theme. With the Copyblogger Theme for WordPress, you’ll be able to modify colors, fonts, and even the tiniest details by utilizing the custom stylesheet solution that is included with the theme download.

An added benefit of using a second custom style sheet is that when an update of a theme is released with a new style sheet, and you wish to use it, you still have the customised style to fall back on. In other words its a future proof solution. You never touched the original and do not mind it being replaced.

Another design plus is the layout. The text area is 468px wide (though it is actually defined in ems) and fits about 70 characters per line. This is only slightly above the 66-character ideal.

* Search Engine Optimised

Copyblogger is Search Engine Optimised (SEO). Pearson again:

“Oh, and rest assured that the SEO aspects of the theme are absolutely top-notch. I view my themes as Web site frameworks – not just “designs” – and I wouldn’t bother to build a framework unless it was up to spec in all areas.”

Coppyblogger includes the following features:

1. A custom navigation bar
2. Lean XHTML and CSS
3. Standardised markup
4. Dynamic, descriptive <title> tags for each page of your site

1. A custom navigation bar

This allows not only fine tuning of the navigation, it also gives site owners the opportunity to direct search engine’s attention to where you want it AND increase your page rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

How? By being able to use the nofollow tag where you want it. This allows you to make sure the pages you want, rank high on search engines.

Each of your pages have an intrinsic value, and this value is distributed via links on the pages. If your pages are cluttered with links the value of each is diluted. Pearson again:

“I would recommend that you rule your site with an iron fist, thinking critically and logically every time you place a link on your site.”

The problem is that Wordpress creates page navigation links automatically via its otherwise excellent content management system (CMS).

This theme gives developers fine grained control over these links. You can decide which ones will transfer value.

You might want to conserve page rank on your Home page for example. Perhaps you don’t want to loose valuable page rank value from your Home page to a non critical About page. For this to be possible, you need customisable navigation, a feature other Wordpress themes do not have.

Learn more about page rank and how to conserve page rank.

2. Lean XHTML and CSS

Lean markup gives your site lightning fast responses and download times.

3. Standardised markup

Want your site to display correctly across different browsers, (Firefox, Internet Explorer), platforms (Mac and PC) and mobile devices? Then you need standardised markup.

4. Dynamic, descriptive <title> tags for each page of your site

This is one of the most effective SEO implementations one can make as both people and search engines love it.

A search engine results page (Serps)

Note that the blue links are determined by what goes inside the <titles>. If the page <titles> are dynamic and determined by the post’s title, they are more specific to the content on the page – as well as the content searched for. And as a result it is far more likely that users will actually click on your link.

In the example above we have a guest house website built on top of the Copyblogger framework. Without the dynamic titles, a search for Bloemfontein events calendar, the blue text above would have read

Pellissier-Place Guest House – stylish and convenient Bloemfontein accommodation. (Example)

Users looking for an events Calendar would be allot less likely to click on it, it says nothing about events or a calendar.

Copyblogger does have dynamic titles, for posts, pages, as well as categories. And when your on the home page, the framework displays the blog strapline in your titles.

Do it yourself:

You could include a dynamic title tag yourself by inserting a bit of code in your blog template. You can also install a plugin to solve this problem.

Also note: The new code base of Wordpress 2.5 also allows for Dynamic Titles as an option, but not as a default.