About a week ago I was starting to work on collecting a bunch of WordPress PHP code that could be consolidated into one post for easy reference, when I ran across an incredible post that already does this. The author WPCandy calls the document a WordPress Help Sheet, and that is exactly what it is.

This document consolidates a large number of PHP code snippets into one PDF file that you can save on your hard drive for future reference, or you can print it out so its available at any time. This document seems like it would be exceptionally useful for theme authors, or anyone that likes to alter existing themes they have downloaded.

The WordPress community is filled with a bunch of great plugins that have been made available to Wordpress users, but a majority of them are designed for specific functions or specific types of websites. If one of your objectives is to attract more comments to your blog, a popular way to encourage comments is the Show Top Commentators plugin.

This plugin is actually pretty easy to set up. You’ll want to go through the normal process of uploading it to your plugins folder, then activating it from your Plugin dashboard. Once done, the only thing left to do is paste the following code where you want to display your top commentators:

<?php if(function_exists('ns_show_top_commentators')) { ns_show_top_commentators(); } ?>

Once installed, this plugin will reward your regular commentators with a prominent link in the sidebar. In addition to possibly generating traffic, search engines will usually pick these links up as an inbound link, giving an added bonus to your readers who take the time to leave a comment. You could even turn getting on to the list into a competition and watch your comment counts soar!

As an added bonus, if you are focusing on improving your search engine ranking with certain keywords, using this plugin on other blogs can be easily used for this purpose as well. Travel around to some of your favorite high ranking sites and work on getting on their top commentators lists. Enter the keyword you want to work on into the name field when writing your comments so that the keyword of your choice will show up in the sidebar. Search engines will then pick that up as anchor text pointing towards your website. Doing enough of this can actually elevate your search engine rankings.

Have you ever switching to using a new WordPress theme for your blog and then suddenly notice it all over the blogosphere?   It can often be tough to find a quality free theme that isn’t already being heavily used by other WordPress bloggers.  

As a result, many serious bloggers make the decision to instead go the route of purchasing a premium theme.   These are usually some of the best quality themes and you won’t find to many of them scattered around the blogosphere due to the cost.   Some examples of affordable premium themes include the Revolution theme by Brian Gardner or some of the exclusive themes by Unique Blog Designs.

Now it looks like WordPress will make it a little easier for serious bloggers to find a quality theme.   Once purchased, it looks like half of the sales price goes to the theme author, while the other half goes to Automattic to help maintain the site. 

Its a little early and we don’t have enough information yet to comfortably form an opinion on this, but it is something that if done right, could be useful.   It will be interesting to see how many theme authors are willing to give up 50% of their sale price for a little extra exposure, and also to see if this is something available to WordPress.org users, rather than just being for WordPress.com users.

If you’ve ever participated in a group writing project, the position of your inbound link on the participating blogs list will go a long way towards determining how much inbound traffic you will receive. Studies have shown that having an inbound link towards the top of the list will usually result in 3-4 times the number of clicks than you would receive being towards the bottom of the same list. This is especially true for group writing projects that receive a lot of participation, such as the ones held on ProBlogger or Daily Blog Tips.

In much of the same way as group writing projects, advertisers will receive additional traffic if they are placed at the top of the advertisers list. Being the top Text Link Ad, for example, or being the top 125×125 banner, can generate a lot more viewing and more traffic than being the fourth or fifth advertisement on the list. The problem is, they typically all cost the same price, but don’t necessarily all provide the same value to the advertisers.

In an effort to give all advertisers an equal value no matter where there advertisement is placed, Got Chance created a plugin called Got Banners and has made it available for anyone to download.

Unfortunately, this plugin doesn’t allow for links to be randomized, but it will allow you to use an unlimited number of banners and alternate the order that the banners are displayed each time your site refreshes. It appears that this can also be used to alternate affiliate banners, which means it will still be useful to bloggers that don’t have direct advertisers yet. So far, the only requirement I could find is that the banners be the same size (typically 125×125).

Today marks the one month anniversary of the registration of HackWordPress,com.   The following day, this blog was launched.  It has been quite an adventure so far, and I’ve got a lot of great stuff scheduled to be posted over the coming days and weeks.  

In case you are new to Hack WordPress, here are my most popular posts from October 2007:

1. How To: Seperate WordPress Comments and Trackbacks
2. Best 3-column WordPress Themes
3. Best K2 WordPress Theme Mods and Styles
4. How To: Separating Your Author Comments
5. How To: Add Del.icio.us Daily Blog Posting To Your WordPress Blog
6. Best 2-Column WordPress Themes
7. Best Google AdSense Optimized WordPress Themes
8. How To: Prevent WordPress Plugins From Breaking Your Blog

Looks like you enjoy the “How To” stuff the best, so I’ll keep my general focus in that direction going forward.   Thanks to everyone for supporting Hack WordPress through reading, comments, and inbound links!