Added Google AdSense very and slightly rounded corners ad border code to Talian with easy options to switch between 3 border versions (very rounded, slightly rounded and square corners on AdSense units). April 2008

Talian with Targeted AdSense and SEO theme has been tested on WordPress 2.5 and no issues found. March 31st 2008.

Talian is now a WordPress 2.* compatible theme, in particular the new WordPress 2.3 tag feature works with our Talian theme (the original Talian theme may or may not work with 2.3, not checked). Added WordPress 2.3 compatibility January 2008.

Talian is also Widget compatible, works with the new widget feature added to WordPress 2.3 (no theme editing needed). Added widget compatibility January 2008.

Targeted AdSense Coding: New option from Google AdSense, we’ve incorporated this feature into all of our WP themes including Talian. The targeted AdSense coding can not be used with popular AdSense addons for WordPress, unless you edit your theme manually. Added targeted AdSense coding January 2008.

Talian is the first AdSense WordPress theme for this site, but not my first AdSense ready WordPress theme (made roughly half a dozen AdSense themes).

According to WordPress theme viewer Talian is the most popular theme downloaded from wordpress.net with almost 12,000 downloads (as of mid September 2007). Which is why I converted it to AdSense + SEO.

At first I didn’t like it, but during the LONG process of adding Google AdSense code and SEOing the HTML code it really grew on me! I’m not one for 3 column themes, tend to look cluttered, but this one works which is why I’m trying it on this site and a few others.

Unlike my earlier WordPress theme creations there will be only one version, AdSense + SEO, though there’s a very easy way to turn the AdSense ads off, turning the theme into SEO only.

WordPress Talian theme with Google AdSense and SEO Optimisation

Take a look at Adventure Travel Vacations for a website currently using the Talian theme.

The first screenshot shows a home page of a Talian Theme test site which was used to edit the templates. You can see one of the three Google AdSense ad units in the screenshot, this is a 250×250 ad unit that floats to the right at the top of the content of the first post only.

I’ve looked at other WordPress themes that include AdSense and other than a copy cat (someone copied the code of an earlier theme of mine) no one uses this technique of floating an Ad unit within the content of the first post of archive pages. This location is one of the most clicked areas (AdSense hot zone) and so by utilising this location this ad unit almost always performs well.

You will find the same ad units and placement for all pages of the blog, which will maximise AdSense revenue.

The second screenshot shows a single post page, this is where individual posts are shown *like the page you are reading now). You can see the floating ad unit again and the top of the vertical 160×600 ad unit on the right menu.

In my experience it’s these pages that will create most AdSense revenue, especially the 250×250 square unit within the main blog post content (it’s a real hot area).

Further down the page is the third and final ad unit, out the box it’s set at 336×280 (large rectangle to catch leaving visitors), but there’s an easy to use options page where ad unit sizes and colours can be changed, so changing the size doesn’t need a PHP programmer or anything :-).

Talian with AdSense + SEO Installation Instructions

Make a PayPal payment for £7.99 for Talian using the PayPal button below-


When payment is received you’ll receive a copy of the zipped AdSense theme by email (within 24hrs assuming no payment problems).

1. Unzip the zip file.

2. Edit the file adsense.php within the /talian-adsense-seo/ folder to include your Google AdSense code (read the readme.txt file for more details, very easy to do).

Note: Adding your unique Google AdSense publisher code (your pub-##### number) is the ONLY required change needed to the entire theme to make the theme ready to turn your WordPress blog into an AdSense residual income stream.

3. Upload the entire folder to your WordPress themes directory (via FTP, just like any other theme you’ve tried out).

4. Log into your blogs dashboard and under Presentation select the new theme and you are done.

The Talian AdSense + SEO theme out the box uses blended ad unit colours and large ad units for maximum CTR/AdSense revenue. If you wish to change unit colours and/or ad unit dimensions this can be achieved by editing just one file. If you don’t like the 250×250 sized ad unit for example, no problem a few minor changes and you could have a smaller 180×150 ad unit. Don’t like image ads, again no problem specify text only ads.

Search Engine Optimization

Most WordPress themes aren’t too bad SEO wise when downloaded directly from their original creators, but there are always improvements that can be made for maximum SEO impact and this theme was no different.

The Talian AdSense + SEO theme includes-

Optimized title elements (and meta tags, though they aren’t very important these days). Take a look at the title of this page, note it’s keyword rich and lacks the name of the site (for SEO reasons).

Optimised headers, for example on blog post pages like this one the name of the blog is NOT within a H1 header, (every theme I’ve used has a H1 header that holds a link to home page). Instead the title of the post is within the H1 header and the link to home is only a H1 header on pages that lack a true keyword focus like the monthly archive pages. This is the first WordPress theme I’ve edited that I thought to do this and it should result in significant SEO improvements. will be converting all my WordPress themes to use this feature.

Optimised anchor text of links and rel=nofollow links to unimportant pages (from an SEO perspective) like the trackback and RSS feed pages (those links waste a LOT of PR/link benefit).

Basically optimised everything I could which makes this the most optimised theme I’ve made so far.

BTW if your using the original theme there’s a small code error near the language translations (left menu) that means the language image links aren’t within the box. Pretty easy to fix.

Make a PayPal payment for £7.99 for Talian using the PayPal button below-


When payment is received you’ll receive a copy of the zipped AdSense theme by email (within 24hrs assuming no payment problems).

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