I’ve started around 20 (or more?) Yahoo Groups, including AJmarketing, wildartdolls, and ArtistsJournals2 (AJ2, now WAJ2).  When they become too popular for me to manage, I generally turn them over to new owners and moderators.

So, when people need to change Yahoo Groups moderators or ownership, they often ask me how to do this.

Here’s how to switch moderators/owners at any Yahoo group:

1. The current moderator/owner goes into the list of members.  That’s accessed by clicking “Members” in the left column at the Yahoo Groups page.  See the long, tall graphic at right.

2. Click on “Edit membership” under the name of the person who will be the new moderator/owner.  (See the second illustration, below.)

3. Click on “Change to owner” … or “Change to moderator” if that’s more appropriate.

4. If the person is simply being appointed as a moderator, the owner will assign privileges in the next screen… how much the new moderator is allowed to do, that affects the entire group.  (For example, unless the moderator is trusted, the owner might not want to give him or her permission to delete the entire group.)

5. Click “Make moderator” or “Make owner” at the foot of the page.  At the next screen, if you’re back at the individual’s membership screen, click “Save changes”. (That’s important.)

6. The new moderator/owner will receive notice of the change, and may have to reply that it’s okay.

7. If the old moderator/owner is leaving, he or she will go to his (or her) own membership page in that group, and select “Make member.”  Be sure to save the changes similarly to what you did in step 5, above.

8. If the old moderator/owner is leaving the group, he or she will then choose “Leave  group” at the group’s homepage. (There may be a similar option at the membership page.  Either one will work.)

That should do it!

I’ve written a complete article about this at my Sites that Soar! website. You’ll see more screenshots there to make the solutions simple.

In a nutshell, here’s one way to deal with the problem if you’re using WordPress 2.5 and Branford Magazine (or Mimbo) for your art-related website.

1. In your WordPress admin panel, go to Manage > Categories.

2. Roll your cursor over the name of the category for which you need an ID number.

3. Look at the bottom of your screen. At the lower right corner, you’ll see a line that looks like a URL. The Category ID number is at the very end of that.

In the screenshot above, the Category ID number is 4.

For other solutions to this problem, see my article, Category numbers and WordPress 2.5, at Sites that Soar!

MORE LIKE THIS

If you like the website design at this site, The Business of Art, and you’d like a similar design for your own website, it’s easy!

Get a copy of my book, Sites that Soar!, which explains how to install (free) WordPress and the (free) Branford Magazine theme.

It’s filled with easy, step-by-step instructions for NON-techies.  I even include screenshots (like the one above) to show you exactly what to do.

UPDATES

If you bought my book, Sites that Soar! and want to know when I’ll add WordPress 2.5 information:

As soon as the dust settles on the new WordPress 2.5 design, I’ll update the book with a complete section just for WordPress 2.5.

Right now (April 2008), new plugins are being developed, older ones are being updated, and I think we’ll see changes in WordPress 2.5 shortly.

This is why I recommend WordPress 2.3.3 (the previous version) until at least June 2008.  If you have a choice*, use the older 2.3.3 version of WordPress.  (Link to the free, zipped version of WordPress 2.3.3 – click here to download.)

If you have no choice — for example, if your hosting service only installs WordPress 2.5 — the major steps in my book apply to both WordPress 2.3.3 and WordPress 2.5.

*If you’ve already set up your website with WordPress 2.5, do not overwrite it with WordPress 2.3.3.  I tried it. It’s complicated.

If you’re doing business online, you need to hear this seminar series. Really. It’ll cost you $7 and take about an hour to listen to. Every subject is packed with information, tips and resources… no fluff.

It’s called the Seven Secrets Seminar by James B. Allen.

Following Mr. Allen’s advice, I tripled my online income in about three weeks. It’s not that he sold me on some get-rich-quick gimmick… he just explained how to organize my websites, how to set up my RSS feeds to reach more people, and where to get really valuable links to my sites.

Even better, my success has come from using just a few of his tips… and every one of those resources is free.

Listen to this series. You will thank me.

Here’s the $7 link: Seven Secrets Seminar.

(Yes, that is an affiliate link. I’d recommend this seminar anyway. If it bothers you that I earn a commission, here’s another link that I don’t benefit from. http://www.simplewebbusiness.com/seminar/ That reseller’s price is $17, but he includes some bonuses.)

So, let’s say that you threw tags onto your posts and–over a dozen posts later–realized that the tag would look better as ‘Portsmouth NH’ not ‘portsmouth nh’.

