UPDATE 1/19//2011 The XFactored 2.0 template has just launched! Click Here to Activate it Now **REQUIRES THE LATEST CE4 BETA (available at the member’s dashboard).

I’ve just put the finishing touches on the final bits of ClickBump theme core code necessary to allow drag and drop of the Google Search Box widget. That was my final functionality after having already added the category management and indexing bits.

Here’s a few screenshots of the finished work (As with all my premium templates, every color and background is fully customizable in theme options via point and click color selectors)…

The Home Screen in “Grid View” (Click for full size preview)

The Home Screen in “List View Single Column” (Click for full size preview)

The Home Screen in “List View 2 Column w/Custom Colors” (Click for full size preview)

Note: The color options are virtually unlimited via the ClickBump colorpicker tool that can be applied to the header, background, sidebar, menu links, menu buttons, search box buttons, and on and on…

A Category Landing Page with Stacked Ads (Click for full size preview)

A Category Landing Page when No Ads are shown (Click for full size preview)

An Article Landing Page with Stacked Ads (Click for full size preview)

A Category Landing Page Showing Leaderboard Ads in the “Header” widget holder

The new ClickBump theme is chock full of exciting and incredibly powerful features and functionality. All within a couple of mouseclicks.

A Completely Free Upgrade to ClickBump Owners

I could have packed all of this robust new functionality into an add-on plugin and made a decent pile of cash on it, after all, there’s a ton of work that went into all of the new functionality in ClickBump theme, particularly the new point-and-click category management features.

However, I realized early on in the development, particularly with the ease of use in the new Category management features that this stuff is way too important to only have a fraction of my customers using it. I want everyone to have these new tools and I want it to be super simple to install and use. And I want to bring so much value to your business, that ClickBump becomes THE system for serious Affiliate marketers and Adsense Publishers, driven by an army of loyal customers and owners who believe in this system so much you can’t resist sharing it with others and being a partner in its growth.

Simply put, I believe this is the most powerful and user friendly set of site building tools you can get in one installable package.

Let me say up front, what I’m about to describe for you, is but one of many ways you can build a site with ClickBump theme. You don’t have to use any of this new functionality, if you choose, you can continue building sites the way you’ve always done it. No problem there. But if you choose to embrace this new paradigm, I’ve got some really cool stuff to show you.

Sites Built Around Categories

To start with, your sites are going to be built around categories. Each of your posts will belong to one or more categories. Some of you may already have your site’s organized into categories. If so, you’ll have little to do. If not, I’ve made it really simple to get you up to speed with a completely updated and enhanced Category manager, built right into the software. You install it and its there. No plugins to install or activate.

Here’s a sneek peek at the new Category Editor with all the tools you need in one convenient spot.

Notice the addition of a rich text editor to make it super simple to create your category landing pages (the description summaries featured on the home page category index are auto generated for you from this content). Also you will see here the “Full Category Title” as well as the “Current Image” and image management tools (Upload/Delete)

First Steps

So the first thing to do, once you’ve got the latest version of ClickBump theme installed and activated, is to go to your site’s Category Manager (WordPress Dashboard > Posts > Categories) and begin fleshing out your categories. The core components of each of your categories will be: (1) A Category Name (2) A Category Title (3) A Category Description and (4) A Category Image (more on each of these later).

Once you’ve got your categories fleshed out, you will want to assign each of your posts to the proper category. You can do this easily using the “Quick Edit” feature while viewing your posts listing (WordPress Dashboard > Posts) and click the appropriate category for each post. Once you’ve checked off the appropriate category the post belongs to, go ahead an uncheck “uncategorized”, then click “Update” to save the category assigment(s) for that post. You will do this for each of your posts.

Finally, you need to set up CE4 to showcase your new Categorized site.

To do this, simply click on “WordPress Dashboard > ClickBump Engine” and you will see the “General Settings” tab open for you. You will probably want to check all of the checkboxes there in order to fully mimic John’s example site layout. However, if you want a slight modification to list your categories in a grid view of columns (vs a list view as John’s example site uses), you can leave the button labeled “Use List Style Layout for Category Index” unchecked.

You can experiment with this feature and see what suits you best. The default view is grid view, but If you check the box to enable list view, it will appear as a list, one after another, complete with Thumbnail images for each category, an SEO friendly “Category Title” linked to the category’s landing page, and finally, an auto-generated Summary Description of the category landing page text. This view is just like you see in Xfactor’s new “Authority Site Adsense Guide” on page 126.

If you choose the default “Grid Style” view, you get the thumbnail image and the category name, in a multi-row grid with up to 5 category’s listed across each row (depending on the template you are using). The image and the category name are both linked to the category landing page. Which view you choose is a matter of taste. The grid view is perhaps more suited to a site that has a much larger number of categories. Feel free to swap back and forth between the two views as much as you like. CE4 handles the display seamlessly without touching your data.

Once you’ve got these settings assigned, and you’ve chosen a default ClickBump template, either from the list of 12 pre-installed core templates or by uploading one of the premium templates you’ve purchased from the member’s dashboard, you are all set to preview your site and get a taste of all the new functionality that you’ve just enabled. Hard work huh?

About the category images

As you upload each of your category images, CE4 automatically creates two versions of each image. The first is a 125px wide thumbnail that’s used on the Category Index Page (in both grid view and list view). The second is the original image, in its original size, which is used on the category landing page, at the top of the content. You can decide whether to show or hide the landing page category image in theme options, but the point is that if you want it to be shown, it should ideally be already sized at your intended settings before you upload it. If you mess up, just delete the image and upload a new resized one. No problem. CE4 takes care of the rest…

A final note on the new SEO Friendly “Category Title” field…

You may have noticed that there is now a “Full Category Title” input field in addition to the default “Name” field that you’ve always used to name your categories. You will still name your categories as before, and the “Name” field is used to represent the category in the admin area as well as in Category list menus (such as when you drag a Category menu widget over to a sidebar from the Appearance manager). However, now you have a second name that you can use for your categories, the “Full Category Title”.

This input field is used to give your category a more descriptive title, that’s perhaps more SEO friendly and more fully describes the category. This field is optional, but if you use it, CE4 will replace the Category Name with your “Full Category Title” on the Category Landing Page as well as the Category Index Page (when not in grid view)

More to come…

Here’s a sneak peek at the new enhanced category manager that installs automatically with CE4…

PS: As I indicated in the first part of this post, the new XFactored 2.0 premium template is now available and shipping. With it, along with ClickBump Engine Version 4, you can easily create tightly siloed, richly categorized authority sites, with automated internal linking and indexing as recommended by SEO experts such as Lisa Parmley’s Inline SEO method as well as John Robinson’s Authority Site Course.