One of the simple changes that provides a different look is to have the Top Navigation float right instead of left.

This requires a simple addition to the style .css file.

#access .menu-header ul, div.menu ul {
float:right;
padding-right:10px;
list-style:none outside none;
margin:0;
}

The only two lines added here are in bold.

The padding-right is to provide some space at the right edge of the menu. If you have the menu background set to no color then you probably won’t need the padding right.

From: Real Estate Blog Lab Twenty Ten Navigation Right

The H1 tag is the most important tag on site.  It is where your primary Keywords belong.  Wordpress General Tab is where you set the Site Title and Description.  Most theme designers work these into the header of a site.

Twenty Ten is no exception.  We find the css for these  under:

site-title {

There are style codes in here

}

and

site-description {

There are style codes in here

}

However, some don’t like seeing those on screen and simply delete the site title and description from the Genral settings tab.

Very nice, clean look.  BUT and this is a big BUT.

They don’t realize the H1 tag for the site is now EMPTY.  There isn’t one.  This is a big SEO NO NO.

With Twenty Ten there is an easy way to get your seo and not show it.

add this line of styling in each of the two areas mentioned above.

margin-left: -9999px;

This will move the title and description off screen while the H1 tag will remain in place for the bots.

From: Real Estate Blog Lab Twenty Ten Title and Description

In the Loop.php find:

<?php /* How to display all other posts. */ ?>

then a few lines later – -

Original Code:

<?php if ( is_archive() || is_search() ) : // Only display excerpts for archives and search. ?>
<div class=”entry-summary”>
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
</div><!– .entry-summary –>

Change to:

<?php if ( is_archive() || is_search() ) : // Display full content for archives and search. ?>
<div class=”entry-content”>
<?php the_content(); ?>
</div><!– .entry-content –>

You should change the notation to say you are displaying full content instead of excerpt.

Simple enough,  not really, here is the tricky part.  This code appears several places in the loop, if you don’t change the right one you won’t see any change at all.

So which one do you need to change?  Make sure it is the one after you see:

<?php /* How to display all other posts. */ ?>

From: Real Estate Blog Lab Twenty Ten Skip the Excerpts

Hi,

I visited your site: www.tucsonazrealestateblog.com and I must say that your site has got really good and worthy information. While reading your articles I found them to be really good and informative. I am a regular visitor of your site and I have been reading them since quite a long time. I work as a content writer in many financial communities and so I was just wondering if I can do something for your wonderful site. I would like to give you an unique article of around 500 words on any of the topics like FOREX, Stocks, debt, mortgage, credit, insurance etc. I assure you that the article will be published only on your site.

The best part is I won’t be charging you a penny, but in return all I need is just one link within the article. I am also associated with few finance sites also which I keep on updating on the regular basis.

I would be really honored if I can do something for your site

Please feel free to get in touch with me regarding this anytime you want.

Looking forward for your positive reply.

If any of you want a guest post for free let me know I’ll give you the email address

From: Real Estate Blog Lab Guest Post for your site

Powerfull Blog Post Promoter (PBPP)

This is one plugin you don’t want to use on your real estate blog. Here’s why.

This plugin randomly picks an older post and changes the time stamp on it so it appears as a new post and gets pushed to the top of your blog and sent out again in the RSS feed.

Why is this bad?

Ex.  You wrote a post in 2007 about a current trend in your local market.  There is a very good chance you said things about the market then you would look fooling saying about it today.

But that’s what will happen if you use this plugin.

I can see if you have a blog where the content is not time related this could be beneficial (maybe).  But most of what we post is time related.  That is why I’ve said for years RE Bloggers should display the Date the post was written on each post.

If you are going to recycle a post, do it by hand and update the content so it is timely (for NOW).  But don’t get a plugin to randomly change post date timestamps so you can recycle your content.

THIS IS A BAD IDEA FOR A REAL ESTATE BLOG.

From: Real Estate Blog Lab RE Bloggers DO NOT Use This Plugin

You want the sidebar on the left?  But it comes on the right.  There’s no option to set it left or right.  But as with most things Twenty Ten it is very simple to put the sidebar on the left.

First:

Second:

#container {

float: left;  (Change this to right)

margin: 0 -240px 0 0;

width: 100%;

}

Now the sidebar is on the left instead of the right.

From: Real Estate Blog Lab Twenty Ten Left Sidebar

Even if you make the entire theme wider 240px is the widest you can set the sidebar without making other changes to the css.

I’ll admit it took me awhile to figure this one out.  Changing the width of the sidebar requires changing some existing setting and adding some new ones.

Making The Twenty Ten Sidebar Wider

The first thing you need to decide is how wide you want the content area, the theme itself and the sidebar.

For our example we are going with a sidebar of 260px and a content area of 700px.  The overall theme width is 1020px.

Here are the changes and additions required.

