This week, HubPages celebrated the holidays by volunteering at St. Anthony's Dining Room, one of the Bay Area's largest community meal programs. It was a really wonderful experience, and it has reminded everyone at HubPages headquarters just how satisfying it is to give back.
There are many ways you can help others and support noteworthy causes on HubPages. For some fun ideas and tips on doing so, have a look at the Pro Tips section of this newsletter. We hope you find yourself at both the giving and receiving end of many happy gestures this season.
When the weather is cold and the days are short, a little kindness can go a long way!
From the 1953 C1 Roadster to the ZR1 supercar of today, the Corvette has fueled the imagination for generations. But which is the greatest Corvette of all time? Take a moment to read about some of my personal favorites and then share your own Corvette story.
I provide a window into my experiences in one of the worst professions in the world; public service. (Also referred to as customer service.) If you hate your job, you'll probably enjoy this article.
Why do we breathe? We breathe so that we can live. To live, we constantly need a supply of energy to our body cells. To have energy, we need to eat food with carbohydrates. To have energy, we need to digest carbohydrates to glucose (sugar). To have...
Starfleet wouldn't work as a branch of the military with the kind of slack protocols the Star Trek universe employs. The Captain in charge of an away mission? No way Star Trek.
Breastfeeding is a natural act between a mother and her child. The Anti-Breastfeeding Campaign smashes all the facts that science and technology have proved about breastfeeding. Read this to learn more...
If you are looking for a very easy treat to serve at your next gathering, try this chocolate peanute butter pretzel bark. It is fast and will delight the taste buds of your guests.
Did you think singledom was all about being alone, lonely and depressed? Think again. Being single is a fun phase of life that we all go through. Some of the most fun memories that you will hold for life will be the crazy things you did while you were single and were out painting the town red. Here are some of the fabulously cool advantages of being single.
Vitamin E is an important antioxidant that keeps your skin and heart healthy. Be careful though, the synthetic form is difficult to absorb. Find out sources for this vitamin as well as details about its function and use.
A look at some easy to grow vegetables that are also superfoods. This article give a brief overview of superfoods, antioxidants, amino acids and how they benefit our body.
This article describes some ways that you can find out if your written work is being copied on the internet. Plagiarism is never a pleasant thought, but knowing that it is happening is the first step in fixing the problem.
Learn why your cats are so darned good at falling! Why is a cats design so perfect for fast descending incidents! Only Mother Nature could design this miracle!
I was talking to my friend Jim on the phone and he brought up the subject of some ones Article on HP. I went and read it. I wanted to make a comment but the writer makes it clear he censors what he believes are views from the right, or my guess is...
Note: The "Mystical Force" may be interpreted to mean that instincts are given to us by God.
We've discovered that giving to others sacrifices our own resources for the benefit of others. The unsaid message that accompanies any gift is, "I care...
It's no secret that citrus fruits are a huge part of many people's diets. After all, who doesn't love a nice, cold glass of orange juice? Often, we don't even consider exactly where those plump, delicious oranges came from. But if you were to...
HubPages is a very flexible platform and can be used for do-gooding in addition to self-expression, money-making, and advice-sharing.
Here are some ways you can support great causes using our site:
Write a Hub about your favorite charities and why they are worth supporting.
Write Hubs explaining causes that are important to you to raise awareness (and include in those Hubs ways in which people can make a difference).
When including Amazon and eBay products in your Hubs, consider choosing items to which some proceeds go to charity, or go with fair-trade and sustainably produced products.
When you have learned an important lesson, share your new knowledge in Hub form to pass it on.
There are also many ways you can brighten someone's day by just hanging around in our community! Here are some bonus things you can do to help out fellow Hubbers:
Leave meaningful comments on good Hubs you read.
Follow noteworthy Hubbers and leave them well-written, sincere, and specific Fan Mail messages.
Click the feedback buttons (e.g. Awesome, Interesting, etc...) at the bottom of Hubbers' Hubs to let them know what you think of their work.
Share good Hubs written by your fellow Hubbers with friends that may be interested in them.
Send an email to Hubbers if you notice a typo or mistake in their work so they know to fix it.
Ask Hubbers questions using our Answers feature- it can give them great ideas for successful Hubs!
For more useful advice and helpful tips, check out the HubPages Learning Center
http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/contents
Every week, members of the Elite HubNuggets team select 18 Hubs by new Hubbers to be featured in the HubNuggets contest. The community has several days to vote for their favorites, and the winners are given special Accolades and featured in this newsletter.
