Incorporating Blog into website

Hi all,

I have just created a blog with wordpress, and I'd like to incorporate this blog into our existing website at www.globalhood.org. I'd like the blog to look like the rest of our website, and also have a URL that's something like www.globalhood.org/blog, rather than www.globalhood.wordpress.org.

I tried reading the Wordpress tutorials on this topic, but found them confusing. If anyone could tell me how to do what I want to do in simple terms, that would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

I'll give you a fairly simple answer and hope that it is helpful for you... :-)

1) You will have to modify the "template" of the blog so that it looks more like your site. I think the area where you make changes is called "presentation".

2) You will have to either install Wordpress on your web server (most hosting accounts should have this available) and move your site which may not be an easy task.

Or you will have to set up something that makes it look like people are on your site when they are really on the Wordpress site and your blog. This can be done with "frames" and if your blog looks like your site and has some or all of the same links it should work very well.

I would also recommend on your main site not just provide a link to your blog site but a dynamic list of latest posts.
You can do this very easily with a widget created from your blog RSS feed using
WidgetBox

Thanks for the advice!

Your hosting package must provide PHP and MySQL.

You can install WordPress into a folder within the root folder e.g. www.globalhood.org/wordpress or /blog. Then simply link to it from your other web pages.

But the tricky but would be getting WP to look like the other pages on your site. You could take the default template (called Kubrick) and alter its html and css; or create php pages from scratch and insert the template tags as per the help pages on the wordpress.org site. That's a learning curve with many head-scratching times ahead.

But... do you really need your blog to look identical to your main website? I don't think that necessarily matters.

Jason King
Nonprofit Web Design Blog

I like that idea...I think it's a great idea... but when I went to the WidgetBox website, there were so many widgets that I could not figure out the best one to choose for doing what you suggested. Could you be a little more specific. Which widget and how to apply it to your existing website to accomplish what you suggest. Thanks !

I think he was talking about the situation if you have a blog that is not part of your site. You may be able to use a "widget" to list some entries from your blog on your site so that your site visitors are more likely to be aware of your blog and visit it. Of course, you will need to have a blog first.

But I would not use a widget for that if you can avoid it. They look nice and are easy to use, but they may not provide search engine-friendly links to you blog. If you are not concerned with that, then a widget is a fine solution.

Another possibility is that (if you are using a common web hosing service) your host might have a blog option.  1and1 dot com has Wordpress as an accessory that you install in a sub domain, so your blog would be www.blog.globalhood.org (substitute any word for blog).  This has worked easily for me.

As for customizing Wordpress, I can't help.

Harvey