Easy Trick: Add Sitemeter to Your Headway Theme

If you use the Headway Theme on your WP site, you're in luck! Headway provides a feature called 'Easy Hooks" to let non-developers load content at key spots without hacking the theme.  This article will discuss inserting the code for the Sitemeter tracker. Be aware, there are affiliate links.

Recently, I installed and customized the Headway theme for Alli who owns Couponingfor4.net.   Similar to Thesis in terms of building on the WP frame and using hooks and custom style sheets, Headway is a popular premium theme. Alli was able to have a wide sidebar above two narrow ones to hold her many couponing ads, deals and social networking widgets. Much of this is html or javascript is provided by third parties like SiteMeter and used across many platforms. Sitemeter code must be activated on each page for proper monitoring of visits and page views.

Alli first tried putting the icon/tracker in a sidebar widget but because of the small size, the icon was out-of-place. So I used Headway's Easy Hook called "Footer Close."  The description says the content

"Will be placed right before the footer is closed."

The small meter icon is now in the left corner below the copyright line, a more attractive spot:

I used the divide tag to add some styling around the code to add space around the icon:

<div style="margin:5px; padding:5px;">
<!-- Site Meter XHTML Strict 1.0 -->

</script>
<!-- Copyright (c)2009 Site Meter -->
</div>

It's very easy for me to place the code where Headway would insert it. Open up this image to see the dashboard steps for adding the code:

More Easy Hooks

Some of the other popular Easy hooks can be used for things like inserting Adsense below posts. Here's a short list:

Main hooks -

before everything; after everything.

Header hooks -

before header link; after header link; after tagline.

Posts hooks -

above post; below post; above or below title; below post content.

Footer hooks -

footer opening; before copyright; after footer close.

What hooks have you used in your Headway theme?

Share some of your favorites in the comments!