I agree, Yoast is great. I have it installed on my Symbistock testing site and it seems to work well with the theme so far. I used it on a few other sites with good results.

I set up this quick PDF with a couple of screenshots of the PayPal site settings for anyone who wants a visual.  Very easy!  I did a real live sale and got the payment, both emails (one to the customer one CC to me) and was able to download the image as the customer with no problems.  The only missing link is the PayPal site redirecting the customer back to the page.  So two quick questions to clarify:

1) Where do we set the return URL - I don't think setting it up globally in my PayPal account will work because I have other sites that I use PayPal as a payment method.  Does someone more familiar with PayPal know how to customize this on a site by site basis?

2) Should we have to make any manual changes to the paypal_ipn.php or is it good to go with just the interface toggle from live to sandbox?

Oh absolutely! Go for it  

I see on the Justhost homepage it lists free Wordpress install, this probably means you can do it easily through your control panel without having to go through a manual install.  I'd check that out first, it can save you loads of time and stress if you don't have to mess with database creation etc.

Edit: Oops must be time to sleep, didn't even see that Tinny already did a nice tutorial on this

A directory thread with potential sites/partners is a great idea!  As an illustrator I think I lean toward networking with other illustrators too, I'm sure there will be enough that that is an option.

Oh I see what you mean, sorry about that!  There seemed to be a lot of confusion in the original threads with the new Google image search so hopefully it's a tip that can help reassure some people that hiding the previews at least isn't necessary.

Kind of off topic, I've noticed some decreased traffic too since the changes but a higher percent of sales which is encouraging.

Just as a word of advice, that's not something I'd ever suggest doing on an image selling site.  For a new unknown site a lot of your traffic will come from Google.  Shutting down a big part of that is not a great idea. 

The issue with Google images is when a customer uploads a large unwatermarked version of your image to their site in a place Google can index it.  This is typically against the terms (or should be) and the image buyers need to be educated.

In the case of a site where you are trying to sell your images and your previews are watermarked with your brand, you definitely want those showing up in Google.  Your competitors are showing up. 

Some designers do use Google image search when they get frustrated with spammy results on their usual stock sites.  It shows a wide variety from sites (like yours) that they may not have bought from before. And I've seen first hand how much of my own traffic is coming in through these searches.

I don't think you want to be invisible in Google images when you are selling images, but that's just my opinion

Actually I've just started using Picworkflow and it does submit the images, but on certain sites you may need to check your unfinished uploads section to make any final adjustments/check off terms boxes etc.  I absolutely love it so far and have been kicking myself for not giving it a try sooner.  Not free but super cheap when I look at the trade off of time spent uploading vs time spent creating new images.  Also has a keyword suggestion tool built right in now.

You can also set acceptance status of the images at each agency if you want, this might be a bit time consuming for some but if you want a record of what image is where  it's probably easier than manually tracking it in Excel or similar.

Absolutely beautiful thanks for sharing!

Shutterstock was interesting this month, I noticed the balance of subscription sales to on demand downloads is inching closer to a 60-40 mix.  Previously ODD had only made up about 25% and then were holding steady around 1/3 for a while.  Last two months is up.  Istock customers moving over maybe?

I've been running with Bluehost for years and not had too many issues, though I think if you have a massive library and expect tons of traffic you may want to look into something a little more robust, like MediaTemple. 

A couple of places to start:

Bluehost.com - great support, Cpanel, one click Wordpress starts at around $7.00 per month

Pacifichost.com - I haven't used them personally but they were very high on my list when I researched setting up another photo store.  They have plans even cheaper than Bluehost but they are specifically photo store friendly and will even help you move an existing site. (These guys are my back up plan!) Cpanel as well, easy Wordpress install

If you are looking for something for a larger site MediaTemple.com is by all accounts pretty rock solid.  They have plans starting at $20.00 per month and lots of room to upgrade.

The ones to avoid:

Hostgator - Won't host photo sites

GoDaddy - I've had personal bad experiences with them (down time and such) and I've had many clients who were less tech savvy get sucked into buying a lot of un needed extras.

General Tips:

� Most hosts will allow you to register your domain through them, this is great for beginners, you may find it a few dollars cheaper to register somewhere else but the potential headaches are probably not worth the $2.00 if you are new to hosting/domains etc.

� Look for host that offers Cpanel, it will usually give you access to one click install for Wordpress which is an awesome time saver

I'd be thrilled to help out with some illustrations and icons!  I'll email you with a couple questions.