Category: Blog

Thrive Architect Review: What Is Thrive Architect And Is Thrive Architect Worth Buying?

March 20, 2024
Is MailChimp Free?
Is MailChimp free? The answer is yes. The MailChimp Forever Free plan allows you to manage up to 2,000 email subscribers and delivering 12,000 emails monthly.

Is MailChimp safe? Now that you asked, MailChimp is safe for work. If you are sending non-spammy emails, then you are pretty much in a very safe environment. But if you are an affiliate marketer, you may have a problem (or problems if I may).

I wrote a post about problems you will face when using MailChimp and since then, it became one of the most visited posts on my blog.

Let’s be honest. Most of you who are reading this is either a blogger, beginner or an Internet marketer. Either way, your goal is to save more money and aim for the highest yield.

I get it and I have the same thoughts as well!

MailChimp Forever Free plan is always good for us especially when you don’t have to pay until you hit 2,000 subscribers. Plus, most beginners don’t generate over 100 subscribers in a week. So, you are in good hands (at this point in time).

Why do I recommend MailChimp?

MailChimp is great for bloggers, Internet marketers and even business owners who are just starting up in email marketing. Here are some more reasons why you should be using MailChimp Forever Free account:
- MailChimp is free
- You can be worry-free until you hit 2,000 email subscribers
- Beautiful UI and UX design on MailChimp’s backend
- Drag and drop builder helps you create beautiful email templates
- Simple filtering to help you manage your email lists
- Very high delivery rates
- MailChimp is scaleable
Now, allow me to touch on the last point which is scalability. As your business progresses down the road, you would need to scale your email marketing software because you are going to have more subscribers and need better features for marketing.

You can easily move on to MailChimp paid accounts as low as $9 per month and if you need all the analytical features, there is MailChimp Pro which starts at $199 per month and it is on top of your monthly subscription fees.

Signing up for MailChimp is always a breeze. You can start an account in just 5 minutes using this link.

Why do I not recommend MailChimp?

For starters, MailChimp doesn’t go on lightly with affiliate marketers. Now, this means that you are going to face massive challenges if you use MailChimp. Here’s a snippet of MailChimp’s terms of use:

MailChimp doesn’t allow affiliate marketing, along with several other industries.

While I have seen a 50-50 chance of being caught using MailChimp for promotion the prohibited content, do you want to take the risk?

How to use MailChimp and not get banned?

The rule is simple: Do not spam.

Industries such as affiliate marketing, work from home, make money online and lead generation are known for spamming and we should always avoid doing such.

The quick way to solve this is by ensuring that we send only quality materials through email.

Do you know that you can send educational emails (using MailChimp) pertaining to the sensitive subjects and not breaking the rules?

After all, we all hate spam, don’t we?

What are other MailChimp alternatives?

If you are looking for affordable ones, then I would recommend ConvertKit. ConvertKit is known as the MailChimp alternative because it offers very similar features to what MailChimp does, but with some twists.

The biggest and single differentiation between MailChimp and ConvertKit is the way they operate. MailChimp is list-centric and this means that number of subscribers are calculated based on the number of subscribers in the list.

ConvertKit is subscriber-centric and instead of calculating subscriber per list, subscribers can opt into various lists (segments and groups) without being calculated twice.

Do you know that ConvertKit has an awesome dashboard for an all in one view?

In a long run, ConvertKit offers much more saving compared to MailChimp.

But hey, don’t take my word for it. Click here to schedule a demo with ConvertKit and see it live in action. This way, you will have first-hand experience understanding what ConvertKit is all about (and if ConvertKit is a good choice for replacing MailChimp).

Over to you

The answer is “Hell yes” if you are wondering is MailChimp free. As a seasoned Internet marketer, I have seen and gone through some hell weeks using MailChimp myself (due to own carelessness). MailChimp isn’t that bad after all in many sides and it is proven with big brands using it.

