Arun Kale is the editor at the Split-magazine. Well, he probably knows best what are the features in a magazine that can be incorporated to a wordpress theme. And he did just that by coding an ultra cool wordpress theme - The Morning After.

The Morning after, is a magazine like wordpress theme that is sleek, very web 2.0 and customizable.
It resembles Darren’s (Problogger.net) theme here and there. Not fully though. Well, Darren’s is a customized theme so you can’t find an exact match. The one that was a closer match was Adii’s premium theme. But that one will cost you around US $100, while Arun’s magazine theme is free.
Here is a screenshot of the theme.

A detailed review of the Morning After theme can be found here.

It says -

Before starting off, let me remind you something. This theme requires some work or rather creativity from your part too, to utilize it’s full potential. You need to create your own header image, latest post images etc…But let me tell you, for the amount of effort you are going to take, it is totally worth it. The theme also requires some plugins (not mandatory) to enable the extended functions. All the necessary plugins (Customizable Comment Listings, WP-Email, and WP-Print) are provided with the theme and therefore all you got to do is copy them to your plugins folder, activate them and done.

A word of caution - Arun has not included the tag feature on this theme, since the new release of WP is anticipated to have advanced features on tagging. He says, he’ll probably update on the tagging feature once the new version is released.  But considering that the new craze is to manipulate wordpress as a CMS, and provide contents as in like a featured post (just like on Problogger) on a magazine, this wordpress theme stands out really high!

AdSense team have announced a new feature at Google AdSense units. It will help you make more money online customizing the ads according to your needs with more ease and precision. As of now, whenever you need to change the colours or any attribute of an ad, you have to generate the respective code from the AdSense account dashboard and copy paste the respective code to al the pages you are using the ads right? The new feature will delete this step. All you need is to make the changes in your dashboard, and click save. All the changes to the respective ad will be automatically changed in your blog as well.

I think this will help you to try out and fiddle with more attributes on your ads, checking what works best for you. Many of us kept away from experimenting changing the ad attributes just because it consumed lot of time and was messy sometimes. Well, not any more.

But you have to wait until this feature is enabled on your account. So watch out for a (new) “Manage Ads” link under your “AdSense Setup” tab in your dashboard. Read the full story here.

Managing ads on Wordpress is quite a tedious process, especially when you have a template that shows bright yellow/black on white error messages when you try to tweak it (I guess that’s an error most of the time from the other end and not the template, though we firmly believe otherwise).

So I thought bloggers running on wordpress might be interested to learn about the best Advertisement manager plugins available to them, while discarding the stupid ones. Here goes..

1. Shylock AdSense Plugin
   The best one in the category and a must must to all WP bloggers ( % stars ).
   This plugin allows you to show AdSense (or any other ads) on posts at various places (top, bottom, midle, top-left etc) and based on how old the post is. You can configure more than one AdSense code to it.
   I’m running this on DailySEOblog and strongly recommend it.
   Get plugin here.
2. Who sees Ads
   A great idea in plugin form.Who Sees Ads is an advanced ad management plugin that lets you decide who will see your ads, depending on user defined conditions like whether the user is referred from a search engine like google, or he is a direct visitor or referred from another site.
   Based on these user conditions, the ads are either triggered or not triggered.
   This plugin is extrememyl good to increase your AdSense CTR. Why? In AdSense if your impressions (which are not clicked) can be minimized, then your revenue will increase. With this plugin, you select whether you should display the ads to one particular section of visitors (like regular readers) or not thereby minimizing the chances of wasteful impressions.
   Get the plugin here
3. Chitika eMini malls
   This plugin allows you to put a Chitika eMiniMall right into the body of the blog post. There is also a convenient button in the editor to customize keywords, colors etc. Good for bloggers who have been banned on AdSense and looking for other income streams.
   Download plugin here
4. AdSense Manager
   This is a Wordpress plugin for managing AdSense ads on your blog. It generates code automatically and allows positioning with Widgets. It can also be used to manage text and image based ads.
   Download plugin here
5. WP-Ads
   A very good plugin for managing non-Adsense image banner ads. Easily configurable and very effective. It can be automated to make random banners appear on different positions on your blog.
   Download plugin here

Managing ads on Wordpress even without these plugins is possible but at some point of time it tends to be tedious and an automated way can be much helpful. If you plan to insert AdSense/Image banners in your template, all you have to do is tweak your respective template (like sidebar.php), but when you change the theme, the ads may disappear, but in a plugin’s case it’s likely to remain if no other errors occur.

