Red Bait HookImage via Wikipedia

Note: Two things: 1) I am not a programmer and I don’t want to be. I just want to have a blog I can modify to make more money online and now I do. 2) I have not installed Thesis on this blog yet but I will get to it after I have learned on my The Joy of Hobbies blog.

I have the Thesis Theme for Wordpress on two blogs so far and I have just begun.

It’s only been a few days using Thesis but after just 10 minutes I was hooked. (Pun Intended) I knew right away I have made the right choice. The Thesis pack would have to explode or something huge for me to request a refund. Heck I almost feel like I should send the developers a Christmas present this year. Maybe just using it and promoting it will be enough.

Losing Sleep But Not Like Before Thesis

Before I purchsed my copy of Thesis I lost sleep trying to figure out how to be a better blogger and by that I mean I wanted to be able to manipulate Wordpress but it was more than I could handle most days.

Now I am losing sleep because I keep thinking about all the things I can now do with Wordpress because of Thesis, without the need for programming skills.

But the time I spend lay there now, not sleeping, is a happy time and I soon drift off, dreaming of my better blogs.

Before thesis I had not even heard about hooks, other than fishing hooks and hooks to hang picutres on walls. Now they are chaning how I view blogging.

So, what are these Thesis hooks?

Hooks are how Wordpress places code around your blog but until now they weren’t accessible to non-programmers like me. Think of it like wall hooks you use to hold up pictures on your walls and then think of each section of your blog as pictures on your blog.

Moving them and changing or adding to them, for me personally was a huge headache. I would fumble around until I got some things working but more times that it worked out it failed and I would have to remove any changes to put it back to what it was before I started. There, another bunch of time wasted and an increase in my stress level.

Now, thanks to Thesis, I can add to my blog or remove things, even change their location, without knowing any programming other than my awesome skills at copy and paste.

First let me just say that if you can copy and paste you will be just fine. I can do that and I have already created my first modification usign hooks. I did the modification in just a few minutes and now I have a subscription area so people can subscribe to my blog easier.

I made the change and then left to help a friend for a few hours. When I return I had 7 subscribers. Previously I had zero subscribers because I didn’t want to fight with the php code again.

Okay, the Thesis hook system is basically a set of basic commands that can be used to add to your blog or to subtract from existing code your blog, and modify the functionality of your Thesis installation. This is where your copy and paste skills will make you look like a real programmer.

WordPress has a huge list of hooks which is break down of every area of your blog. Take a look at all the hooks for Wordpress . Well that’s quite a list.

Now take a look at the Thesis hooks we can easily add snippets of code to for a better blog.

I have been copying and pasting code for a long time and have no problem doing that as it’s just like wordprocessing. The problem I was trying to get used to was knowing where to place the code I was pasting. That was the big stress in my life. Now, with Thesis Hook System placement is no longer an issue. It’s going to go in your custom_functions.php and that’s the only place you need to go, pretty cool.

I learned that I can add an action with a simple code, (add_action), or remove an action, (remove_action). The cool part is I don’t have to go into any of blog php files. It’s all done from within on custom_function.php file.

My first action to add was a subscriber area on the top of my sidebar #2.

It took me less than 10 minutes to follow an example and it was done. I kind of expected to be told I needed to do at least a little more but no. A couple of steps and I was done.

Before the day was done I had gone from zero subscribers to 7 subscribers without any promoting of my new section.

It just made it easier for my readers to see and click.

Now that little bit of work, less than 10 minutes is going to stay there as long as I want it to, bringing in new subscribers. Totally cool.

I blog for profit, even though most of my blogs are about my hobbies and interest, it’s still about the money. Now I can stop wasting my time.

I will be working on hooks for the next little while and will write more as I learn more, but in the meantime check out the Thesis Theme for yourself.

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