As a recap, MailChimp is safe for us if you are in several industries. At the same time, I highly recommend you to take a look at other MailChimp alternatives such as ConvertKit for a more robust email marketing solution.
March 20, 2024
Hitting 2,000 Email Subscribers Is A Milestone. Here’s What To Do Next
We all love MailChimp Forever Free plan, don’t we? MailChimp’s Forever Free Plan allows you to keep up to 2,000 subscribers and send up to 12,000 emails per month. What happens when your MailChimp account has more than 2,000 subscribers?

Here’s what I can guarantee you: Headache.

Most of us love anything that doesn’t require us to pay for it (for whatever it is). But when we hit 2,000 email subscribers on MailChimp, we panic. We understand that we would need to start forking out money monthly just to maintain the email list.

Read this before you go down that rabbit hole …

The first thing is you should do right now is start cleaning up your email list. This means that you should remove all your email subscribers who have not interacted with you for some time.

You need to start identifying those inactive subscribers by creating a segment on MailChimp (fastest way).

Once that is done, you need to add conditions to further discover email subscribers who are low in ‘value’.

Due to MailChimp’s limitation, you can only choose a small portion of options as seen above. I use the last five campaigns as that would give me better stats and results.

Once that is done, the second step is to re-engage with them for one last time before you ultimately remove them from your list. I often send a super personalized message with an urgent email title to ensure that the open rate is high. Don’t be afraid as it is common for them to unsubscribe themselves!

If they fail to open the email within three days, you can proceed to remove them from your list. By now, you would have a smaller list and probably save you some space.

IMPORTANT: I recommend you to continue reading the below as it will come in handy real soon!

You should be making money using your email list and here’s why

When you have more than 2,000 email subscribers, you should already be monetizing your email list. Wait, what?

Yes, you heard me right. 2,000 email subscribers is not a small number and this means that you can be doing a lot more to generate revenue from your email list.

Let’s say you take an example of promotion WP Engine on your email newsletter.
- Revenue per successful WP Engine affiliate sale: $200
- Open rate for your email: 50% (2,000 email subscriber x 50% = 1,000 email subscribers)
- Click through rate for your email: 20% (1,000 email subscribers x 20% = 200 email subscribers)
- Successful conversion (buying): 2% (200 email subscribers x 2% = 4)
Total revenue earned: 4 x $200 = $800 per email campaign

No, I’m not kidding you.

You see, I’m putting a super low figure in all the calculation above and the reason is simple. I want you to understand that even with the lowest count, you can make a lot more money through email marketing.

And yes, you can start making money NOW.

Wait, I still have 2,000 email subscribers on MailChimp and I am not sure what to do!

I’m glad you asked. I have gone through that road before and I was puzzled. I have no idea what I should do and my geeky brain told me to do the calculation (see above).

I understood that I could earn a lot more money in a long run if I continue building my email subscribers. Thus, growing beyond the 2,000 email subscribers limit on MailChimp.

What you need to do now (which we are going to discuss below) is this:

Decide on an email marketing software to proceed with your email marketing.

Before moving forward, take a quick moment to ask yourself this question.

How much is the lifetime value of your email subscribers?

Take a look at this infographic done by KISSmetrics.

In short, lifetime value of your email subscriber is often determined if they are going to repurchase in the future.

How to decide the best email marketing software once your MailChimp has more than 2,000 subscribers?

1. Upgrade your MailChimp account

You should go for MailChimp if:
- You have a low lifetime value of an email subscriber (under $5)
- You are not actively selling anything of high value to your email subscribers
- Lead generation isn’t a top priority for you at this point in time
- Segmenting your audience is not important for now
On average, you are going to pay anywhere between $25 to $30 a month with 2,000 email subscribers on paid MailChimp plan.

MailChimp is best when you are a small business or blogger which email marketing isn’t the most important thing for your business. Therefore, sticking to MailChimp is not going to hurt you in any way since you will be making more than enough to sustain.

2. Move to ConvertKit

ConvertKit is a good MailChimp alternative because of its pricing model. ConvertKit thrives ahead of MailChimp, especially with their subscriber’s centric model.