First, comment out the width 100% in #container

#container {

/* width: 100% */

}

Then set:

#wrapper {

width: 1020px;

}

If you haven’t made your theme wider before you will also need to change the #access to:

#access {

width: 1020px;

}

Next we have to set the content area. Find:

Here we are adding the “width: 700px;”

Next we have to put a width on the comments area and tags, this is done in two places:

.commentlist
#response
.entry-utility

add “width:700px;”

Finally we will set the width of the sidebar:

From: Real Estate Blog Lab Twenty Ten Wider Sidebar

In the past few days a series of comments have been rolling into the Lab on old posts.  I mean really old post going back to the end of 2006.  The first couple that came in I figured were newbie readers.  One even said he was new and reading older posts.  However since Monday, (this is Thursday)  I’ve started getting a lot of comments from various individuals all on older posts.

This sets off a red flag.  The naming convention was the same for each:

Ben@Burnaby Homes
Alex @ Amarillo Texas Real Estate Agent
Braeden @ Bakersfield CA Homes
Suzie@Saskatoon Real Estate
Lauren @ Laredo Texas Houses For Sale

Yes, those are the actual names on the comments. And they all came from the same IP address.

None of these comments will be approved, nor will any future comments coming from this source be approved.

Being a do follow blog means I want to provide a link back to those that contribute to the discussion. It also mean those that try to abuse this courtesy are as bad as BP company executives; No, they are worse.

From: Real Estate Blog Lab Be careful who you hire to ruin your reputation

1. Create a new Directory in the wp-content/themes/twentyten-child/
2. FTP into your site and copy the style.css file and probably the footer.php file to a directory on your local Hard drive.
3. You don’t have to do anything with the footer.php file.  (Except FTP it into the new twentyten-child directory
4. Modify the header of the style.css  in the following way:Replace the commented section at the top of the file with the code snippet below YOU DON’T HAVE TO MODIFY THIS AT ALL unless you want to. It will work as it is.

   /*
   Theme Name:     Twenty Ten Child
   Theme URI:      http: //www.example.com/
   Description:    Child theme for the Twenty Ten theme
   Author:        our Name Goes Here
   Author URI:     http: //authorsite.com
   Template:       twentyten
   Version:        0.1.0
   */

5. This is from my sites so change the Author URI to blank or one of your own and save the file.
6. FTP both the style.css and footer.php file into the twentyten-child directory
7. Login go to Appearance/Themes  and select your Twenty Ten child theme.

You now have a child theme that won’t be overwritten every time there is an update to Twenty Ten or WP.

Header Image and Background Don’t Transfer from Twenty Ten

The header image and background image will need to be rest.  If you removed the header image for a theme without header image you will need to repeat the step mentioned in Twenty Ten Remove the Header Image.

That is all there is to it.  Now you can modify to your hearts content and never worry about your custom code being replaced during an update.

For more complete instruction check out the Child Theme codex http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes

(It is possible to create a child theme without FTP but I’m not going to go into that procedure here.)

From: Real Estate Blog Lab How to Setup a Twenty Ten Child Theme.

Thematic Child Theme left a bitter taste

My first encounter with child themes was with Thematic.  I hated them.  The CSS was buried in a file that wasn’t visible to the theme editor.  To change the CSS was so convoluted involving Notepad and lots of FTP of the style.css file to see any changes that I swore I would never work with child themes.

Twenty Ten as Default Theme

As much as I’m loving Twenty Ten there is one glaring issue.  Every time there is a WP upgrade or Twenty Ten upgrade all the files in the theme are replaced.  Three time now I have accidentally wiped out all the CSS and code modifications I’ve put in place.  Ex.  Analytics tracking code in the footer.php  GONE after the upgrade.

While I was in “fixing” the functions.php file for the header image size I wanted I noticed the recommendation from WP code to create a Twenty Ten-child theme to avoid having customization wiped out during updates.  Yeah, that caught my attention.

There was a link to the WP Codex on creating a simple generic child theme for Twenty Ten.  This morning I decided it was time to try it out on one of the new Lab Rats.  (The problem with my Lab Rats are they grow so big I don’t want to risk them any longer so I have to create new lab rats)

Twenty Ten Child Theme a thing of beauty

I followed the short simple instructions and in about 5 minutes had a child theme up and working.  It only took a few minutes more to start making all my Twenty Ten sites into child theme sites.  The css and any custom template files like footer.php are visible in the editor.

There are a couple of things you have to reset by hand when switching  (ex. header images, background, . . .)  which are locked to the parent Twenty Ten install but not carried over to the child.  But other than that it is a snap and I don’t have to worry about forgetting to back up my theme files before I hit the upgrade button.

In the next post I’ll take you through the simple steps to create a child theme for your Twenty Ten install.  While you can find all this information at http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes I’ll walk through the steps I did in the typical Lab post format.

I love so many things about the growth of WordPress with version 3.0.  It is out of adolescence and maturing nicely.

Expect that post either later today or tomorrow.

From: Real Estate Blog Lab Twenty Ten Child Themes