Hi again, Laura!
I’m glad you feel like you are making some headway. gestroud is pretty much saying the same thing, we all just have different ways of getting there. You don’t need any special tools to edit the files. You can do it with a plain text editor. If you use Windows, NotePad will work just fine if you don’t already have a favorite text editor. Never use a word processor (such as MS Word and the like). Bad things will happen to your formatting 🙂
As gestroud points out, you will actually need to have access to the sidebar.php file that is in your theme folder. I suggest that you make sure that you have a backup of all of your files before you edit anything. I strongly suggest it. You will need to retrieve the sidebar.php file from your theme folder using your FTP client. From there you can edit it right on your desktop, or even from within the FTP client itself if it allows, then simply save the changes and place it back in the theme folder.
From the sounds of it, you may have a little reading up to do on the basics. Go slow, and always make sure you have a good backup of your files just in case something doesn’t go the way you thought it would. I can’t stress that enough… Especially if you have invested hard earned cash in custom templates.
You really seem to be enthusiastic about getting your site in order, and I commend you for it. But you might want to take a little more time reading the documentation and getting familiar with the terminology, or you’ll find yourself pulling your hair out.
I agree with gestroud 100%, and I hope that after you get through the first few stumbling blocks, you will get as much enjoyment out of it as most of the rest of us do.
P.S.. If Laura is your real name, I commend your ability to not feel as though you need an extra layer of anonymity. I must readily admit that Clayton James, is indeed a pseudonym. Plus, it’s just a lot cooler than “Stan”… Oh, oh… now the cat’s out of the bag.
🙂
Cj.
Yes the terminology is intimidating. And no I am not a patient person. I have read through some of wordpress’s documents and have a hard time following some of it and a really hard time finding what I want.
It is very exhausting to look through pages and pages of information to find one or two little nuggets.
As far as using your real name goes, there are a ton of Laura Simmons out there and since you don’t know where I live, what’s the deal. I never have understood people’s need for anonymity. I just think it’s nice to call people by their real first name.
And no I didn’t realize there was a place to specify which version I was using. When I said I was a newbie I really meant NEWBIE!
Well Gestroud, I guess Stan oops Clayton just worded it in a better way that I could follow. And yes I am stressed out because I didn’t realize I would going to have to do this much searching and learning.
By the way do either of you know about the plugin for seo?
In my defense, I have been unemployed for over 4 years now. The economy in Ohio is the second worse in the nation and I am $9,000 in debt from trying pay per click, buying various software programs, paying authors for content, etc. trying to learn affiliate marketing. This blog is a test tool. In four months I have made $5.00 from Google. Desperation does not breed the clearest mind.
Thanks for your help. I’ll let you know if this works in a day or two since it is my top priority.
Well, you narrowed the Laura Simmonses down to Ohio 🙂 (Don’t worry, I’m not a stalker)
Here’s a good SEO plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Here are some links to free content so you don’t have to pay authors. Just look for the category you want and see if they have anything. I usually add the desired categories’ RSS feeds to a Feed Reader like Google Reader and find the articles I want to use
Adfusion.com
Ezine Articles.com
Go Articles.com
My Web Author.com (a WordPress site)
News USA.com
There are dozens of others; just do a search for “free article content.” Quality varies, but there’s always something useful.
Avoid anything, everything, and anyone that requires you to pay money for SEO, site promotion, affiliate links, etc. Run when you see them. I have a feeling that the only people who have found them profitable are the owners. I strongly urge everyone to read The Internet Marketer’s Nightmare and download the free e-book. I think you’ll be surprised.
There’s no need to defend yourself at all. These are desperate times.
Best wishes. Hope everything works out. Keep asking questions – good way to learn.
G. E. Stroud
and that is my real name. 🙂
Well thanks to both of you. You have both turned out to be gems. I keep learning more and more. You have to watch people selling you things many of them (not all) are only interested in taking the money out of your pocket and putting into theirs. People say you get what you pay for, but sometimes you don’t even get that.
I am of Italian descent and think more like a European. I believe that God put all of us on this earth to help each other. I find a great deal of fulfillment in helping people. If I had Oprah’s money I would probably give more away than she does and that’s quit a bit.
Thanks for the best wishes and you are both right, I just didn’ know where to look and the last person who tried to help me said for $90 an hour she would do the work for me. she lead me to the codex site.
Well I follow the directions about the sidebar php file. However, the changed is not showing up on my blog. It seemed very simple from the picture I saw. And yes it only took a few minutes.
Trackbacks and pingbacks are on one tickbox so I can’t change that, guess I’ll just see how it goes.
Thank you Mr. Stroud and Stan.
You know what I forgot, that a simple return or space could be the problem. However, it does look right. I think I’ll ask my IT friend.
Mr. Stroud I will be looking at the info you gave me over the next day or two and give you my feed back about it if you would like.
I love affiliate marketing but it definitely is harder than I was lead to believe.
