You’ll earn $23.50 for each person you refer that becomes a paid member! We also have a lot of good resources for you such as sample emails, banner ads, ppc ads, and we are developing more all the time. And, it’s a wonderful product you can feel good about promoting.

Now is a great time to get onboard as our $5 trial offer has gotten an excellent response and we have been able to help more and more people learn and utilize the amazing power of WordPress for their own blogs and website’s.

Help spread the good word – and make some cash in the process. Everyone wins.

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It’s free to get started :)

There is some confusion however about the topic – mostly because there are actually two very different types of Site Maps (or Sitemaps) that should be utilized on every website.

The good news for WordPress users is that there are a couple of plugins that make it very easy for you to take advantage of both types of Site Maps. Let’s take a look at both types of Site Maps and how to implement them using WordPress.

Onsite Site Maps

The first type of Site Map is what most people are more familiar with. This Site Map is simply a page on your site that has a link to every other page on your site. This is helpful to search engines as they follow links in order to find all of your content so having all of your content listed in one place makes it easier for them to find all of your pages. This type of Site Map also helps your visitors find the content they are looking for.

XML Sitemaps

Sometimes referred to as ‘Sitemaps’ instead of ‘Site Maps’, this type of Sitemap is similar in that it is a list of all the pages on your site. However, instead of publishing this as a page on your website, you actually submit this type of Sitemap directly to the major search engines. This not only makes damn sure they know of all your pages, but also gives you an opportunity to tell them which pages are most important and how often your pages change.

What’s more, using the Sitemap systems of the major search engines, you also get a ton of information about your site ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’. These systems will let you know if they are having any problems crawling your site, what terms your pages are ranking for, and much, much more. Be sure to check out Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Yahoo Site Explorer.

WordPress Plugins

As is often the case, WordPress makes it very easy to implement both of these types of Site Maps via a couple relatively simple plugins. Both of these plugins automate much of the process freeing up your time to focus on other areas of your website. For instance, they both update the Site Maps automatically when you add new pages or posts. You just need to set-up the plugins and then the system will handle everything from there!

The plugin I use for my onsite Site Maps is called ‘Dagon Design Sitemap Generator Plus’. This handy plugin gives you a number of options for your Site Map such as whether to show pages or posts or both, how you want them ordered, if there are any pages you don’t want included, and if you want to use a multiple-page Site Map for larger sites.

Once you have installed and configured the plugin, you simply take the ‘shortcode’ they provide, create a new page in your WordPress called ‘Site Map’ and paste the shortcode into the content area. The system will then replace that shortcode with your actual Site Map when visitors click on that page. With this plugin, your Site Map will always be up to date as you add or delete new pages on your site.

For XML Sitemaps I use the ‘Google XML Sitemaps’ plugin, which actually works also with Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.com. This plugin will automatically build the XML Sitemap for your entire site AND publish it directly to the search engines once you set it up. This plugin also offers several settings to customize how the plugin operates based on your particular website and preferences.

There you go, install and set-up these plugins and you will have an automated system to make sure that the search engines and your visitors will be able to find all of your content. Getting your site ranked high in the search engines is a lot of work, but this is one simple step you can take that can certainly strengthen your efforts.

Best of luck!

Note: See our complete, illustrated Using Site Maps with WordPresswhich includes instructions for installing and configuring the plugins mentioned in this article. You can register to access it for free!

The plugin you are looking for is simply called Exclude Pages (go figure). Just install the plugin (see our WordPress Video Tutorials for help installing plugins) and activate it. You will then get a new box in your Admin Center when you are editing a Page that looks like this…

Just check the box for that Page and it will no longer show up in your menu. Easy! Note that any child pages of that particular page will also be excluded from the menu.

Fortunately it’s pretty easy to find the category ID.  Just login to your Admin Center and go to Posts > Categories and click on the category you need the ID for.  Now, look at the URL of the page, which will look something like..

http://www.xyz.com/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=9

The number after the “cat_ID=” part is your Page ID. In this example, the page ID would be ‘9’.

You also sometimes need to Get the Page ID in WordPress.

Fortunately it’s pretty easy to find the page ID. If you haven’t changed your permalink structure (which you should) then you can simply go to your website, navigate to the page you are looking for, and then look at the URL of the page. It will look something like…

http://www.xyz.com/?p=123

The number after the “p=” part is your Page ID. In this example, the page ID would be ‘123’.