You could try to change the tag on each post.

Chances are, WordPress would ‘correct’ it to the original, lower-case version.

Or, you can download a useful plugin, Advanced Tag Entry. When you manage any entry, you can scroll down to the Advanced Tag Entry panel, and correct the tag in the section called Create New Tag or Edit Existing Tag.

Bingo, the tag is fixed in all entries that used the older version.  Or, it should be. (I’ve just started using this plugin, so I can’t yet say if it’s totally glitch-free.)

Anyway, this is saving me hours of re-tagging.  Life is good! 

And, since WordPress was created as blogging software, it organizes sites by date, or by date within a category. It wasn’t planned as a content management system (CMS).

The problem is, date order and simple categories are not intuitive for a first-time site visitor, when dates aren’t really relevant. Not when a site is huge, anyway. And, with sub-categories, the sidebar can expand to a ridiculous height.

So, here’s what I’m working with, until someone comes up with a better way to use WordPress as a CMS. All of these are plugins and generate content and site updates automatically.

- A folding navigation system

- A tags list

- A popularity list

- A search form (already in the template)

- A sitemap

All of these are available, free. Generally, I find them through WordPress’s own Plugins lists. Some need minor PHP or CSS tweaking. Some don’t function completely with Branford Magazine (and probably not with Mimbo); that’s okay, they work well enough.

I am learning as I redesign my larger sites. The smaller ones have been easy, but the larger ones–and planning for sites (such as this one) that may expand, big time–is still a learning experience for me. I’m sharing the most important notes with you, so nobody’s reinventing the wheel.

It will get easier.

Since so many of us are using WordPress as a CMS, I’m confident that better plugins will evolve over the upcoming months. And, with WordPress 2.5 scheduled for release soon (March 2008), some plugin developers may be waiting for that.

April 2008 update: I upgraded this site and a couple of others to WordPress 2.5 and I’m not happy about that. Many of the plugins don’t work well, yet.  I know that the plugins will be upgraded as time permits, but — until then — I can’t recommend WordPress 2.5.

For me, using ‘plain vanilla’ Branford Magazine isn’t an option.  Plugins are essential to my design!  So… take my advice and don’t install WordPress 2.5 unless you check the plugins first (and the WordPress Forums for wails) to be sure that everything will play well together.

One of my websites is on another server. And, like most good hosting services, they automatically installed WordPress when I asked them to. It was a fairly recent version of WordPress, so I didn’t update it before installing the Bradford Magazine theme myself.

Big mistake. My Categories didn’t work correctly. Four hours later, I ended up uninstalling WordPress. Then, I had my server reinstall it, and then totally overwrote everything (from the standard WordPress upgrade files) except the config.php file. Yes, I even overwrote everything in wp-content.

After that, I installed the Bradford Magazine theme. Then, step-by-step, I added the tweaks that I’d made in the original template. (I general change sidebar.php, index.php, header.php, style.css and ui.tabs.php. I also create my own header graphic, and sometimes a page background graphic as well*.)

Finally, I changed the Permalinks and header.php, as recommended in WordPress Search Engine Optimization. And, after every step–even tiny ones–I double-checked my site to be sure that everything was still working okay.

If you have a Categories problem after installing your theme, don’t spend four hours trying to fix it, as I did. If it doesn’t resolve with a few simple tweaks, rebuild from scratch.

While I’m talking about WordPress, here are a couple of other tips: If you change the Permalink to the recommended Custom link, your new .htaccess file goes in the WordPress root-level folder.

If you’ve never written an .htaccess file and there is none in your WordPress root folder, create a blank document. In it, paste the code provided on the WordPress page where you made the Permalink change. Upload that to your WordPress root; generally, you’ll call the created file .htaccess.html and then, after upload, rename it to .htaccess (If this sounds like a totally foreign language, do not change the Permalink, unless you can get someone else to handle the .htaccess issue for you.)

I am getting better at this process, and feel more confident recommending both WordPress and the magazine-style themes. Remember, I knew HTML and some (very limited) CSS before this, but I had zero PHP experience.

It’s taken a lot of trial-and-error to get this figured out, but… well, if I can do it, most people probably can. Then again, that’s why I wrote Sites that Soar, so no one has to reinvent the wheel.

—

* Yes, you can apply a background image and overlay a header (branding) graphic as well. That’s in the CSS. Just get the repeats right, or it’ll look funky.

