Earlier this week, I shared tips to use WordPress as a content management system.

This morning, I stumbled onto a blog post in which Robert Plank shares some very good tips for customizing WordPress so that it’s more friendly for search engines. (And, after all, if nobody can find you at Google, Yahoo, etc., you’re missing a lot of potential visitors.)

So, go check out this post: WordPress Search Engine Optimization

Note: If you change your file names as he suggests, remember that you’ll also need to change the HTML for any links to them, if you’ve mentioned them elsewhere.

(Like Mr. Plank, I’m also using the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin now, as well.)

And, while I’m talking about this, here’s another WordPress tip if you didn’t figure it out yourself.  (This pertains to many WordPress themes, but especially Mimbo and Branford Magazine, linked at the foot of this page.)

When you’re making a post and you need to include graphics for the homepage (if it’ll automatically show up there), it’s easy to get the code for images that you use repeatedly. (For this post, I wanted to use the little desktop icon thingie again.)

There are at least two ways to do this. One is to keep a list of the URLs in a Notepad (or other text file) that you keep open on your desktop. Cut and paste the relevant code into your Custom Fields values section, and you’re all set.

Or, if the image is already in your WordPress files:

1. In WordPress 2.3, go to the Upload section of your Post panel.  (In WordPress 2.5, click on the Add Media icon that looks like a dark box inside a white box.  The rest of these directions are for 2.3, but the general idea works in 2.5 as well.)

2. Scroll down to the Upload section and click on “Browse All.”

3. Click on the image that you want to include.

4. When the image opens in that part of the panel, click “Edit” and then place your cursor in the field where the image URL is.

5. Hit the “End” key on your keyboard.

6. Highlight and copy everything after /wp-content/uploads/ in the code.

Example:

The desktop icon image URL is

http://arts-careers.com/success/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/desk75.jpg

The code that I copy is just 2008/03/desk75.jpg

Additional note: I add “75″ to image names of all of my icon-size WordPress images. Then, if I have multiple copies of the same graphic, in different sizes, I’m sure that I’m using the right one. (Also, the 75×75 images tend to be the smallest sizes. The desktop one is 4k.)

7. Paste that into the Custom Fields values section.

The latter sounds a whole lot more complex than it is in real life. I just wanted to make the steps very clear so that you can follow it easily. After you’ve done this once, it’s almost on auto-pilot for the future.

All of this — and a lot more — is in my ebook, Sites that Soar!