If you’re looking for a way to add additional outside content to your iWeb pages than using Google Gadgets may just be what you’re looking for.

We’ve described previously how you can combine Google Docs with Sprout to create registration and comment forms on your iWeb sites and Now we’d like to build on those same principles to quickly show you how to Add Google Gadgets to your iWeb site.

Google Gadgets are filled with informative, fun, and unique pieces of information that you may find useful to your site and to your users.

For example, this Countdown Gadget allows you to set specific details about an event that you’re counting down to. Adding this to your site will allow individuals to see exactly how long it is until the next family reunion, the Hulk Movie, or any other event that you want your users to take note of.

Adding Gadgets

To add these types of Gadgets to your iWeb site navigate to iGoogle. Click the “Add Stuff” button and search for the gadget you’d like to show on your iWeb site.

Once you’ve found the perfect gadget, click to view more information about the gadget and then find the “Embed this Gadget” link to the right under Webmasters.

Now you should be able to customize the gadget to fit with your iWeb site. Click the “Get the Code” button and copy the code provided.

Next, open your iWeb site and find the page you’d like to add the gadget to. Add html snippet and past the code into the html field. Your Google Gadget should now appear on your iWeb site and be ready for your use when you publish your site.

What gadgets have you added to your iWeb site?

Apple provided a number of themes with their iWeb application, but sometimes you may want a bit of a different look or feel from what others are using on their site.

It is true that iWeb has included simple tools that allows you to customize each theme that is part of the application but if you’re not interested in taking the time to customize each and every page, a theme not included in iWeb may be just for you.

After searching the web for iWeb themes it looks like 11mystics.com is the best place to find layouts that can give a custom feel to your site.

It is true that 11mystics.com charges for a majority of their themes but does provide a free theme for users that register with their website. Additionally, they offer a number of images that you can use to help build your website just the way you’d like.

If you’re not sure if you’d like to pay for a new theme, you can check out a number of live examples of others that have used themes created by 11mystics.

Once you’ve downloaded the new theme, an installer will run to add the theme to iWeb. Once its finished the theme you’ve added will be included in your theme options in iWeb and ready for you to add that custom look to your website.

iWeb has allowed individuals to quickly create all kinds of websites. But unfortunately the ability to add forms to these websites is not an included feature.

Luckily, with a bit of help from two free web services, forms can be added to help gather information from individuals visiting your website.

Create the Forms For iWeb

To be able to add forms to your iWeb pages you first need to create them. Google Docs recently added the ability to create forms and have the data collected stored in their spreadsheet application.

To create a form on Google Docs:

1. Login to docs.google.com
2. Open a New Spreadsheet
3. Click the Share tab
4. Check ‘To Fill Out a Form’ and then Start Editing your Form
5. Create your form and click Save
6. Return to your Spreadsheet’s Edit tab and click the link to Go To Live Form. Copy the URL of the Live Form

Now that we’ve created the form we’ll want to put the form into a format that will fit nicely into our iWeb pages. A new web application, Sprout, will help us do just that.

To have Sprout help us setup our forms in a format perfect for our iWeb site:

1. Navigate to Sprout and Get Started with a Blank Slate
2. Add a title for your Form and enter the size you’d like your Form to be on your iWeb page
3. Now that your blank slate is loaded and ready, select Services (under Components on the right) and then Google Forms
4. Instructions on how to add your Google Form to your Sprout will be displayed on your Blank Slate - Paste the URL into the Form URL field on the Right
5. After you’ve pasted the url, hit return and you should see your form on your slate.
6. Now we need to Publish your Slate.. Click Publish in the top Right (You may need to create an account with Sprout - Don’t worry its free)
7. Once your Sprout has been published, copy the code in the box to the right.

Adding the Form to iWeb

Now that we’ve created and formated the Form we need to add it to the iWeb page we’d like it to appear on. To do this, open up iWeb and click Web Widgets and select HTML snippet. Past the code from Sprout into the HTML snippet box and hit enter.

Once this is finished, you should see your Form on your iWeb page. More the Form to the location you’d like to store it on your page and publish your iWeb site. Every time your Form is filled out and submitted, the results will be stored in your Google Docs Spreadsheet for your review.

While this approach does take a few steps to get a form onto your iWeb page, it is a free solution that allows you some customization and storage options for the feedback provided by visitors to your website.

What type of Forms will you create for your iWeb site?

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iWeb, Apple’s website creation application that comes with each new Apple computer is designed to allow users to quickly create websites and blogs. While the process is quick and simple it also lacks some of the more complicated features that you see in many blog sites today.

If you’ve created an iWeb blog but want to add features and a bit of complexity to your site, moving to Wordpress may be just what you’re looking for.

