Integrating Wordpress Blog

9 replies
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Hi all,

First post here on warrior forum. Not too much experience in building sites but figuring it out as I go along...

I am building an html site using dreamweaver. Pretty simple, i created a template and built several pages with it. It has a nice header and navigation bar at the top which I am happy with.

I want to add a blog page for traffic generation/seo purposes. I installed wordpress into the /blog folder and am now trying to customize it.

Probably the easiest way to explain this is if you see the site - overnightmuscle.com

(sorry, first post won't let me submit links yet here on WF)

IDEALLY, the blog page would have the same header, nav bar, and right hand column with the blog nested where the articles would be. I don't know how to do that so next best is to have the blog page look like any old wordpress blog but at least have links along the top under the wordpress banner linking back to the other non-blog pages of my site...

If you click the blog tab on my site you can see that the pages are currently linked only on the right side - but I want them much more prominent.

Anybody have any good suggestions that are simple enough for this amateur?

Thanks in advance,

Aaron
#blog #integrating #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author NetMan
    Originally Posted by amstack27 View Post

    Hi all,

    First post here on warrior forum. Not too much experience in building sites but figuring it out as I go along...

    I am building an html site using dreamweaver. Pretty simple, i created a template and built several pages with it. It has a nice header and navigation bar at the top which I am happy with.

    I want to add a blog page for traffic generation/seo purposes. I installed wordpress into the /blog folder and am now trying to customize it.

    Probably the easiest way to explain this is if you see the site - overnightmuscle.com

    (sorry, first post won't let me submit links yet here on WF)

    IDEALLY, the blog page would have the same header, nav bar, and right hand column with the blog nested where the articles would be. I don't know how to do that so next best is to have the blog page look like any old wordpress blog but at least have links along the top under the wordpress banner linking back to the other non-blog pages of my site...

    If you click the blog tab on my site you can see that the pages are currently linked only on the right side - but I want them much more prominent.

    Anybody have any good suggestions that are simple enough for this amateur?

    Thanks in advance,

    Aaron

    Why don't you just do it all in wordpress?

    Best regards,

    Andre Foisy
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    • Profile picture of the author amstack27
      Thank you - I could always go that route although I was liking the flexibility of building the site in dreamweaver. Any other ideas?
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      • Profile picture of the author houdy
        Originally Posted by amstack27 View Post

        Thank you - I could always go that route although I was liking the flexibility of building the site in dreamweaver. Any other ideas?
        As Netman said it is much easier to go all WP than to make WP look like an HTML site. Install WP on the main domain and use the static front page option using the content you want on that page. Then create another page for the blog part (call the blog page anything you want like... Blog).

        So now when you customize the WP site you only need to do it once to the WP theme and not on both Dreamweaver and WP. Especially if this is your first site or even a new site you will be making changes to it over time and do you really want to keep tweaking both WP and the HTML pages? Then when you want to completely overhaul it the WP theme could change the entire site with a few clicks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Debbie Songster
    Everyone is giving you the same advice I would give you
    Create it all in wordpress

    If you like the template you started with in html (Dreamweaver) I can create the same template for you in Wordpress - or at least a template to match what you have.

    A bit of advice
    The header area is valuable real estate - don't waste it by putting your legal page links there like your privacy policy. Those type of pages should go in the footer

    pm me if you want a matching template for wordpress
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    Getting back in the grove after taking a year off following a family tragedy.

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  • Profile picture of the author mattalways
    Sometimes Wordpress won't work for everything. I have done probably over 100 Wordpress customization packages to make WP seamlessly look the rest of the clients site. If you need some help, just let me know.
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    Quit wasting your money! If you need a website, get me to do it right! I'll probably even do it for less! Design/Development/Software, I'm your guy! matt@snidge.com
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  • Profile picture of the author eugenedm
    sometimes it's not about flexibility. It's about quickly creating a website and forgetting about it. But if you are an art designer and and you want your logo to be 1pixels to the left and 7pixels to the right then you'll have to stick with Dreamweaver.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dialady
      I've done it both ways: DW site + blog and Blog site all done in WP. That said, I agree that it is easier in the LONG RUN to have it all done in WP, but WP can be squirrelly for a beginner.

      I have a number of clients who have jumped on the blog bandwagon for SEO and increased traffic AFTER we recently completed updates to their websites OR they had a complex programmed site that wouldn't easily fit into WP.

      We did the same thing you suggested: developed a website in DW and then installed WP into another folder. After installing WP, I located a theme that was in the same vein as my DW design. By that, I mean I found one I could modify the header and the background. I considered, too, if the client would need one or two side bars, too.

      Here are examples:
      Home | Gloria Coker Fine Art
      Background Mission Partners - God's Story Into Hard to Reach Places
      Painted Garden Gallery

      I used one page for my link BACK to the website so there would be a path back to the DW site.

      This has worked well for my clients so far. It's provided them the needed blogs without having to start from scratch on a new website.

      If you get stuck modifying the WP, there are lots of options for outsourcing that portion (see the people who offered above). Playing with PHP is fun, but can be tedious and time consuming . . .LOL

      All the Best

      Theresa 8-)
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  • Profile picture of the author TheCopyGirl
    The typical way to do this is to create a custom WP theme that matches your current design exactly, and then use wordpress to generate both your dynamic (blog) and static pages. Changes in the design that you make in the future (using dreamweaver/whatever) can be reflected back in the theme quite easily.

    Feel free to drop me a PM (or email, if you don't have enough posts for a PM yet) if you'd like me to help you with the details
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    • Profile picture of the author lakelover339
      I am also trying to find out a way to integrate this. while the 'one page lining back to main website' works, I find it to be somewhat cumbersome and I would like a link back to the home page that is not so obvious. Preferably, I'd like to have a navigation menu that was the same as the site, tso the user could leave the blog and go directly to whichever page of the static site they wanted to. Is this possible and if so, how would one do it?
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