This week,
Patty Inglish, MS rounded up the nominees from the Food and Cooking, Games, Toys, and Hobbies, and Entertainment and Media categories in a beautiful Hub
dedicated to the memory of earnestshub, a treasured member of our community who recently passed away.
The polls have now closed, and the winners have been chosen- have a look at the best of the best below.
This article was inspired by the Time Out Lisboa Restaurant Guide and contains a list of top restaurants from the outstanding guide and others that have become favorites in the past year. If you are looking for a great dining experience in Lisbon, review this list for recommendations.
Like many baby boomers, my Father recently woke up to find himself to be an old man of 70 years old. He is a wonderful, intelligent, nostalgic man of old school values. He does not compromise his values or integrity for any thing. His word is...
With many children diagnosed with wheat and cereal allergies, finding gluten free alternatives for different ways that wheat can turn up in life is important. Play dough is a staple toy for children, and many of them also try eating a little. With...
Vincent Price stars in this 1964 film, based on the novel "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson. "The Last Man On Earth" is one of the better films to be found in the public domain.
License Your Music At Sporting Events Getting your music played during a sporting event program or during a live sporting event is one of the most difficult challenges in licensing your music out. Most televised sporting event programs use music...
A tour from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City is a tour of turbid emotions. And there's no better way to fully realize those emotions than when on a bicycle, heading to the next town.
This hub page is a taste of the region through the lens of a camera.
H.C Porter, From Lone Star State, 1279 Fans, 162 Hubs, Joined 2 years ago
MissOlive Interviews H.C Porter
A look at how a stay-at-home mom become an online businesswoman in under two years
I see you joined HubPages over 2 years ago and have gained 1.3k followers. It is not uncommon for me to spy a 100 Hubber score next to your profile picture. Can you share and reflect on your HubPages journey?
My reflection regarding my 2+ years on HubPages? Hmmm? Summed up, I would have to say that what I have managed to accomplish is extraordinarily amazing.
I began my journey on HubPages as a new stay at home mom who hadn’t written anything other than an occasional journal entry in years. I had been let go of at my job, so the decision was made to remove my children from daycare and keep them home with me until I was able to find work.
I was very unsure of myself when I began here. I had never before written on-line, and was honestly scared to death of being judged. I published my first Hub and believe I barely received 35 views. My first commenters which became consistent commenters and followers were Ben and Nan. Looking back now, I am not too sure why they commented on some of those earlier works; the content was pretty bad on many different levels.
I continued to write, and I continued to improve as I read and published more. After a while, I was accepted on Examiner.com as the Romance Examiner- then the Parenting Examiner, using HubPages as my online writing portfolio. The upkeep of both Examiner Publishing’s and my Hubs landed me a position as the Copywriter for a website design and development company after 8 months. It was a thrilling and exhilarating accomplishment for me, and from that position my writing technique and skill quickly developed to keep up with the demands of the position. This is also where I learned much of what I know about SEO.
Now I work with Kirk Marketing Solutions LLC., as their Online Community Manager. I am able to now be part of a team that has the same goals which I have, to truly help businesses by teaching them how to effectively and beneficially build their online reputation through well-established Social Media Marketing and Networking. In fact, our tagline is Building Businesses that Build People. Even though we are a full service Marketing Firm, the Social Media aspect of the business is a large part of our offerings to businesses that realize the importance of Social Media.
Working at Kirk Marketing Solutions has also introduced me to some of the pioneers of Social Media such as Eric Ly, the Co-Founder of LinkedIn & Founder of PresdoMatch (who has also teamed up with Kirk Marketing to develop PresdoMatch, Rick Calvert the Founder of Blogworld as well as other well-known marketers. I am super excited that in February both of these men) as well as others will be coming to Texas and speaking at The Power Exchange, which is Kirk Marketing’s Social Media Conference.
I figure there are probably no better people to learn from than these men who have developed these sites into them into the Icons they have become. I never thought I would be in a position in which I am not only respected, but also appreciated for which I am (with or without a pen in my hands); especially looking back to when I first started here on HubPages.
How was your second year on HubPages different when compared to the first?
My second year on HubPages truly helped me develop more of my writing, which also assisted me in discovering the strength of my talents and passion for words and creating readable and relatable Hubs. I didn’t hold back as I did my first year; I put who I was into the work I published and was no longer holding my breath, praying someone would read my work and comment on it.
I wrote and I wrote for me, and I wrote about what I feel, what I want, what I dream and see. I stopped creating what I thought others wanted to read. Which was great!
If you could pick only three out of your current 161 Hubs, which would you pick to represent you?