If you have changed your permalink structure and your page URL’s are more like…

http://www.xyz.com/my-page/

…then you will have to dig a little deeper, but not much. In this case, just login to your Admin Center, then go to Pages > Edit and click on the Page you want to find the ID for. Again looking at the URL, you will see something like…

http://www.xyz.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=123&action=edit

In this case, the Page ID is located after the “post=” part, but before the “&”. Again the ID is “123” in this example.

Notes:

• It’s also sometimes possible to see the URL when you just hover over the Page or Post name, which is a little quicker than clicking on it.
• You can also get the ID of a Post the same way, just go to Posts > Edit then click on the Post.
• You also sometimes need to Get the Category ID in WordPress.

#1 – Trademark Issues

I discovered after creating the site that the WordPress creators had requested that vendors like myself not include the word ‘WordPress’ in their domain name.  While I understand their request, I was a bit disturbed by this as not having ‘WordPress’ in my domain name puts me at a disadvantage for my own Seach Engine Optimization efforts and hadn’t made up my mind whether to change it or not. 

But then there was also issues trying to implement my soon to be revealed affiliate program as the affiliate system providers (ClickBank in my case as it integrates with my Wishlist Membership plugin) wouldn’t accept me with a trademarked word in the domain name either.  I am also having troubles running my AdWords campaigns to market my WordPress Video Tutorials and Professional WordPress Services with the trademarked name.

So, I finally decided I’d have to change the domain name.

#2 – Confusion

I had also discovered in the first couple months of running this new website (been a web-marketing consultant for over 6 years) that the word ‘WebKit’ was pretty confusing to people.  I was hoping it was kinda an all-inclusive term that showed we did all kinds of things with WordPress for our clients, but it doesn’t seem it was getting through.

So, I decided to take the occasion of using a new domain to also rename the website too.  Turns out that finding a WordPress domain name is extremely hard!  Literally everything I tried was taken (WordPress is heee-uggggly popular if you aren’t aware).  I was pretty glad though to finally come up with a good name that nobody had, WordPress Central Station.  I think it really gives a good indication of the breadth of help you can find at our site, whether you are looking to learn WordPress yourself or have us help you.  One central place you can turn for anything you need for WordPress.

The new site is now up, though it’s not much different right now than the old one.  Please use www.wpcentralstation.com from now on instead of the old www.wordpresswebkit.com. 

PLEASE let me know if you run into any problems with the new site and I apologize for any problems you might have had over the past couple days as I was moving the site over.  Let me know too if you had any problems and there is something I can do to help you.

Look for our new affiliate program to go live very soon!  A lot of people have asked for it and we look forward to partnering with you.  We’ll keep making the site better and better and will keep releasing more and more WordPress and web-marketing videos all the time.  We’re also working on new ways to better help you learn and get the full value out of WordPress!  Look too for our WordPress Training series to be coming your way soon!

Thanks so much for your patience!

Philip Light
WordPress Junkie

PS: I also FINALLY got the videos to load much, much faster.  Sorry for the inconvience the old method was causing.  Please keep the feedback coming and together we’ll keep working to make this the best WordPress Help Site on the Internet!

Just try an hour and let me show you how much value I can provide if you are using or considering WordPress. I’ve been working with it for years and am a PHP developer, so there is nothing we can’t accomplish, generally in a very short time!

It’s also time for a new Module of WordPress Tutorial Videos – Social Networking! We’ve launched the first couple videos in that category and will be releasing more covering Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz and more. Be sure to check those out if you are a member.

If you aren’t a member, you can join now and get access to 79 WordPress Tutorial Videos! A LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP is only $47!!!

The new videos are…

- Introduction to Using FriendFeed

- Overview of FriendFeed Functions.

- Introduction Using Text Link Ads

- Adding Text Link Ads to WordPress

- Adding and Managing Users in WordPress

Watch for 5-7 NEW VIDEOS EVERY WEEK FOR THREE MORE WEEKS!!!

As always, feel free to post any quick WordPress questions in the WordPress Forum. I’ll answer all questions at least once a day :)

Philip Light

The WordPress Junkie behind the WPWK