I have been working on redesigning my blogs the past few weeks and realized that there are very few WordPress themes that provide you with a simple interface for doing basic customizations to your blog design.

Therefore, I decided to make one!

With the Shiba WordPress Theme you can customize the header, footer, and sidebar images all from a simple visual interface on your WordPress dashboard. You can also easily customize your blog colors,  insert in Google AdSense advertisements, and add a privacy policy.

Other than the time taken to create the images, I was able to create my dog blog theme in a few short minutes, directly from my WordPress Appearance menu.

If you are looking for a WordPress theme that is easy to use, and easy to customize without having to do any CSS, HTML, PHP, or Javascript modifications, then check out the Shiba WordPress Theme.

Interested in adding a comment box to your static web pages?

I was interested in doing this as well! But I quickly found that there was no easy way to add a comment box to a static web page. Therefore, I decided to create my own Spry comment box that is tied to a WordPress backend.

Why WordPress?

WordPress already has some well-tested and effective comment moderation functions, including the ability to detect and filter spam. By tying my Spry comment box to WordPress, I need not repeat all these nifty built-in comment functions from WordPress.

Another comment box functionality that you may find useful is importing HubPages comments into your WordPress comment database.

Why import HubPages comments into WordPress?

If you would like to move a HubPages article onto your website or onto WordPress, you can now easily do so without giving up any of your old comments.

Similarly you can use WordPress to create a central repository for your HubPages comments in case you decide to delete non-performing HubPages articles,  or simply as a comments backup facility.

Some other useful web design techniques that are related include learning how to process a HubPages HTML page using PHP code, as well as learning the WordPress XML import format.

As you see, comments boxes can be easy and fun. Enjoy!

They want to encourage people to publish hubs that will attract clicks. Impressions are good but clicks bring in their monthly paychecks.

However, many people join HubPages just to write. If you visit HubPages you will see that there are many talented hubbers who write just for the fun of it. I am sure they wouldn’t mind earning a few extra Google AdSense bucks at the side, but they are mainly interested in self expression.

These hubbers are really good for the HubPages community because they are usually active participants. They create interesting and thought provoking hubs that enrich the HubPages environment and help to attract other high quality writers.

There are also many people who join HubPages just to make money. They are less interested in chatting, and more interested in generating clicks. They focus on writing about click topics such as products, travel, losing weight, skin care, and others that are known to have a high click through rate, and/or good advertisement value.

The difficulty of maintaining a place such as HubPages is keeping the right balance between the two groups. Too much commercialization, and the environment becomes sterile and boring, thereby driving many good writers away. On the other hand, thought provoking topics are usually not good click topics. Even those that bring in impressions, will rarely result in clicks.

And so it is a complex dance.

Some prominent hubbers have left recently because the balance of the dance was no longer right for them. The dance is every changing though, so I hope that one day, those talented hubbers will return.

For now, I will continue with the HubPages dance, because it is still a good dance for me …

In fact, we may often be negative ourselves without even realizing it.

A common reaction to online negativity is to respond with more negativity. This will frequently cause the argument to escalate, ultimately resulting in an “I’m rubber and you’re glue” content free, shouting match.

The best way, I think, to deal with negative people is either to respond positively, if you can, or just ignore them.

Life is just too short to waste on negative or nasty people.

Time is much better spent on enjoyable or productive pursuits such as playing with dogs, reading about Angelina Jolie, or figuring out how to make money with Google AdSense!

Read more on how to deal with negative people and online negativity …

Just focus on the positive!

I am a member of both but I prefer HubPages. HubPages is well liked by Google, and shares 60% of the online earnings with you, whereas Squidoo only shares 50%.

You have to create your own Google AdSense and other affiliate accounts with HubPages, but this is a good thing to learn anyway, because that is what you ultimately want to do – have control over your own Google AdSense earnings and Google AdSense statistics.

Why even join HubPages and Squidoo and share my earnings?

The advantage of joining one of these online revenue sharing sites is that -

• You do not need to host your own content,
• They can handle large numbers of visitors,
• They put effort into optimizing and automatically placing Google AdSense advertisements for you,
• You can start making money with very little effort and technical knowledge,
• You can learn a lot from the Squidoo and HubPages community,
• Your articles get crawled and indexed more quickly and more frequently by Google,
• You can generate good backlinks to your personal pages,

and much more.

Learn more about joining Google AdSense and how to start making money …

Through Google Analytics you can identify longer term trends such as which hubs have growing traffic and which hubs have shrinking traffic.

There is also a way to extract Google Search ranking information for your HubPages keywords.

If you are interested in making money from HubPages or are just interested in increasing your HubPages traffic, then Google Analytics will be an invaluable tool.

Read more about how to use Google Analytics with HubPages …

Yes you can make money from HubPages.

The amount of money you make will depend on what you write about, whether you provide good content, and how good you are at web marketing.

Most people will not earn much money initially. It will take some time to learn which topics are effective, how to layout and write content, and how to promote that content.

Here are some money making trajectories by successful HubPages members as well as strategies for how to increase your money making potential on HubPages.

1. HubPages has a great writing community. Many HubPages members are friendly, funny, and very helpful.
2. HubPages allows you to easily make money from writing online.  Money is made through Google AdSense, Amazon, eBay, and other affiliate options. HubPages operates on a revenue sharing system; you get 60% of the ads, and HubPages gets the other 40%. This is better than other revenue sharing sites such as Squidoo which splits the earnings 50/50.
3. HubPages has a simple and easy to use writing interface. You do not need HTML knowledge, or any other technical knowledge.
4. HubPages is highly regarded by Google. Many HubPages articles make it to the first page of Google on a variety of popular keywords.
5. HubPages is also a great way to build backlinks to your other sites, and to cross promote your content.
6. HubPages is always doing site improvements so that visitors will stay longer and visit more hubs. This will help to increase traffic to your content, at no cost to you.
7. HubPages is free.

If you are new to HubPages, feel free to drop me a line and I will be happy to help. You can also check out the HubPages Forum, especially the “Need Help” area. Many experienced hubbers hang out there and are very willing to help out new members.

There is also an Extreme Hub Makeover section where you can post your new hubs and ask for input from people. If you want to do this, it usually helps to have a specific question/issue in mind.  For example rather than just saying please read my hub, ask for input on keyword usage, text layout, or something specific about the content itself.

Read more about the good and bad of HubPages …