hi i want to build a website not a blog, using wordpress, and i know that when u install wordpress to your domain you automatically get the blog page (with dates ,etc) as the main page. I was wondering how i can prevent that since i dont want a blog, or at least not for the homepage. thanks a lot

you just need to go to your Administration / Settings / Reading panel click the button for static.
If you are not using at least version 2.1 version of wordpress please let me know as it can be done but takes a bit more work.

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To avoid this, do not install the Wordpress platform on the main domain. You can install it on a subdirectory (it will be blog.domain.com) or on a folder (domain.com/blog)

Does your hosting account allow for easy install?

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but if i do that, the homepage disappears.

It depends on what you want.

You can install Wordpress in a subdirectory, then edit your .htaccess file to point your domain to your subdirectory. I haven't done this before, so I'm guessing.

You can also install Wordpress in your home directory, as you have done.

Since Wordpress is meant for blogs, the home page is, by default, meant to show the posts. If you would like a more static appearance, then you will need to modify the index.php file that is include with your theme. The index.php file is the homepage to your Wordpress site.

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Hi,

Login to the WordPress admin area

Create a new page called "home" (or whatever you want to call it)

In the left hand menu look for "settings" and click

Now look for "reading" and click

At the top of the page you should see "Front page displays"

Next to that, click on the "A static page (select below)" radio button and then choose "home" (the page you have just created) from the drop down menu

That's it

You can change this any time

You can also do this without installing WordPress in a sub domain or sub directory - top level is fine.

Hope it helps and solves your problem?

wow thanks soo much stephen! that was easy and just what i was looking for!!

hi again, do you by any chance know how i can have my pages i add show up as a nav bar? I just added a new page but its not showing up on the nav bar of the site. Home, and About are y only 2 nav bars i have. thanks again

No problem!

In answer to you second question - this is probably due to the theme you are using.

To have your pages show up in a nav bar you will have to change some code. This code lists all of your pages :

<ul>
<?php wp_list_pages('title_li='); ?>
</ul>

Changing code can cause serious problems if you are not sure what you are doing. Which theme are you using?

Hi again, just had a look at your profile and if the site in there is the one you are asking about; you are using Pixel.

Tell me about how you plan to develop your site and what you want to achieve with pages/posts and navigation etc.

I like your site and art btw, but I have noticed another problem for you - poor permalinks that will not help you get search engine traffic.

To change this log into the admin area, settings, then permalinks - look for "Custom Structure" and tick the radio button then paste in this : /%category%/%postname%/

You also need to assign each post to a category. Categories can be created as you work - look in the writing area for each post for "Categories" and "Add New Category". In the Pixel theme the categories are listed in the menu across the middle of the page - where it says Home and Uncategorized

If you do as I suggest your new links will look like this domainname / oil-paintings (the category) / figure-oil-painting-techniques (the post title) rather than domainname / ?p=96

Categories and tags can only be assigned to posts, not pages. Posts are better for you. Maybe you don't like the inclusion of the date and "admin"? If so, it can very easily be removed from the theme.

Like I said before, tell me what you want to achieve and I will do my best to help you.

Hi Thank you so much for helping me. My goal definitely is to rank high and do well in the search engine and im surprised that i was missing out on such important aspect and I did went ahead and created permalink, but now have few questions regarding that.

For now I just set up the category temporarily just to make sure i know how to do it, and if u see my site you will see that i made the change for the "figure oil painting techniques" post, so now its domainname/figure-painting/figure-oil-painting-techniques, and "figure painting" got included in the menu. My question now is if I should pick a profitable keyword(good demand,low supply) for the cartegory name i create or if it can be just anything. "figure painting" i dont think is very profitable keyword.

I was also wondering if its possible to use a word for a category then use different word for the menu for that category,For example ,use "oil painting" for category but on the menu bar for that category would read "portraits"

The new pages i want to create that I want on the menu bar, I do not want the date and comments or anything that would make it look like a post to a blog,( i want them to be like the "about" page) But i dont want to get rid of dates/comments for the whole site but just a few pages.

So if it is impossible to do the "add new pages" feature and get it on the menu bar, please let me know how can add some new posts without the date/comments etc. Also I wouldn't want them to be included in the home page within the blogs.

So my overall objective besides just sharing my passion and providing good content, is to make that site rank well with the search engine so I can get lots of free traffic.