Wordpress is one of the most popular free website and blogging software options that allows you to create custom blogs with all the features you like. Additionally, setting up Wordpress so that it is easily indexed by Google and other search engines is easy, something that iWeb has never done well.

The rest of this article will walk you through the process of moving your blog from iWeb to a new Wordpress install.

SETTING UP WORDPRESS

Before you move your site to Wordpress you need to get it installed on web server. You can download the files you need to then upload and customize to your webserver at wordpress.org.

After you’ve downloaded the file you can follow the 5 minute install instructions :

“Here’s the quick version of the instructions, for those that are already comfortable with performing such installations. More detailed instructions follow.

1. Download and unzip the WordPress package, if you haven’t already.
2. Create a database for WordPress on your web server, as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it.
3. Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.
4. Open wp-config.php in your favorite text editor and fill in your database details.
5. Place the WordPress files in the desired location on your web server:
   • If you want to integrate WordPress into the root of your domain (e.g. http://example.com/), move or upload all contents of the unzipped WordPress directory (but excluding the directory itself) into the root directory of your web server.
   • If you want to have your WordPress installation in its own subdirectory on your web site (e.g. http://example.com/blog/), rename the directory wordpress to the name you’d like the subdirectory to have and move or upload it to your web server. For example if you want the WordPress installation in a subdirectory called “blog”, you should rename the directory called “wordpress” to “blog” and upload it to the root directory of your web server. Hint: If your FTP transfer is too slow read how to avoid FTPing at : Step 1: Download and Extract.
6. Run the WordPress installation script by accessing wp-admin/install.php in your favorite web browser.
   • If you installed WordPress in the root directory, you should visit: http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php
   • If you installed WordPress in its own subdirectory called blog, for example, you should visit: http://example.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php

That’s it! WordPress should now be installed.”

The most difficult process of the installation is setting up the database that will store all your blog data for you, but your webhosting provider should be able to assist you if following the guide linked to above is not enough information.

Once you’ve finished installing Wordpress you’ll need to get ready to to import your iWeb Blog entries.

PREPARE WORDPRESS FOR AN iWEB IMPORT

Now that you’ve finished installing wordpress you’ll need to navigate to the wordpress login page and login with the admin account created for you during setup. Once you’ve logged in, I suggest creating another account with your “Posting” name so that articles you publish in the future will be listed as something you created.

On the Wordpress Management page, navigate to Manage and then click import. You’ll see that there are a number of other blogging software tools that wordpress lists as options for imports but that iWeb is not included.

Fear not, one option that is listed will allow you to import all of the articles you’ve previously created in iWeb. But before we do that we need to make sure that we have the iWeb files ready for import into Wordpress.

PREPARING iWEB FILES TO IMPORT TO WORDPRESS

Since you’ve been using iWeb for your previous blogging efforts you you’ve already created a number of posts for your blog. To prepare those posts to be imported into Wordpress you need to export your iWeb site to a folder.

1. Open iWeb
2. Select the Blog Site you plan to import into Wordpress
3. Click File and then Publish to a Folder
4. Save the folder to your desktop so that you can access it easily.

Like most new website applications, iWeb has built in RSS support. We’ll use the RSS file that is created in iWeb to import your blog into Wordpress. Since we published to a folder on the desktop we can find the RSS feed for the blog in that folder.

IMPORT YOUR iWEB BLOG TO WORDPRESS

Navigate back to the admin page for your new Wordpress Install and follow these steps:

1. click again on Manage and then Import.
2. Select RSS
3. Click Browse next to choose a file
4. Select your desktop and then the folder you exported your iWeb Blog to
5. Open the folder, and then the Blog Folder inside it.
6. Locate the rss.xml file, select it, and click open
7. select upload file and import

At this point wordpress shall import the posts 1 at a time and show the results with “1. Importing Post… Done” for each post in the rss feed file you have for your blog. When this has finished click the View Site link on the Wordpress Admin site and you’ll see the results of your import from iWeb into Wordpress.

NOTE: Not all formatting and image link structure always imports correctly. You may have to adjust the format of some of your posts to make them look the way you like. Additionally some picture images or links may not have transfered over completely and you’ll have to update their internet linkage.

CONCLUSION

Even though everything doesn’t import across with the same formatting that you set in iWeb, this is a way to import your iWeb blog to Wordpress so that you can make your site more Search Engine (SEO) friendly and have additional customizable features. Be prepared to make adjustments to links and images in addition to restructuring the format of some of your posts. These adjustments are often just a few clicks from the Wordpress Admin page.

To see our example of an iWeb page before check out our iWeb to Wordpress page and then view it in Wordpress.

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