Why? Oh my! That is truly a tough question to answer. Three Hubs out of all of the Hubs I have written? I am not sure I can pick only three; each of the Hubs I have written represents a part of my personality. Because each of my Hubs represent part of who I am as a person and a writer, this is going to be a tough one to answer. I am not sure I can pick only three, but I will share some of the pieces of me. I suppose we can start with;
The Best Advice I have ever been given About Life and Living- MY VIEWS ON THE WORLD
Phrases we all know from years of being told. – MY VIEWS OF WHAT WAS AND STILL IS
HubPages and Facebook Made Me Cool- THE PAST TWO YEARS
Is there only one way to believe in God; MY VIEWS ON RELIGION?
If you can be my day, I promise to always be your night-MY VIEWS OF LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS
Before a Tear hits the Ground or
Addict to Addict and Back to Me Again (poetry)- A PAST-AND BEING OKAY WITH THE MISTAKES
I was happy to find you and your Hubs when I began doing more research on SEO and back linking. Tell us about your experience with effective online writing and how it affects your hubs as well as your current employment.
My experience with online writing has certainly developed over the past two years. The progression was put into overdrive during my employment with the website design and development firm I worked at, who had me producing SEO websites for clients.
There was a period that I was producing anywhere from 4 to 8 websites a week, each one consisting of five pages of content, all keyword rich, as well as creating coupons and Google Maps. Although the websites I was instructed to write were very generic and detail was for the most part limited to the industry and specialties, it was a lot to write for one individual.
There was absolutely no consistency in the subject matter either. My list of topics I have created websites for include; Interior Design, Appliance Repair, Roll Off Dumpsters, Mail Machines, Taxidermy, Home Inspection, Custom Yachts and Limo Services, just to name a few. I quickly had to develop my research abilities and how I went about building content for online publications.
While becoming a writer that was able to churn out a large volume of content for such a vast variety of subjects, I also began cramming SEO information into my head, and trying to make sense of the plethora of information I was finding. At first, I was lost-and SEO seemed to be a process I was not meant to understand. I read articles that I found on the Internet, observed forum discussions on the matter, asked questions to anyone that would give me 5 minutes and then began to slowly implement my learnings into my Hubs while building a network of Friends, Followers, Fans and Views.
I spent a minimum of 4 hours a day reading and researching SEO to teach myself the ins and the outs of Search Engines and how to produce content that Search Engines would respond well to as well as how to implement various forms of offsite SEO techniques.
I had, in the past written contracts and business emails but never to the extent that I did within this position, and I had never written a website before. I stayed with the website design and development company for a year and a half before I left. Within that time period I wrote more content than I can count. My knowledge of SEO Practices both on and off site has prepared me to take on my current position as Kirk Marketing Solutions Online Community Manager.
I already am skilled with generating large amounts of unique content on various unrelated topics, which helps me assist me in helping develop each of our unique customers in building a beneficial presence online. My Hubs are influenced by my learnings because I am more knowledgeable of correct online practices, and with this knowledge my desire to help others develop and grow can be fulfilled by creating SEO Hubs that are Reader Friendly and easily understood by the general population.
I don’t think that only companies that can afford a SEO Developer or Social Media Manager have the right to be successful; I believe we all do, and any bit of information I can provide to others who want to have more views, better writing or inside knowledge to SEO practices that are easy to integrate should have the opportunity to do so- I just want to help if I can.
What is currently the most important step a Hubber should take when considering SEO?
I tell every customer that I work with and would tell all who are on HubPages that the most important element of any online advertising/blog/website, is first and fore most; content. Well thought out, original content will benefit your SEO campaign and be noticed on Search Engines.
Although back linking and Blog Directories along with integrating keywords can be beneficial, they will not be enough to keep you at the top of search engines. If you organize your content well, and write it well, the appropriate keywords to get you to the top of search engines will be there.
Other than mastering SEO what other techniques and strategies do you use for generating traffic? Do you promote your work elsewhere?
I drive traffic to my Hubs with SMO (Social Media Optimization), in my SMM (Social Media Marketing), SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Email, Word of Mouth, and Directories. If you found each of the sites I am on, you would be surprised I have time to work full time and raise two children- but I have a process to promoting my work that is constantly being improved on.
Each time I publish, I of course Share on Facebook (both profile and pages) and on Twitter, I also 1+ for the Google + Circles. I have it set up to where my Hubs are automatically added to a Directory and depending on the content, I also share on LinkedIn and will email links to family and friends.
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![Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bark [video]](http://s1.hubimg.com/u/5898808_50.jpg)
