Since the last batch of search engine friendly WordPress theme recommendations went over so well, here are five more themes for the full version of WordPress (and if you’re on WordPress.com, don’t despair; we’re in the process of reviewing the included themes right now and will publish our recommendations for you soon).
XV – Revised
We like this theme’s code because it:
validates
has better-than-average code structure
emphasizes your post titles
emphasizes your blog name
emphasizes your blog’s description
uses unique page titles
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Many people have been reading the posts on ProBlogger and this blog about the importance of good theme code and the role it plays in your search engine traffic.
Now, I’m a little biased
, but I think one of the best ways to get a great theme with great code is to have it built that way; you get the best of both worlds: a custom theme that represents you perfectly, and great, search-engine-friendly code.
However, I’m also a realist, and know that many bloggers can’t/don’t want to put cash into their blogs, so I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some beautiful WordPress themes that also feature excellent, search-engine-friendly code. Read on to see the first five selections (in no particular order). (Hold your mouse over a “reason” to see a slightly longer explanation.)
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I’m not just talking about how your blog looks. The actual code behind the design has a much bigger impact on your online success than you might guess.
Wendy of eMoms at Home did a great writeup on ProBlogger yesterday where she talked about the importance of a well-coded blog template and described the phenomenal results she saw when I implemented a much better coded them for her (the number of people that Google sent her doubled the next day). Wendy explored the reasons for that and the result was the ProBlogger post.
I want to go into a little more background here so that you’ll understand why the theme change made such a huge difference. Most people choose a blog theme based strictly on how it looks (and that’s definitely a valid concern, since it’s setting the tone for your blog) but aren’t aware that the behind-the-scenes details of the code can drastically affect the way the search engines “feel” about your blog.
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I recently read a post about tracking the factors that contribute to good search engine rankings. There are lots of factors to keep track of, but if you do a good job, your blog will get tons of new visitors from Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.
The post was specifically …
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