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.

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* 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.)

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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.)