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WordPress and HTML template/one Site

by xxmarkxx
7 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
Ok first let me say that I've been reading and learning from warriorforum for quite some time and this is my first post. I should add that I'm a newbie when it comes to internet marketing however I've spent the past couple months learning all I can.

Here is my dilemma and question. From what I've read WordPress has a lot of benefits when it comes to SEO. This is good for me because for right now SEO will be my main form of traffic. There are many other aspects of WordPress that make me want to incorporate it as well. I have one domain that is "review" related and for the time being need to keep it that way. I have a WordPress template that I would like to use as the main page of my review site. However, for the actual review pages I have a HTML based template that I'd love to use. The HTML template includes an index.html, a style.css, and an images folder. So basically what I want is if you go to my domain's main site it will look like my WordPress template (this has already been set up). Listed off to the right will be a list of different review categories (ie teeth whitening, Business opportunities, etc). If someone clicks on say "teeth whitening" they will go to another directory on the same domain. On this page will be the HTML review page for teeth whitening.

The problem is I don't know how to do this. I could make "links" as oppose to "pages" on the WordPress page I suppose but would this then take away any of the SEO, tracking, etc. benefits of WordPress? What other impacts or disadvantages would this have? Is there a better way without having to have different domains? Is there a way to make a real "teeth whitening" page within WordPress so that the teeth whitening page is a true WordPress page fully incorporated with the rest of the site yet show up as COMPLETELY blank and be able to show the HTML page instead? I just don't know how to do this or if it can even be done.

I should add here, as I'm sure most of you are thinking, I am not worried about the asthetic flow of this. In other words I'm not worried that on the main page someone will be presented with one layout and on the review pages there will be a totally different layout. The reason for this is that I won't be focusing on any SEO in regards to the main page of the website. The main page will mainly be for my use and for the use of applying for CPA networks. I would actually be optimizing the sub-directories so that in a search mydomain.com/teethwhitening would come up as a result. This is yet another reason why I would like them to be somehow incorporated into the WordPress part of the site. I don't even think there will be links from the review pages back to the main page although someone could just manually enter it in.

I hope all of this isn't too confusing. I know it's pretty unorthodox to do it this way. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
#html #site #template or one #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author Karen Barr
    Rather than trying to do it that way - which seems really confusing, time-consuming and complex - why not just have your Wordpress template customised to the HTML template which you like?
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    • Profile picture of the author xxmarkxx
      Because I want the main page of the site to have a different layout than the review pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author Karen Barr
    Right - but you could choose a template which has a specific homepage layout, but a different layout for the review pages?

    Or, you could make a new template page for your review pages which is effectively blank and just add the HTML coding that you want.

    Or, if you're really liking the HTML template, why bother with Wordpress at all - just optimise for SEO yourself?
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    • Profile picture of the author xxmarkxx
      Originally Posted by Karen Barr View Post

      Right - but you could choose a template which has a specific homepage layout, but a different layout for the review pages?

      Or, you could make a new template page for your review pages which is effectively blank and just add the HTML coding that you want.

      Or, if you're really liking the HTML template, why bother with Wordpress at all - just optimise for SEO yourself?
      Ok, for the fist two suggestions: I'm very new to WordPress. I didn't realize that you could have a different template for different pages. I thought that if you installed WordPress in the root directory of a domain all sub-directories would show and have to have the same template. So would I have to go into cPanel and install WordPress a second time yet in a review sub-directory folder then install the blank or different template within that folder? If that's how I would have to do it, how would I then link from the main page to the review pages? I'm assuming they would have to be entered as links since as pages wouldn't work due to the fact that it's a different installation of WordPress. Am I correct?
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    You are over-complicating it...

    Everything you described (if I understood it correctly) can be done with a single WP installation and a custom theme with a number of different templates.

    WP 101:
    - this script is using something called themes for layout - themes are a collection of template files, to which you (or your WP guy) can add more, special template files.
    - such template files can give a different look to Pages, categories, archive lists etc.

    When you set up WP in your root directory (example.com) and add categories for posts and/or Pages... WP will create for you "virtual" subfolders, like:
    example.com/teeth-whitening/
    example.com/whatever-category/
    example.com/about-us/

    In your WP theme you can have special Page templates, special category templates, even special post-type templates (for single post view). They can be based on your original WP theme's design or have a completely different look (e.g. based on your beloved html templates).

    I am not saying it is easy and simple. While installing and running a basic WP site/blog is relatively easy... customization is the step where most WP users fail. (Otherwise there woldn't be hundreds, if not thousands, of posts around here asking how-to-do-this-and-that...)

    Although I don't think that anyone should have on the same site teeth-whitening topics and business-opportunity topics (it's quite difficult to rank such a site with so many different niches and keywords!) - there might be another approach, e.g. installing WP on the main root and using the MultiSite (MS) feature to create more blogs on subdomains
    teeth.example.com
    biz-op.example.com
    something-else.example.com etc...

    In this way you could have different themes activated on the different subdomains. However, making themes based on your existing HTML templates still would require some hired work.

    For starters, I'd suggets installing WP in a subfolder on your domain and start playing with it: study all the features and possibilities, read the help files and the online documentation... That's one way. Or hire a pro - although you still would want to know more about WP to be able to describe what you want to do
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  • Profile picture of the author clau82
    I agree on the above, adding a page template is not so easy for a beginner. So it might be better to hire somebody to do it, this shouldn't be much for any experienced WP developer/programmer. Another intermediate solution would be to simply use the html pages as they are and link them using either WP menu if supported by the theme or a redirect plugin. This will eliminate the need to modify/create a new WP page template but it can affect the SEO in some measure.
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  • Profile picture of the author xtrapunch
    Hey xxmarkxx, As others have already said, you need to know that WordPress is too flexible. You can have multiple styles for homepage, categories, pages, posts and what not. So if you want to have 100 templates in one WordPress theme that is possible.

    When you say you want WordPress for homepage and HTML template for the rest, you are missing the point that all links in WordPress are taken care of automatically. Having individual pages creates unnecessary complications. You can have multiple styles for posts and pages.

    A sample review website can be seen here: http://minisitestore.com

    If you notice, the reviews have totally different components from regular post and pages. On review pages, comments are called reviews and you have the option to add rating as well.

    Hope you get fair idea of what you should be doing.
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