This morning, I stumbled onto a blog post in which Robert Plank shares some very good tips for customizing WordPress so that it’s more friendly for search engines. (And, after all, if nobody can find you at Google, Yahoo, etc., you’re missing a lot of potential visitors.)

So, go check out this post: WordPress Search Engine Optimization

Note: If you change your file names as he suggests, remember that you’ll also need to change the HTML for any links to them, if you’ve mentioned them elsewhere.

(Like Mr. Plank, I’m also using the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin now, as well.)

And, while I’m talking about this, here’s another WordPress tip if you didn’t figure it out yourself.  (This pertains to many WordPress themes, but especially Mimbo and Branford Magazine, linked at the foot of this page.)

When you’re making a post and you need to include graphics for the homepage (if it’ll automatically show up there), it’s easy to get the code for images that you use repeatedly. (For this post, I wanted to use the little desktop icon thingie again.)

There are at least two ways to do this. One is to keep a list of the URLs in a Notepad (or other text file) that you keep open on your desktop. Cut and paste the relevant code into your Custom Fields values section, and you’re all set.

Or, if the image is already in your WordPress files:

1. In WordPress 2.3, go to the Upload section of your Post panel.  (In WordPress 2.5, click on the Add Media icon that looks like a dark box inside a white box.  The rest of these directions are for 2.3, but the general idea works in 2.5 as well.)

2. Scroll down to the Upload section and click on “Browse All.”

3. Click on the image that you want to include.

4. When the image opens in that part of the panel, click “Edit” and then place your cursor in the field where the image URL is.

5. Hit the “End” key on your keyboard.

6. Highlight and copy everything after /wp-content/uploads/ in the code.

Example:

The desktop icon image URL is

http://arts-careers.com/success/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/desk75.jpg

The code that I copy is just 2008/03/desk75.jpg

Additional note: I add “75″ to image names of all of my icon-size WordPress images. Then, if I have multiple copies of the same graphic, in different sizes, I’m sure that I’m using the right one. (Also, the 75×75 images tend to be the smallest sizes. The desktop one is 4k.)

7. Paste that into the Custom Fields values section.

The latter sounds a whole lot more complex than it is in real life. I just wanted to make the steps very clear so that you can follow it easily. After you’ve done this once, it’s almost on auto-pilot for the future.

All of this — and a lot more — is in my ebook, Sites that Soar!

Using this as a content management system (aka CMS) makes it possible for me to update my sites in about 1/3 the time that it used to take me.

However, if you’re still learning HTML, I can’t recommend trying to learn the PHP and CSS code necessary to tweak one of these themes.

That said, WordPress is pretty easy, so you could pay someone else to set up the theme, and–with that installed–you can manage the site through WordPress.  (I’ve also written a book to show you how to do this, step by step.  It’s called Sites that Soar!)

As I write this (early March 2008), I’m still tweaking the design and some of the code, so it works for my writing style. But, I think you can see why I’m so enthusiastic about this system for managing websites: it’s easy and largely automated.

Here are the links, if you’re comfortable with code or have a webmaster who can handle this for you:

WordPress: http://wordpress.org/

Branford Magazine

Demo:
http://www.wp-themes.der-prinz.com/magazine/

Download page:
http://www.der-prinz.com/2008/01/20/download-branfordmagazine/

Installation and configuration info (scroll down to it):
http://www.der-prinz.com/2008/01/20/wordpress-magazine-style-theme-branfordmagazine/

Mimbo

Demo & download & some installation info:
http://www.darrenhoyt.com/2007/08/05/wordpress-magazine-theme-released/

Tweaking the template (most of this works for Branford Magazine as well):
http://www.darrenhoyt.com/2007/07/24/in-praise-of-wordpress-template-tags-part-ii-the-magazine-layout/

My own tips (speaking as someone who knows zero PHP and only a little CSS):

1. Use the Mimbo sidebar.php rather than the Branford Magazine one. For some reason, the Mimbo version is more idiot-proof if–like me–you want to modify it.

2. Remember to change the /wp-content/ folder CHMOD to 0777 so that you can import and upload images in your “write post”panel. (The images are uploaded in the “Upload” section.)

CHMOD is usually set via FTP. In FireFTP (a free Firefox utility), I right-click on the folder and select “Properties” to change the CHMOD.

Some people feel that there can be security issues with CHMOD 0777. Many people change back to 0755 after importing the images they’ll need. But, others aren’t concerned about selected use of 0777.