Picking a wordpress theme can be tricky especially when you have with one million options to chose from and another million of websites offering the same theme in different shades. I thought I should have a list of them for reference so that I don’t have to go around trying to find the best one whenever a client needs one. Here are the best of the best free wordpress themes available on the net that are SEO friendly, Free and cool at the same time.

Prior to that, here is an expert opinion on - Why your theme should be SEO friendly?

Web Site Theme- Is your sites theme search engine friendly?
by: Dawn Rowlett

Your websites theme is very important to its success. When your site is indexed by search engines, they actually review your sites theme as well as other content. The theme must be carefully planned. Here are some tips for developing a proper web site theme that will make search engines happy as well.

Choose a design that revolves around keywords and keyword phrases. For example, if your sites keywords are sporting goods, choose design elements that are associated with sporting goods. Use bright colors such as red and yellow. Use elements that are high impact and exciting, similar to thoughts associated with sporting goods.

Focus on the types of products, services, and information you seek to promote. You are selling sporting goods, not bedding. Focus on sporting goods and stay on that approach. Don’t get side tracked with a certain color theme you favor. Make your keywords the main focus of your theme. Make them bigger, and make them stand out against all the other content.

Search engine spiders review website theme as to how it relates to keywords. It is a complicated algorithm, but it takes into consideration the use of keywords and links. Search engines look for lots of content related to the main theme throughout the site, so it’s a good idea to have lots of information written for your site.

Lots of work should go into choosing the perfect theme for your site. Make sure you are truly representing what you wish to provide. If you get bogged down with too many keywords or keyword phrases, you may need to consider additional websites that focus around this theme, instead of flooding your own site with too many products.

Remember, the theme of the website should be appealing to users as well as the search engines. Once a theme is finalized, there are many more steps to make your site optimized for search engines. A theme is only the beginning. But it should be a strong foundation from which your site will grow and develop.

This article was written by Dawn Rowlett of Web Submission Services as an informational piece for website owners. Please visit Web Submission Services for more information about web site theme and search engine optimization techniques

	Template/theme name	Screenshot
1	Your blog 2.0 theme
2	Cutline 3
3	Sodelicious black 10
4	Pop blue
5	Lose my mind
6	Procut 1
7	Big blue
8	Shopaholic Fashionista
9	Fresh Apple
10	Tech 9
11	Limau Orange
12	Modern Paper 1.0
13	Gangway 1.0
14	Blue Earth 1.0
15	01 Dragee 1.0
16	Redie 3.0
17	Magazine 1.0
18	Fleurdelys 1.0
19	Ice 3.17
20	Wp Inspirat
21	Arrow 1.0
22	My journal hypereal
23	Blue Pix
24	Simple la Bob
25	Upstart blogger modicus
26	Box set 1.0
27	The ideal website 1.1
28	Blue Bird 1.0
29	Modern blue Green
30	Colors Idea 2.1
31	Fastway 1.0
32	Unthemed Clean Blue
33	Blue Meanie 1.1
34	Spotlight 1.3
35	Breaking News 1.0
36	Prosumer 1.4
37	Stardust 1.0
38	Techozoic 1.2
39	Classy 1.0
40	A screen near you 1.0
41	Drikattruu 1.1
42	TM Clear N1 1.0
43	QWILM
44	ADReu Theme 1.2
45	Ambient Glo 1
46	Book idea 1.1
47	Genki Theme
48	Shinra house blu
49	Cresto 1.0
50	Deep red 1.0
51	WP Zilla 1.0
52	Emerald 1.0
53	Ajax Berlee 1.0
54	Red Dodo 1.0
55	Simple Theme 1.1
56	SB Blanc 1.0
57	Minus 19
58	Freedom Green
59	PS3Ku 1.0
60	Firstd 1.0
61	Light Col 1.0
62	Mc Mac 1.0
63	Rojo
64	New Yorker 30
65	Liquid 2.0
66	Basic Concept 1.0
67	Patriotic 1.0
68	Natheless 1.0
69	DS Rosa 1.0
70	Non Zero Green
71	Durable 0.2.5
72	Tree V2
73	Cat sitting on a wall
74	Zen minimalist
75	Blue Zinfandel 1.0
76	Bloody gray 1.1
77	Simply Basic 1.5
78	Livingos delta 1.2
79	Insomnia Reloaded
80	Vertigo Squared 1.0
81	FH Freedom Blue 2
82	Karma fruit 1.0
83	Tranquility 1.0
84	Kiwi 1.0
85	Rale 1.0.2
86	Scroller Brown 1.0
87	Clementine
88	New typo 1.0
89	Barracus 1.0
90	Dipdolt white
91	Sammy 1.2
92	TM 3 0.7
93	KISS 1.0
94	Fauxed 1.0
95	Newsday 1.0
96	Orange scale Laila butterfly
97	F nice 1.0
98	Plain text blog 2.0
99	Descent Green
100	Dixie Belle
101	Yakuter Tema

