Today I want to showcase a very nice, clean and good corporate template for business blogs. The theme is on a WordPress platform and it definetly shows the active blog visitor all your nice features have to offer. With a clean blue and white color pack Rushhour is one of the best blog theme additions to have on your corporate business.

Rushhour Features

The main features I want to point out are the very nice content slider on the frontpage the custom category templates that you can use in your testimonials and your portfolio and the three widgets (a 125 ad widget and the 2 tabbed ones).

The theme comes in 2 colors: green and blue. You can set up aditional color options by editing the well commented stylesheet file inside the theme.

Support

As well as I might like a well developed wordpress theme, some of them lack the wigetizing option or the cross browser suport. RH has it all, it is widget ready, it has cross browser support, SEO optimized and gravatar ready.

Other theme options

RH comes packed with the best suport for end user editing. It has a great admin theme option page, a admin ad and banner management section and is code ready for any plugins you use (Twitter for wordpress, WP pagenavi, Easy Contact, Lightbox).

I hope you will buy and download this theme because is a great work and it fits perfectly inside your corporate business.

DOWNLOAD – PREVIEW

This simple technique will allow your article authors to display a bio and a Twitter link at the end of every article they write. The process is fully automatic, and the authors only need to fill in the required fields on their registration.

This is a simple and effective way to give authors that link love that they deserve for writing on your blog. The tutorial include some simple steps and code to set up. The tutorial is about setting up a author description and bio along with a Twitter link, and finally showing them inside a author box in WordPress.

Let`s get to work

Open up your functions.php and paste in the following code. This code will make a Twitter field that authors need to fill inside the user edit screen of WordPress.

<tr>
    <th><label for="twitter">Twitter</label></th>
 
    <td>
        <input type="text" name="twitter" id="twitter" value="<?php echo esc_attr( get_the_author_meta( 'twitter', $user->ID ) ); ?>" class="regular-text" /><br />
        <span class="description">Please enter your Twitter misname.</span>
    </td>
</tr>

And this is the actual result

Keep in mind that if you want to display something else besides the Tiwtter link, the only thing you need to do is to copy the Twitter code and change every twitter instance inside the code into something unique.

Now we need to save the links

To allow wordpress to save your Twitter link you need to pop this code inside the functions.php file just below the Twitter code we inserted before.

add_action( 'personal_options_update', 'my_save_extra_profile_fields' );
add_action( 'edit_user_profile_update', 'my_save_extra_profile_fields' );
 
function my_save_extra_profile_fields( $user_id ) {
 
    if ( !current_user_can( 'edit_user', $user_id ) )
        return false;
 
    /* Copy and paste this line for additional fields. Make sure to change 'twitter' to the field ID. */
    update_usermeta( $user_id, 'twitter', $_POST['twitter'] );
}

Now, we need to set up the actual author box we will display at the end of every post that author writes. Here is how you can achieve this:

Paste in the following code inside the functions.php file.

function my_author_box() { ?>
    <div class="author-profile vcard">
        <?php echo get_avatar( get_the_author_meta( 'user_email' ), '96' ); ?>
 
        <h4 class="author-name fn n">Written by <?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></h4>
 
        <p class="author-description author-bio">
            <?php the_author_meta( 'description' ); ?>
        </p>
 
        <?php if ( get_the_author_meta( 'twitter' ) ) { ?>
            <p class="twitter clear">
                <a href="http://twitter.com/<?php the_author_meta( 'twitter' ); ?>" title="Follow <?php the_author_meta( 'display_name' ); ?> on Twitter">Follow <?php the_author_meta( 'display_name' ); ?> on Twitter</a>
            </p>
        <?php } // End check for twitter ?>
    </div><?php
}

Next, let`s add the code inside our single.php file for our author box to show. So open up your single.php and paste the following code just before the comments code:

<?php my_author_box(); ?>

And that is the whole thing. Furthermore you can stylize the author box by adding some extra CSS code inside your style.css. This is my actual code and you can customize it to fit your own needs.

.author-profile    {
padding:10px;
background-color:#c5ecfb;
border: 1px solid #0c529b;
}
 
.author-profile img    {
float:left;
margin-right: 15px;
}
 
.author-name {
font-size:1.9em;
font-family:Georgia,"Times New Roman",Times,serif;
margin-bottom:2px;
}
 
.author-description {
color:#333333;
font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;
font-size:13px;
margin-top:5px;
}
 
.twitter a {
font-size:1.4em;
color:#005ec1;
text-decoration:underline;
font-weight:bold;
}

And this is the actual result:

Today I decided to give something new to our readers. A simple, clean and free Photoshop WordPress PSD that you can code a actual WordPress theme. With a light grey color palette, a featured post slider and some great tahoma tipograpy, GodLike is trully a theme you can use.