Thank you so much again and if you ever happen to have any more suggestions it will always be greatly appreciated

Hiya,

You should choose an on topic keyword for your category - how about "figure painting in oil" or "oil figure painting" - you are then covering your three major keywords. You are using AdSense to monetize the site; AdSense reads the content of the page and delivers ads related to the page content. The name of your category is not quite as relevant as the post title and page content.

I am tempted to say that this is not possible, but there may well be a WP whizz kid out there who can prove me wrong. You can use a word for a category then a different word for the filename/address, this is called the "slug". Category - Word A, Slug - Word B but using this method lessens the impact of both words.

The good news here is that you can disable comments on a post by post basis. Look at the bottom of the post writing area for "Discussion" and untick "Allow comments on this post".

Which pages do you see yourself wishing to include dates? You may have to make a decision on "all" or "none" on the date issue.

To remove the dates you are going to have to change the code. Are you OK with that?

If so, go the the Apperance section, click on Editor. You should see a list of files on the right hand side; look for single.php (this is the template for all posts) and copy all of the code and paste it into a Notepad file so you have a backup in case things go wrong.

Now look for this line in the original file:

<p class="topMeta">by <?php the_author_posts_link(); ?> on <?php the_time('M.d, Y') ?>, under <?php the_category(', '); ?></p>

Delete it.

This will remove the author name, the published date and the category link the article has been published under. If you want to leave the category (I think it advisable as it helps people navigate the site) you could replace the above code with this:

<p class="topMeta"><?php the_category(', '); ?></p>

This would look like this "Category Name" on the page. If you wanted "filed under category name" you would have this code:

<p class="topMeta">filed under <?php the_category(', '); ?></p>

I think there are still some decisions for you to make regarding navigation, but have a go at this first then we can look at navigation.

Don't forget to make a back up of single.php before you change it.

Any changes we make now can be reversed, so don't worry if things don't look like you want them to.

thank you so much again. i actually want get rid of date/time etc on my other wordpress site as well and i noticed its single php file is different and didnt have the line u mentioned. if you can take a look i would greatly appreciate it. its the "pinkandpurple" theme of wordpress natalieportraits.com Also on that site,when i add new post and categorize it, the category does not show up on the menu bar.. And "about" page is not a post but its on the menu bar for some reason, unlike the pixel theme.thanks again


?>

<div id="content" class="widecolumn">

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<div class="navigation">
<div class="alignleft"><?php previous_post_link('&laquo; %link') ?></div>
<div class="alignright"><?php next_post_link('%link &raquo;') ?></div>
</div>

<div <?php post_class() ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>

<div class="entry">
<?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this entry</p>'); ?>

<?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p>Pages: ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>
<?php the_tags( '<p>Tags: ', ', ', '</p>'); ?>

<p class="postmetadata alt">
<small>
This entry was posted
<?php /* This is commented, because it requires a little adjusting sometimes.
You'll need to download this plugin, and follow the instructions:
http://binarybonsai.com/archives/200...-since-plugin/ */
/* $entry_datetime = abs(strtotime($post->post_date) - (60*120)); echo time_since($entry_datetime); echo ' ago'; */ ?>
on <?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?> at <?php the_time() ?>
and is filed under <?php the_category(', ') ?>.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the <?php post_comments_feed_link('RSS 2.0'); ?> feed.

<?php if (('open' == $post-> comment_status) && ('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
// Both Comments and Pings are open ?>
You can <a href="#respond">leave a response</a>, or <a href="<?php trackback_url(); ?>" rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site.

<?php } elseif (!('open' == $post-> comment_status) && ('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
// Only Pings are Open ?>
Responses are currently closed, but you can <a href="<?php trackback_url(); ?> " rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site.

<?php } elseif (('open' == $post-> comment_status) && !('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
// Comments are open, Pings are not ?>
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

<?php } elseif (!('open' == $post-> comment_status) && !('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
// Neither Comments, nor Pings are open ?>
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

<?php } edit_post_link('Edit this entry','','.'); ?>

</small>
</p>

</div>
</div>

<?php comments_template(); ?>

<?php endwhile; else: ?>

<p>Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.</p>

<?php endif; ?>

</div>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

The following will remove the date, time and the category and the text "this entry was posted" etc.

And to get rid of "edit this entry" remove

<?php } edit_post_link('Edit this entry','','.'); ?>

That should work on single.php (don't forget to make a backup before you make changes)

To remove the Powered by WordPress notice you need to go into footer.php and look for and delete:

<?php bloginfo('name'); ?> powered by
<a href="http://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a>

thanks again. But i ran into another issue.., when i added new posts and added a new category "Pencil Portraits" ,it did not show up on the menu bar ..