Hope you enjoyed the collection.

Here are 5 wordpress plugins that will help you increase the time spent by readers on your blog.

1. List posts by category
   This plugin will list out an array of posts in each category (which you can select) thereby, helping the readers to find useful posts with less clicks.
2. Random Posts 
   This plugin helps you create a list of randomly generated posts from your archives every time the page loads. Incredibly good one to make your readers stick to your blog for that extra time. See the sidebar for a demo.
3. KB Linker plugin
   KB Linker will link phrases you specify to sites you specify. For example, you could make it so that whenever “Wordpress” occurs in a post it is automatically linked to wordpress.org. All you do is enter keyword/URL pairs into the Options=>KB Linker page in your admin menu.
   To make best use of this plugin, instead of specifying other websites, specify your own articles to keywords, so that whenever there is an occurrence of that keyword, an old article of your’s is linked to it. This plugin helps in distributing the page rank juice this way.
4. AJAX comments
   This plugin will make commenting a breeze, with no page loads or refreshs. Good one to improve your number of comments as well as encouraging readers to stay more time on the blog.
5. Related Posts
   Good old related posts plugin that enables you to show off some related posts from your blog based on keywords used.

Recently in the WordCamp 2007, Matt Cutts talked about making your wordpress blog Search Engine friendly and the importance of practising White hat SEO. He had released his powerpoint presentation file too, in which he recommends some must have power plugins for Wordpress. Some of them are the ones he is using currently while some  are those that he’s considering to use in the future. All these plugins are SEO friednly ones, that help you avoid duplicate content and climb your way up the SERPs. Here, I’m providing you all those wordpress plugins that Matt Cutts recommended with the links to the websites where you can find them.
Photo courtesy cinefilo

Plugins Mr.Cutts uses currently - Strongly recommended.

• Akismet - For spam protection
• Math Comment - For spam protection. This one asks for the 3+2 question before you comment on his blog.
• Google Analytics plugin - Adds Google Analytics JavaScript to each page on your weblog for tracking.
• Feedburner feed replacement
• Democracy  - For adding a poll to your sidebar.
• SEO title tag plugin - Makes SEo friendly titles
• WP - Cache plugin - Makes your blog faster and responsive.

Plugins Mr.Cutts is considering to use in future

• Brian’s threaded comments - Where you can reply to comments.
• Comment Karma - Where users can rate other user’s comments
• Highlight author - Where an authors comment will be seen highlighted.
• WWW redirect - Allows you to set various url redirect options and thereby control how users access your blog.
• Permalink redirect - This plugin replies with a 301 redirect to urls that’s different from what is requested on archives (or direct entries).
• Related posts - Shows links to related posts from your blog

I suggest that you use all the plugins he recommends, they’re all hand picked by the Google man himself !

Wordpress is the most extensively used CMS on the Internet today. Finding a host for wordpress is confusing because there are many players available with a plethora of options.Most of the times, rather than being able to select, users are confused.And hosting companies provide you with the options that you don’t really need in a host.What you actually need is a reliable host with good technical support.And there are the other SEO factors to keep in mind as well - like the server uptime’s, scripts available etc.

Many a times rather than going for a cheap host it’s good to go for a affordable one, if they care for quality.

Keeping in mind the SEO factors and wordpress ease of use, I’ve selected the best hosts available for wordpress.