If you want it coded into a actual WP theme, please say so with a comment. Only the people who comment will be able to download it, so spread the word and give some love to this great theme.

GodLike WordPress theme PSD Download

In this article you will find various ways of improving your theme by adding various wordpress post hacks like showing related posts, setting up and showing scheduled posts or showing a featured post. All of these hacks can optimize your wordpress blog by increasing time on site, bounce rate and other SEO issues.

How to show related posts based on keywords

First up Download, install, and activate the “Ultimate Tag Warrior fin” plugin. After this open up your single.php and before the comments template:

<?php comments_template(); ?>

insert this code snippet:

<div class="relatedposts">
<h2>Related Posts</h2>
<?php UTW_ShowRelatedPostsForCurrentPost("posthtmllist", "", "4"); ?>
</div></php>

You can set up the number of related posts by increasing the number “4″. Save the single.php and refresh your website. The posts will be shown based on the related keywords other posts have. You can also further stylize your snippet by creating a class entry “relatedposts” inside your style.css file.

How to list scheduled posts

Sometimes, you schedule posts instead of stuffing them all together at one time. This can be useful if you have much to write about and if you want to let your readers know what to expect for the future. This encourages the reader to visit you again and read that great post you scheduled for another day.

Ok, this snippet is easy to install, just paste the following code anywhere inside your theme files that you want the scheduled post to appear:

<?php
$my_query = new WP_Query('post_status=future&order=DESC&showposts=5');
if ($my_query->have_posts()) {
    while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post();
        $do_not_duplicate = $post->ID; ?>
        <li><?php the_title(); ?></li>
    <?php endwhile;
}
?>

How to show a random featured post

This hack is useful for a number of reasons like SEO optimization, reader engagement, low bounce rate or having something to show-off. And here is how you can do it:

First you need to download this plugin, install and activate it.

Next thing is to open up your index.php file, and right after this tag

 <?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

insert this tag

 <?php show_featured_post(); ?>

You can customize this further by wrapping the tag within a css style like this:

 <div style="padding:10px; border:5px solid #ccc; margin-top:10px;">
<?php show_featured_post(); ?>
</div>

Having a internet news magazine sometimes is a pain in the mouse-pad so, here are 8 of the most successful, great, slick and customizable WordPress news themes you could get. These are great templates created by some of the best wordpress designers. Besides that, WordPress is perfect for a online web editorial or news magazine, you can give users the ability to comment, submit news, give feedback and it`s great to establish a online authority.

Visual WordPress theme for passionate bloggers

DOWNLOAD | DEMO PREVIEW | SCREENSHOTS
The theme provides a easy way of editing the content as well as the look of the template structured in thumbnails and excerpts. The layout is designed is such a way for the users to scan the whole page and choosing what article to read.

Here are some of the features of the Visual WP Theme:

• Three built in color schemes and and a very flexible skinning system that allows you to create your own skins, while keeping the layout intact. And you can do it in under 5 min!
• Very clean and simple artice carousel, allowing you to bring back some of your favorite articles or the articles you really want your users to read.
• Easy way to edit the categories that should be part of the main menu, the category blocks featured on the homepage as well as the posts that should show up in the Featured Articles section.

Black Aperture WordPress News Theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO PREVIEW | SCREENSHOTS
A perfect all-in-one news and review WordPress theme created specially for video game specific news. You can use this for any online gaming review and news website. With great features like unique featured posts showcase, dynamic image resizing and many more make this the solution to a gaming website.

Some other great features:

• Custom built theme settings panel
• Default 3 column layout changeable to 2
• Both sidebars are widgetized
• Custom widgets for the 3 main ad spots

Quickrise WordPress news theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO PREVIEW | SCREENSHOTS
A perfect news magazine wordpress theme with 4 color design options. Some of the features include multilingual support, custom styling and color schemes, full control over the elements and many more. This would fit perfectly into any editorial wordpress website.

Here are some of the other features of the theme:

• Valid XHTML and Valid CSS codes
• Unobtrusive Javascript/jQuery code
• Neatly organized theme files

Our magazine WP theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO PREVIEW | SCREENSHOTS
A modern, clean and organized wordpress theme perfect for any online magazine, online community or user networking and interactions.The theme has 2 color variations, a slider for headline news, auto image resizing, advance theme option and the ability for users to submit news.

Check out some other features of the theme:

• JFlow – Slider using jquery
• SuperFish – Dropdown menu
• User Link Feed – Readers can submit links

Sofa theme the news WP theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO PREVIEW | SCREENSHOTS
Professional wordpress news theme widget ready (sidebar+footer). Some of the features include easy logo switch + other graphic elements, valid, clean, commented CSS and much more.