3. In Branford Magazine, here’s the “cheat sheet” to remember which images (and image sizes) go where.

In the Custom Fields section…

leadimage is the large-ish picture in the main story near the top of the page. It can be any size that looks good to you. The demo site shows an image that’s 300 wide x 200 high.

featuredarticleimage is the field for the horizontal images associated with the article excerpts in the left column of the homepage. Each image should be 255 x 88.
rightcolimage is the field for the icon-type images in the right column. Each image should be 75 x 75.

To understand the radio buttons in the Custom Fields section, visit http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Image_and_File_Attachments and scroll down to “Inserting Images.”

Note: In my WordPress panel, the value for the image is everything after the uploads/ section of the image URL. So, for the icon-style image of a desktop, my value is “2008/03/desk75.jpg” (Your values may be different, but this is worth trying if you’re having problems.)

4. The files you’ll probably tweak: The index.php has the info for the left column and right column. The sidebar, at the far right side of the page, is in sidebar.php.

The tabs below the navigation bar are in ui.tabs (The navigation bar is a list of Pages, which you create in “Write Page” in WordPress.)

—

Those are my best tips, and I hope that they save you some time.

However–and this is important–I can’t answer questions about PHP, CSS, HTML, WordPress, or using templates.

For almost any question that you have, you can find answers online if you search on the most likely words. Each of the templates have their own FAQ-type pages and forums, and the WordPress site has massive documentation and forums.

Or, you could spend $12 for my book, Sites that Soar!, and save yourself a lot of time and headaches.  I mean, you can figure all of this out yourself, especially if you’re accustomed to WordPress and know enough PHP to get by.  But… why would you, when my book shows you the steps that I took to create this site?

(Okay, there is the $12 price, but I wish I’d had this book when I was setting up this site.  It took me more than 40 hours — a full week — to sort everything out.  Now, I can set up a site in a little over an hour.)

Everyone knows that Google is probably the most important search engine to be in. You’ll want to be ranked highly on their pages, to attract lots of visitors to your website.

But, did you know that Google generally doesn’t care what keywords are in your META code?

Judging the book by its cover… and what’s inside

First, they look at the words in the title of your webpage, and then they look at the words on your webpage itself, how often they’re used, where on the page, and so on.

They also see how many high-powered websites link to you, and–if rumors are true–how good your own outgoing links are. And, how long your website has been around, as well as which other search engines include you.

(Yes, this is a bit complex… just focus on the things that you can do something about, such as keywords.)

Keyword magic

Late in 2003, I learned which keywords to use on my homepage webpage (and others), based on what people are looking for at each search engine, including Google. And, my website hits soared. By mid-2004, www.aisling.net got over 2.5 million hits/year… and the numbers have kept growing as I’m fine-tuning my website.

(My mid-2006 website spinoff project may drop my Google ranking for awhile, but this was a necessary improvement.)

It’s easy to find out which words to use on your webpage to rank more highly at Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. The secret is a website called Wordtracker.

Wordtracker works

I’m using Wordtracker.com to find out which words to use on my pages. They’ll give you a “test run” for free, with the focus on a lesser search engine. That will give you an idea of how it works.

If you’re serious about getting more traffic to your site, you’ll want to get more useful information from them.

Here’s how it works: You pay Wordtracker.com a fee to have access to their files for one full day (or more, if you have a lot of research to do). I can usually find out everything that I need, with just one day’s research. It costs less than $10.

I have three major websites, so I make a list of all the possible subjects that people might be interested in, when visiting my sites. I use those words as the starting point, at Wordtracker.com. And, I print out everything… even if it seems not-that-useful when I look at the list they give me. (You can also get Wordtracker to email the results to you, but the emails aren’t as easy to read as a printout from the actual search at their site.)

Wordtracker.com will tell you which words are the most popular, AND how much competition you’re facing if you focus on those keywords.

Focus and specialize

I’ll warn you right now: In the category of art, you can either be a very small fish in a massive pond, or you can narrow your focus to capture a good spot in one corner of the art scene.

It’s all about specializing… or crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. If you’re starting with “art” as your only search term, expect to be shocked by how huge the competition is, at the search engines.

I’m sharing this tip because we’re each going to have to focus on a different area–not compete with each other–if we have any hope of appearing near the top in our respective Google categories.

See my other article, Choose your niche.)

What people search for, in general

Want to know the top five words used at search engines in December 2003? Here they are, in order: Sex, Google, ebay, porn, jokes. What about December 2004? Loans, Christmas, Dr. Phil McGraw, Paris Hilton, followed by Google.