1. Siteground
   These guys have excellent services.They have a very reliable host and excellent technical support.You can get the guys to install the wordpress to you free while you have to pay for any tweaking like installing a forum/gallery with an integrated database.Few of my blogs are hosted already there and I have not felt any glitches during my 2 years term.
2. Dreamhost
   They are the preferred hosting by many top-bloggers and sites.But honestly i don’t think the guys are reliable. And this is because of the recent downtime they had to their servers, which badly affected many blogs.
3. Bluehost
   These guys are “wordpress auto-install-ers”.They have a reliable support team and have affordable packages to buy.I personally have no experience working with them, but reviews say that they are the best around.
4. HostIcan
   One of the best wordpress supporters around. they are specialized in Wordpress installation and support. A very affordable price and excellent reliability.
5. MaiaHost
   The most affordable guys around. Only US $3.95 per month for exclusive Wordpress hosting.I’m unsure if they allow unlimited databases and subdomains, but if you are just looking for blogging and blogging all the day, then this is the right choice for you.Reliable and affordable!

Other top players who have received good reviews for exclusive wordpress hosting are - Godaddy, Hostgator, and laughing squid.

Before you select a host you would want to know that if your intention is pure blogging, you don’t require unlimited databases or unlimited sub-domains. All you need is a pre-installed wordpress package,one SQL database, Php and a good customer support team to help you on call.An affordable price is an added advantage. In my opinion paying US $7 per month for the above said services is fine.If you buy it for 1 or 2 years together, then they may offer you some discount too. So don’t forget that.

Did you know that your wordpress blog is not completely SEO friendly?

Of course, wordpress is 90% SEO friendly with it’s title tags, seo friendly templates and the like. But there is one loose point in wordpress that spoils the whole show.

I’m talking about duplicate content. This matters most with Google.It does not like duplicate content on any site. And Google’s handcuff to this problem is Supplemental index.

Let’s see how Wordpress is responsible for creating duplicate content on your blog and ultimately your blog ending up in the supplementary index.

Villain No.1 - Archive pages

Villain No.2 - Categories

Archive pages
Have you set your default archive settings to daily, weekly or monthly? If yes, you are in trouble. When google bots visit your site, it sees the same content first on the post page, then on the archive page, and third on the index page. So it is duplicate content three times.

Categories
Do you have the habit of tagging a particular post in more than one category? Trouble again!

How to overcome?

Solution 1
- Do not archive pages. If at all you are archiving pages, make sure that robots/crawlers does not crawl those pages.
- How to ensure robots don’t crawl archived pages.
- Use nofollow robots meta tags on the archive template.Here’s how you do it -

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow">

-Or use this Duplicate content cure plugin - It automatically adds the nofollow robots meta tag on to the archive pages, so that archived pages are not crawled by google.

Solution 2
- Do not categorize posts in more than one category. One post - one category. Mixing up categories makes duplicate content for the crawlers as well as creates a non-user friendly navigation structure as users are likely to see the same posts on each category.

One of the white hat SEO methods Matt Cutts suggested to bloggers during the WordCamp 2007 is to create a mobile version of your blog. He thinks this is important because, in the future, mobiles will be used to search for more content than now. So make sure you equip yourself for the big storm coming up.

Thankfully, Andy Moore has got a neat Wordpress plugin ready for us bloggers.The plugin even helps you to earn money from your mobile version, by displaying mobile ads.Also, it ensures that your blog is search engine friendly on the mobile too. It ensures the following -

• Automatic mobile phone & PDA detection
• Post & upload from mobile
• Supports comments
• SEO friendly titles and H1 tags

And the features include..

So, go ahead and download the plugin today. You know the drill how to install it. And get ready for the mobile version of your blog.

Developer’s page.

To test how your blog looks in a mobile, well use a mobile with GPRS connection, or else try these mobile emulators.

Emulator Dev mobi, Yo space ,Emulator Zone

What happens when you have changed or moved pages and you still get traffic from Google for those pages? Users end up in 404 Error pages - which doesn’t look attractive at all. It could prove fatal to you. The user may simply get a bad impression about you and may quit visiting your domain for ever.

Here’s how you can get over it.

Create a custom 404 Error page. Yes, you knew it already - so what’s the deal?

Instead of creating a 404 error page with a creative tag line, why not suggest the visitor an alternate page or a list of related posts based on the search query he made?

Here is a plugin from Wasabi that let’s you show related posts based on the search query by the visitor on your 404 pages.

Talk about - increasing page views on the blog.