Here are some other features of the theme:

• 2 columns + sidebar
• XHTML 1 .0 strict
• Easy settings via WP Admin panel

Hawaii wordpress theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO PREVIEW | SCREENSHOTS
Perfect for a travel or vacation blog, this exotic theme illustrates the content best trough its layout. Some of the features include drop-down navigation, automatic tabbed widgets, sidebar child-page navigation like a CMS and many more.

Here are some of the other theme features:

• FlickrRSS plugin integration
• Handy footer area with extra links
• Slick looking comments with Gravatars

Image Hunter WP theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO PREVIEW | SCREENSHOTS
Nice looking image collecting WP theme. Perfect for online portfolios and image showcase websites. Some of the features include theme admin panel, AJAX menu, 6 advanced color schemes and many more.

GamePress online gaming news theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO PREVIEW | SCREENSHOTS
Full news and reviews wordpress theme, fully featured perfect for any online editorial website. Some of the features include threaded comment support, drop-down navigation, integrated support for Google Analytics and many more.

Here you can find 10 nice and clean mobile plugins for wordpress. Due to the technological breakthroughs mobile Internet has skyrocketed and everybody wants to update their blog from the subway or from the comfort of their favourite chair. Now you can do that too. Here is a list of 10 great mobile plugins for wordpress.

These plugins will make your WordPress blog more user and mobile friendly. Allowing that extra user exposure to overcome your blog.

10 Mobile Plugins for WordPress by dailyblogtips.com

A reader who visited one of my posts asked me this question. I tought it would make an interesting article to write about. The answer is fairly simple, yes you can get noticed on digg with a new WordPress blog, as a follow up I will post some of the best features to get noticed with a blog post on digg.

Planning your post and strategy

As most of you know, the best and only way to successful way of getting on the popular section of the site (regarding of the category) is to have a quality post/image/video posted. This is the first step, learn how to write effectively and originally. Do not treat Digg as a machine, treat it like a bunch of people that are reading a newspaper.

Here you can find how to Write Sharp and Snappy Blog Posts by Darren Rowse

Set up friend relationships with Digg publishers (not competitors) in your niche

Articles get promoted faster when you are 2-4-8 in the same space, mutual diggs on each others stories can have a great impact. First you need to identify them, then add them as a friend, afterwards ask them politely if they would want to be mutual friends with you. You can do this by sending them a private message trough the Digg interface.

Tweet the digg story

If you want Digg exposure on your post, one of the tricks is to Tweet the digg page of your story. This enables the twitter user to Digg your post directly.

Run a blog campaign or a small Adwords campaign

Run a Digg campaign on your blog for a interesting Dugged story, you can set up text, images, videos basically everything that comes in your mind. I try and make a campaign at the end of every popular post I have on my blog. Link that campaign to the Digg page.

You can try and set up a low budget Adwords campaign if you know what you are doing and receive relevant diggs for your post.

Everytime I use these tips my blog posts get dugged, it`s best to use them effectively and with your best published posts, and not with all your posts.

NOTE: DO NOT! And I mean DO NOT! under any circumstances ask for diggs on twitter because it is not nice and spammy and you could get your article buried.

Ever wonder why others are so successful when building a WordPress template? Well the answer for that is simple, they build it for a cause, and most of the time they build it because they want to give something useful to promote their work. Follow closely on how to impress others by building a killer WordPress template.

Tip #1: Preparation

Prepare in advance what you want to build, make a sketch and try to be very very original. Use the illustrative images and original phrases. Write everything down on a white paper within steps.

Tip #2: Brainstorming

Try and figure out what you need to do that no one has ever done before. Start thinking ahead of the competition and think what are they missing.

Tip #3: Building the theme

Try and don’t rush it, get creative and take your time with it. If you speed it up it will end looking bad. Try and refine every aspect you find a little weird. But in the same time stay original.

Tip #4: Build your idea of a great typography

Typography is one of the most important aspects of your blog, so pay attention to it, also you can follow Mark Boulton’s steps on creating the best typography: Five simple steps to better typography.

Tip #5: Firebug, a tool I can’t live without

Whenever I find a great design, I want to find out about what markup are they using so firebug makes my life easier. You can download the Firefox firebug plugin here.

Tip #6: make your blog stand out with icon sets

Icon sets make your blog more full of life so I tend to use them in almost every design I make. Email icons, RSS, social networks and more icons will make your design to be more user friendly and fun. you can download 35 of the best free icon sets over at SmashingMag, but I tend to use the PI Diagona Pack.

Tip #7: Design your blog header

The first thing a user sees on your blog is the blog header, so it is a very important piece of the theme. be shure and make it as representative as possible. Also you can download some free blog header design here.

