How to make the “About” page stand out more
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Hi, The only way that anyone can get to the ABOUT page on my blog is if they happen to notice the link at the top of the screen (but it does not stand out – in fact, it just blends into the top of the page and is sort of camoflaged). On the navigation bar to the right of the screen, you can NOT click on the About topic. My own husband didn’t see how he could get to the About page when he looked at the new format I’m using for my blog. I like everything else about the new format, so I don’t want to change. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
LeniThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi again,
I just want to add that I am using the Fadtastic Theme. And when I talk about the format above, I am talking about the format that I get when I use the Fadtastic theme.
Thanks.
Leni -
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Anyone have any ideas? And if not, then can you tell me how do I contact WordPress itself to get help with this?
Thanks.
Leni -
• You cannot change the appearance of the header tab without the paid CSS upgrade (and knowledge of CSS editing).
• The theme you’re using is quirky: “About” in your right sidebar doesn’t refer to your about page, it’s just your blog’s tagline (set in Settings>General).
• What you can do is remove that misnamed thing, and add a text widget with a prominent link to your about page. If you tell me how exactly you’d like it to be (large? colored? framed? colored background? what colors?), I can work out the code you must put in the text widget.
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Well I don’t think wordpress is gonna help you with making the about page stand out more haha.
But anyways, there are lots of different ways to do this, just think outside the box. An easy way is to use a text widget (which I saw you already used) specifically for ABOUT, you could add a link there (if you dont know how to add page links, google). You could also create a button (or banner, image whatever, in your favorite graphic app) and then use that as a link to the about page. And you should take a look at what kind of widgets you have in your widget dashboard. All kinds of widgets can be used to link. Such as Links widget, Pages widget, Image widget.If you don’t know how to use widgets: http://en.support.wordpress.com/topic/widgets-sidebars/
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Thanks for your thoughts and for your offer, panaghiotisadam.
I think that that if the ABOUT text in the right-hand column could
be linked to the About page, that would be good. It seems from
what you have said that to do that I need a Text Widget.
Is this the best place to learn how to create a Text Widget:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/text-widget/ ? I can’t
quite understand what they are saying… I’m a nutritionist – not
a web developer! So in the end, panaghiostisadam , I might need
your help — and it is very generous of you to offer your help.
Is there anyplace else that explaines how toto create a Text
Widget — for dummies like me? Or can you give me
some links to Text Widgets on other blogs so I can see what you
mean by the term?
How is a Text Widget different than a regular link? Thanks!
Leni -
A regular link will be plain text, just different color and/or underlined. Using a text widget you can style it anyway you like.
A text widget allows you to place as well as format text, links, and images, in your sidebar. For examples, click my username and check the first four items in my left sidebar, or the home link and the subscription box in my right sidebar (I’ve got others too, but these are the obvious ones). Or check the sidebars in the blogs of two other forum volunteers:
http://1tess.wordpress.com/
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/The Support doc you linked to mostly tells you what a text widget is, not how you can go about designing things. To take advantage of text widgets for anything other than plain text, you need html coding; see here:
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You can, however, write them in the visual editor as if they were a Post, then, when they’re perfect, click to the HTML editor and copy all the code, then paste that in the widget. That’s a useful trick if you don’t know any code.
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I agree with raincoaster. I have a blog post on my blog titled “WordPress: Placing images in text widgets” that used that approach continues to get lots of hits.
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I think adding more pages would help it stand out. If you just had it named something small like “About” and had a few more pages they would look more like links instead of a subtitle or something. Good luck! :)
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So as I understand it Raincoaster, Timethief and Sewadorable
are all pointing me toward the approach given by timethief at
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2008/02/28/wordpress-placing-images-in-text-widgets/
. Is that right?
Thanks.
Leni -
That approach will do if you don’t know any code, as raincoaster said; but it’s limited, and it may produce undesirable side-effects you won’t know how to correct if you don’t know any code.
As an example of the other approach, go to Appearance>Widgets, open Sidebar 2, drag a text widget into it, paste the following in the widget, then click Save:
<div align="center" style="border:6px outset #3b91bc;background-color:#fff;padding:10px;"> <a style="color:#ff5700;font-family:Georgia;font-size:140%;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;" href="http://monamifood.wordpress.com/about/" target="_blank">About this blog</a> </div>Read this too before you get surprised by another side-effect:
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Why not use the Gravatar Widget? http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/gravatar-widget/ You can also optionally make the widget link to another page, like your about page.
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Thanks so much for all of your suggestions. I like the look of
the Gravatar Widget and I’m hopeful I can follow the directions
to create one. I will try to do so this weekend and when I have
it I’ll post a link to it here — or my questions about creating
it.
You are all so kind to have weighed in on my question.
I very much appreciate all of you for helping.
Leni -
So now I’ve created my first widget! The Gravatar widget. And you can see it on my blog, http://monamifood.wordpress.com. The only problem is I can’t figure out how to link to the page http://monamifood.wordpress.com/about/ where readers of the blog can get more information about me than what I can put in the widget. Also, now that I have a Gravatar widget all the other cool stuff that used to hang around on each page – the Twitter bird, the RSS feed icon, etc – have disappeared. On this blog from Takashika — http://nitemaireangel.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/themes-themes-themes/ — you can see the icons that I’m talking about. Can I get these icons back on my blog now that I have a Gravatar there? And if so, how do I do that?
Thanks in advance to all of you for your assistance.
Leni -
“I can’t figure out how to link to the page”
You could create the link in the post or page editor, using the link button, then transfer the result to the widget (as raincoaster had suggested). To do it directly in the widget, paste this in place of your “Who is” question:
Who is <a href="http://monamifood.wordpress.com/about/"><strong>Leni Reed Nazare</strong></a>?“now that I have a Gravatar widget all the other cool stuff […] have disappeared”
Ah, but I warned you about that! See my Mar 9 10:45 AM post above.
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Hi Panaghiotisadam,
Oh, I see, you did warn me and now I understand what your warning meant! This is a good learning experience for me and I hope it’s not too frustrating for you and the other posters who are trying to help me.So…let me take a step back…and ask: If the Fadtastic Theme that I’m using for my blog is not letting me do what I want easily, then perhaps I should look for a more suitable theme — before trying to make Fadtastic do what it isn’t set up to do.
I would like to keep things simple and I’m not thrilled with Fadtastic anyway. I just switched to it recently. And my readers will not mind I don’t think if I change the look again, as long as it makes it better.
What I’d really like in the new theme is:
1. An easy way to link to the About page
2. Built-in links to subscribe via: RSS, Twitter, and email. And if not built-in, then easy to add with a Text Widget.
3. The links like I have down the side of my blog (links to the key words such as “ginger” and “why ginger” with the “why…” post indented under the same named post.
4. An index by month of the blogs, like I have.
5. A more readable color than the funky green that’s in Fadtastic.
6. The ability to create bullets in the text (I have to use + signs)
7. Anything else that you seasoned WordPress bloggers think is important.Do you have some suggestions? You help would save me an afternoon of frustration trying to find the right theme and then not being sure it’s really all that good…
Thanks.
Leni
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