At last I have finished the beta version of my first WordPress Theme called SEO Simple. You can see SEO Simple in action here – and you can download it here.
The goal of creating this theme was to play around with CSS so that I could get the title of a post followed by the post text to appear straight after the html body tag.
The reason for this is that there is less code for the search engine spiders to chew through before they get to the meat of your page. And when they do, they are greated with a nice H1 tag with the post title, and then the post text – instead of going through you page header, navigation, etc..
Go to this page and view source to see what I mean.
Is it worth doing this? I reckon it is. I’ve seen websites that are listed in the serps with their navigation text as the description of their website. And this has been very frustrating when when it has happened to me! I also think that every little helps when it comes to getting your pages ranked.
I guess that it’s important to remember that this theme is implementing on-page SEO, and at present, this seams to be no-where near as import as off-page SEO in the form of trusted links. What I’m trying to say is that by using a theme like this, you probably aren’t going to rocket to a number 1 position straight away.
It was also worth doing because I’ve wanted to do a WordPress theme for ages, and I got a chance to do the type of theme that I like to use – one with a really simple and clean layout. This means that it should be easy to hack to your liking if you want to use it.
Even the XHTML and CSS validate, which I am pretty chuffed about 
I’ll be updating this theme on an ongoing basis. I plan to release a 3 column version with one of those spiffy 2 column right-hand sidebars as soon as possible (because I want to start using it myself!). Update – This is done and you can download it below.
Download SEO Simple.
Download SEO Simple – 3 Column.
Thanks go to:
Cre8d Designs Useful resources for creating a WordPress theme.
Floatutorial for helping me to get the content and sidebar in the right order.
Copyblogger – Sorry, I ripped off that shade of red that you use for your links.
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When you going to get the 3 column version done
Jeremy, Thanks for the comment. I’m working on it right now.
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SEO-wise, I think it would be better to make headlines such as “Comments” or those in the sidebar h3 tags instead of h2 tags. What if you want to post a lengthy article with h2 sections ? Makes no sense to have h2 all over the page.
Besides this, it really looks like “Problogger Clean” theme, but it’s kinda nice
(sorry, left a comment on the test blog
It would be nice if this theme resized with increasing/decreasing screen resolution
Hi SEO-Wise,
any hints on how I can encoporate the wordpress widget plugin to your sidebars?
This theme is good.
Could you make it Fluid width? That would be damn good. ^_^
Excellent theme. I always love finding nice clean layouts to use for my blogs.
Very clean and professional-looking. Good job on your theme!
Good work. A good implemented SEO theme you got there!
Great theme, it looks really professional…excellent!
It looks great! It’s really nice to see someone coming up with a theme that is optimized on the page, as well as looking good.
How often do we run into sites that are clearly designed with search engines in mind. They’re top of the rankings, but they look like a fourteen year old’s Myspace page.
As much as the engines seem to love blogs, even the basic ones with no SEO, they will have to Howl when they get to this page. I just proves to me again that with time and hard work and “SKILL” you can have a page that is both attractive to the eye and the search engines at the same time.
I already download both of your theme, it’s nice and good implement SEO, it is convenient when I modify it?
Those themes are pretty sweet, thanks again!