Useful WordPress Page Templates

1. Full Width Page Template

   This is probably the most widely used page template. It’s popular for landing pages on business sites and sometimes just an easy way to make extra space for a large graphic.

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2. Site Map Page Template

   A sitemap could be generated by a plugin but themes can often display them much more elegantly.

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3. Gallery Page Template

   A gallery page template could pull all images attached to a post and display them in an organized manner with some flashy effect. Also keep the new post formats and gallery shortcode in mind when creating galleries on the fly.

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4. List Subpages/ChildPages Template

   This page template display links of its subpages. Comes in handy more than you would think. This makes it easy to generate press release and news archives without using posts.

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5. Team/Author Page Template

   A team/author page template could display a list of employees at your company or authors of your blog by pulling from registered WordPress users or a custom post type.

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6. Social Stream Page Template

   Why not have a page template that lays out all of your social streams in an organized manner.

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7. Logged In Page Template

   A logged in page template is an easy way to restrict access to only logged in subscribers of your site.

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8. Widgetized Content Page Template

   This template would turn your main content area into a sidebar so you could load widgets where your content usually is.

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9. Portfolio Page Template

   This could display images similar to the gallery page template or it could have its own custom post type to pull from.

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10. Redirect Page Template

    This is a simple page template I’ve seen in a few popular premium themes. It’s basically an easy way to do a 301 redirect on your website without using plugins.

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11. Contact Page Template

    Some themes go as far as integrating custom form builders. You should at least look for good contact page templates. It’s also just an easy way to insert contact forms into pages.

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12. Blog Page Template

    A blog page templates displays your blog posts. Some themes will give you a few different display options.

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13. Custom RSS Page Template

    This page template makes it easy to display an RSS feed on any page.

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14. Redirect to Child

    Sometime you might have several subpages grouped together but no need for the parent page that holds them. This page template automatically redirects to the first child page.

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This is just the tip of the iceberg. You could have custom page templates for videos, testimonials, services pages and more.

Let me know of any other page template ideas I should add to the list and maybe any themes you think are using WordPress page templates in cool ways.

A New Resource For Businesses on WordPress

I’m starting a newsletter aimed at helping businesses get the most out of WordPress. It’s free to subscribe and I’ll be creating original WordPress plugins as exclusive gifts to my subscribers. You can find more information at WPBusiness.info.

Plugins For Business Websites

Working with WordPress should be easy. What started out as simple blog software is now a powerful content management system with a growing list of community generated plugins to help you get what ever functionality your company needs on your website. Below is a list of plugins I think all businesses should be aware of. The goal is to minimize the amount of time needed to manage your site so you can focus on your business. Every business has different website goals so choose the ones that are best for you.

HubSpot for WordPress

This plugin from HubSpot helps you manage popular functionality on business websites like your team page and contact page. It also helps you manage calls to action across your site so you can track online campaigns and optimize your actions as needed.

WordPress SEO

WordPress SEO helps avoid duplicate content issues and encourages common SEO best practices when creating and editing posts. You could get by without an SEO plugin if you really wanted to as WordPress does a great job by itself and your content is really all that matters.

Gravity Forms

This plugin solves one of WordPress biggest shortcomings, the lack of a form generator. There are a lot of plugins that do a great job but Gravity Forms is the easiest to use. Just drag and drop the form elements you want and easily configure and insert into posts. Like I said, your WordPress site should work for you, not the other way around.

(I only endorse a few premium plugins and this is one of them. This is a paid link so if you like it please use it.)

Subscribe2 HTML

It’s important to keep your subscribers coming back to your site. If you are regularly blogging and posting valuable content you should allow visitors to subscribe via email so they can get future articles delivered to their email.

WordPress Portfolio Plugin

This post is about keeping your site easy to manage and making it work for you. Showing off your work is essential for a lot of business sites so you need an easy way to manage it. Enter WordPress portfolio. Easily group projects and display them on your site for the world to see how awesome you really are.

Events

This plugin is great for scheduling events to be displayed on your site in the sidebar or on its own events page. Events can be recurring and can link to external registration pages.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Retaining your visitors by recommending related content is an easy way to increase time on site and your odds of converting the visit into a lead.

WPtouch

The rise of the smart phone has raised the demand for mobile enabled websites. The great thing about using WordPress to manage your content is you can easily install a plugin to make your site mobile ready.

WP-Stats-Dashboard

Back to this posts mantra, “making your site work for you”, your site data should be readily available as soon as you log in so you can gauge its success. This plugin lets you display the stats relevant to your business on your dashboard so you can be up to speed on your sites metrics in seconds.

Easily navigate pages on dashboard

While we are making things easy, I’ve used this plugin on several business sites to create a one click access point to pages from the main dashboard. It’s also an easy way to see your site’s layout without having to dig.

J Shortcodes

This plugin allows you to easily create customized styled web elements like buttons, content boxes, tabs, accordion panels and more. It’s an easy way to help content stick out without having to know CSS or HTML.

Custom Admin Branding

Last but not least you should make your website yours. Branding WordPress is easy with the custom admin branding plugin.

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Your business site should be easy to manage and deliver results. You should be able to easily track those results and make changes as needed. Experiment with different plugins and look at what others are doing. Make your website work for you.

- Header photo by vladislav.bezrukov

It doesn’t matter how big your business is or how much money you bring in. If you exist, I want proof of it on Google. I can bring up a business listing and even get reviews within minutes right from my cell phone anytime, anywhere.

We live in an on demand world where everything is a click, flick or a button press away.

But I Can’t Afford a Thousand Dollar Website!

Well me neither.

Luckily I make them for a living. For those not as fortunate feel free to learn more about how I can get you up and running with a customizable website for very short cash. The truth of the matter is, you really don’t need a thousand dollar website. There are tons of free content management systems and thousands of open source plugins on top of that creating endless possibilities for a completely unique, dynamic, out of the box website for your business. It’s not always about the glitz and the glam but about easily providing the information your audience needs.

Your Online Identity Freebies

User moderated reviews and online discussions have become the corner stone of a business’s online identity. These sites dominate the search engines and our mobile phones when searching for information about businesses and therefor should not be overlooked. You should check these sites to see if your business is already listed and add/modify as needed.

• Yelp
• Google Maps
• ZoomInfo

These sites require more attention on your part if you decide to participate. They take time to develop interested audiences but can be well worth it in the long run.

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Don’t Be A Sucker

That basically just means don’t spend thousands of dollars on a crazy flashy website for your corner store boutique. Web developers are a dime a dozen – you can find them at your local college campus, all over Twitter and dominating craigslist. Be careful any way you go about it though. If you think you are getting ripped off, you probably are. Get a couple quotes for the same project and learn the lingo. Don’t go overboard with Internet marketing techniques like social media marketing and SEO. Get yourself a functional up to date website that provides your audience with what they want.

- Photo by Curious Expeditions