Tip #8: Improove your design with the ultimate hacks

Again, SmashingMag compiled a list of the most awesome WordPress theme hacks that you can implement effectively in your wordpress theme.

Tip #9: learn hot to build a WordPress theme option

You can follow any of these tutorials that I compiled into a list, and find out how you can effectively build a custom theme options page. This tip only applies when you are bound to sell the theme or you are sharing the blog with a more inexperienced person.

Tip #10: Embed everything

Make it easy for yourself right from the start and try to embed every application you could benefit a link from, like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, the RSS Feed, and so on. I tend to insert my links first before I convert my static CSS site into WP.

Hope you liked these tips, I often use them when I`m developing stuff. Now if you don’t know how to make a WP theme check out this post: WordPress mockup tutorials the best.

Today we will learn where you need to go to learn cool new stuff you can implement in your WP template to make it very very attractive. Note that sometimes having a boring plain old theme is not going to get you high up, so the best thing is to spice up your design using some of the best custom field hacks on the web.

How to set up Thumbnails near your post titles

Here are some tips and tricks as well as some tutorials on how to implement Thumbnails in your template using WordPress custom fields.

• WordPress Custom Fields: Adding Images To Posts
• How To Add Image Thumbnail Using WordPress Custom Fields
• Giving each WordPress post a thumbnail, and display the thumbnail on the home page

Avoiding Duplicate Content using WP custom fields

Duplicate content is a pain in the nut when you are trying to SEO your wordpress blog, so here is how you avoid it using a simple custom field hack.

• How To: Avoid Duplicate Posts, shows how to avoid duplicating multiple posts instead of single post.
• Reducing Duplicate Content on WordPress Blogs
• Duplicate Content Cure Plugin for WordPress

Add Meta Descriptions to your posts using custom fields

Some say All in one SEO plugin is better for getting that valuable meta on your posts, but sometimes the custom field hack is much more better. Have a look at these tutorials and learn how to do it.

• Unique meta description and meta keyword tags in your WordPress themes
• How to: Create a meta description function for your WordPress blog

More custom field resources

• How to Use WordPress Custom Fields
• Creating Custom Write Panels in WordPress
• Custom Shortcodes
• More Fields

Ever wonder why sometimes regular WordPress SEO is not enough for your blog posts? Well that thing is about to change. Often when you start a new blog, you get stuck in promoting it. The alternative for easy promotion is to understand the beneficial aspects of social media and bookmarking websites.

New ways of increasing link authority trough visitor relationships

Twitter followers, zounds of RSS readers and digg friends can make a difference to your newly created blog. Think this, what would be better to promote a blog post, a hundred people on Twitter that view your post title or simple H2 and H1 tagging? Twitter, Digg and RSS relationships can make your perfect wordpress blog post stand out more easily.

Here are some tips on increasing Twitter followers
Kevin Rose: 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers by kevin Rose the founder of Digg

Here are some trusted facts on increasing RSS readers
10 Effective Ways to Get More Blog Subscribers by Brian Clark

And here you can find out how you can be the big cheese on Digg
The Secret to Massive Digg/StumbleUpon Traffic Without Spamming ( This post is a little old and it involves Stumbleupon but is worthwhile ).

Increasing blog momentum and traffic by having the best audience

Write hard, write often. Someone told me in my early days why my website articles were not interesting. First thing first, try and not write about something that everyone writes about, like “10 best wordpress SEO plugins“. The key to massive traffic is not having the best SEO blog, the key is having the best audience, real people, with real interests in your content. These people will surely link to you, follow you on twitter and read your RSS feed.

Here is how you can write professionaly and get more audience
How To Write Great Blog Content – The Pillar Article
Blogging in an Oversaturated Market is Usually a Poor Decision
40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content

Ways on increasing the time that Google crawls your blog

Forget the website load time, meta description, keywords. These are important, BUT! not as important as having someone actually reading your articles. The expers say that in the near future, the most bookmarked websites will have the power and I have to say that I am with them.

Note that Google still relies on complicated algorithms when crawling, promoting and punishing the content on the web, so we won’t kill the SEO just yet. Everybody loves a well crawled wordpress blog so one of the best ways on doing that is to have a presence on a well crawled site, and by this I mean getting on the first page with a do-follow link on some social bookmarking websites. Note that asking others to place your link on their page is almost dead so it is a bit pointless to do that.

Here is a list of some social boomarking sites that are well developed and where you can get voted quickly, thus increasing your chances of getting on their first page and scooping that precious bit of link authority.

Other tips on increasing you WordPress Blog crawl rate
10 Ways to Increase Your Site Crawl Rate

If you like to stay in touch and get more info on how to get it going with a WordPress blog follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my RSS Feed. And thanks for reading.