Have you ever wanted to add a static page to your WordPress Site but not have it appear in the menu? That is simple enough if you have a little knowledge of html, and can use a FTP client. Possible reasons for wanting to do this might be a download page not directly connected to your main site, a squeeze page, or a fast loading main page. The following technique utilizes the existing links to your CSS files so your page will be identical to the main site.
First thing to do is pull up one of your pages in a browser that most resembles the page you are wanting to create. I really like Firefox for most of my development purposes, and especially with the Firebug add on. Go to view and from the drop down menu select view source. The source code from the page will now be in front of you so select all and copy it.
Firefox menu showing view source.
Result of viewing source code.
Now you need a text editor to deal with this code, and any text editor will do. Changes need to be made of course so start at the beginning with the title in the head of the document. Adding a description and meta tags is only necessary if you want the page optimized. A simple index no follow tag may be all you need.
Find the content div that holds the content to be replaced with your new text. Be sure to use the appropriate tags with your new text establishing paragraphs, and lists. Save your new page to your site file with the appropriate extension such as html, or php. It should look something like (new-file.html or new-file.php).
Most hosting services have a built in ftp client for you to move small file sizes so if you don’t have a client theirs will work. Upload the file to your sites root folder. Now you should be able to view http://www.yoursite.com/new-file.php or http://www.yoursite.com/new-file.php in your browser.
If you want to add a link to this page within WordPress simply add it in the sidebar, or the footer. Should you choose to link to it from within your site be sure to update your site maps, and add more meta information to it as well. I use this technique to create fast loading pages for giveaways, advertisement, and of course the squeeze page.
My next post will be on how to add the page into your existing menu.