I did another check in May 2006. The top five words were: Google, MySpace, lyrics, Yahoo, American Idol. In March 2008, just before St. Patrick’s Day: magical lizzy, danny boy lyrics, helen keller, henry hill, times square explosion.

Think about it: eBay was the third most-popular word that people were entering at the search engines in 2003. (Why someone would enter the word “google” in a search engine… escapes me. In 2006, it was still one of the top search engine requests, and in early 2008, it’s popularity had increased among search terms.)

That meant that a whole LOT of people were interested in eBay at that time. (eBay was a very good place to be selling to Christmas shoppers!)

But, during the holiday season in 2004, loans were on web browsers’ minds instead.

Of course, these words probably won’t help you unless you’re making Christmas loans or have some connection to Dr. Phil and/or Ms. Hilton. So, you’re going to want to research the most popular words related to your particular site’s focus.

If all you do is change the words on your homepage to make the most of your “niche” market, you will increase how many people visit your website from search engines. I promise.

Wait three weeks

This is pretty much the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to getting the best possible placement of your website at the search engines. But, it’s a very good start.

It can take three weeks (or more) for the spiders to discover your new keyword strategies. But, in just one month I doubled the traffic to one of my lesser websites, simply using keywords better.

So, don’t pay one of those services that promises to get your site placed in the top ten at Google. You may be in the top ten… but is it a category where anyone’s looking? Instead, for about $10 you can do the research yourself, fine-tune your website, and see a fabulous surge in visitors.

Really.
Related link: www.Wordtracker.com

If you haven’t already set up your free Cafe Press shop, be sure to read my earlier article, Make money: Set Up a FREE Shop at Cafe Press.

If you’ve registered at Cafe Press (it’s free) and started your first free shop, it’s time to stock it with products.

Create your first Cafe Press product

Then, return to Create + Manage or to Products, depending upon which page you’re starting from.

If you’re at your Media Basket (it says My Photos + Images near the top of the page), click on Your Shops (on the left sidebar). Next, click on the link labeled Products, to the right of your shop name. (It’s vastly simpler than this sounds in text.)

Choose a product–such as a tee shirt–and the Cafe Press pages will talk you through the process of placing the image on the shirt, deciding where to put it, resizing it if you like, and then setting your price.

Pricing

The markups at Cafe Press can seem high at first. From my experience, it’s worth it to have them handle the order-taking, production, and shipping. I mark most of my items up only $1 or $2 each, and my income comes from volume, not making very much of individual customers or products. But, that’s up to you, of course.

Make more products, for fun!

Once your item is created, make another. After all, you already have the image in your Media Basket, so why not design more tee-shirts, journals, wall clocks, mousepads, even boxer shorts or a thong with the same design!

If you have other designs that you’d love to use on similar products, open another free shop. You don’t need a new username or password. Cafe Press encourages you to open several shops using the same account.

Once you’ve created one or more shops, it’s time to tell your friends.

Promote your Cafe Press shops

Let your friends know about your new shops! Post the URLs at your website, LiveJournal or blog. Share thumbnail pictures so that they can see the images you’re using. That encourages traffic to your Cafe Press shops.

Use your Cafe Press URL beneath your signature on emails. On every list that I host at Yahoo!Groups, you can always post up to three lines of commercial links or ads, beneath your name on each email.

Get paid

Cafe Press holds your commissions for 45 days, in case someone returns an item. But, once the 45 days has passed, your commission is “cleared” for payment. Cafe Press will mail you a check on the 15th of the month, every month, for all commissions that have cleared to date.

Cafe Press waits until you’ve accumulated at least $25 in commissions before printing a check. You decide that minimum amount ($25, $50, or $100) in your payment preferences at your Cafe Press account.

Some months, I make only a few dollars at some of my Cafe Press shops. (I have a mixture of free shops and my Premium shop, Santa Flamingo.) And, particularly at gift-giving time, Cafe Press shops can provide some extra income.

Cafe Press may not become your primary source of income, but for extra dollars now and then, I’ve had excellent experience with it. And, there are some people who make a living from their Cafe Press shops.

Start right now!

If you already have an image that’s ready to use on products, you can open a Cafe Press account and be selling products within half an hour.

Try a free shop and see how you like it. On another webpage, we’ll talk about Premium shops, which give you more control over how the shop page looks.

In the meantime, experiment with free shops to learn more about how Cafe Press works. Get ideas from others’ shops, too.

Really, it’s very simple to create your shop. Cafe Press will talk you through the process, step by step. Click here to see if Cafe Press is right for you.