Using ConvertKit, you will not be charged multiple times if the same subscriber subscribes to multiple lists. Compared to MailChimp, subscribers can be calculated multiple times which is based on the number of lists they are following. Not so good.

You should go for ConvertKit if:
- You are looking for a robust email marketing automation but as easy as MailChimp
- You want to increase conversions with automated emails that feel personal
- You need to organize and understand your subscribers
- You need landing pages (this is a killer, ladies and gentlemen!)
ConvertKit’s pricing is very flexible and it is one of the best deals in the marketplace. You can check out the ConvertKit pricing and the pricing starts at $29 per month.

3. Move to Drip

Drip is dope and I’m using it for my business (including this blog). Drip is really powerful because it allows you to take automation to whole new levels.

[clickToTweet tweet=”If you are using email to sell online products and courses, you need to consider Drip today!” quote=”If you are using email to sell online products and courses, Drip does it better than any other email marketing solution. Period.”]

Drip is also the main reason how I can sell thousands of dollars worth of affiliate marketing products every month!

BONUS: Want to know how to make MASSIVE money through affiliate marketing? Learn more for free.

You should go for Drip if:
- Automate anything and everything (tagging, list cleaning etc.)
- Selling online courses or products
- Inbuilt different types of forms (slider, pop up, exit-intent)
- Workflow technology (that brings automation to whole new level)
I would say Drip works as powerful as Infusionsoft but just at a cheaper and lower pricing scale. If you are an advanced marketer, consider using Drip as it is guaranteed to grow your list. Don’t take my word for it. Click here to head over to Drip’s demo!

Summary: What do you do when you hit 2,000 MailChimp email subscribers?

You have three options right now; upgrade to MailChimp’s paid plan which will save you more money, migrate to ConvertKit if you want to start segmenting your email subscribers, or upgrade to Drip to take email marketing to whole new level and ultimately, make your email subscribers fall in love with you.

Do you have more than 2,000 subscribers on MailChimp? What do you do? Tell me all about it in the comments below!
March 20, 2024
Don’t Lose Content The Next Time Changing WordPress Theme

Looking to start or launch your own webinar this year? Here are the best webinar software you should consider today! Changing WordPress theme is always a huge challenge especially for beginners. A lot of bad things can happen when we change a WordPress theme on a live site. Content loss, broken website, distorted images and missing widgets are just a few challenges you will face when changing a WordPress theme.

All of these will get your head scratching and they will become more complicated if you have limited experience using WordPress.

I’ve been using WordPress for over 10 years now and I came across a fair share of problems in the past especially when changing a WordPress theme. In this post, you are going to discover how you change WordPress theme without losing content. More importantly, you will be able to see how you can do this under 30 minutes.

How to change WordPress theme without losing content?

1. Backup

No matter what you do, the first step must always be back up your entire site. Most web host in the market today allows you to perform the manual backup in just a few clicks.

If you are using shared hosting and cPanel, click on Files and select Backup.

You can also use the Backup Wizard to backup your entire website before changing WordPress theme.

If you are using premium WordPress hosting like WP Engine, you can start backing up your site by through the WP Engine portal.

The fun fact about using premium WordPress hosting is the fact that you can leverage the power of staging.

Back up wouldn’t take long and in most cases, under 10 minutes for a small to medium sized blog. Larger sites may take slightly longer to complete the backup process.

A staging site is an independent clone of your live production site that can be easily created to test plugins, themes, and custom code. You can also copy the staging site back to the live site at any time after making changes. Each WordPress install at WP Engine can have its own staging site.

You can use WP Engine staging area by clicking on WP Engine > Staging from your wp-admin and click on the teal button as seen below.

2. Upload the WordPress theme of your choice

By now, you should have a copy of the WordPress theme on your computer or laptop. To upload the WordPress theme, head over to your WordPress dashboard and click on Appearance and then, Themes. Click on Add New and Upload Theme tab to upload the WordPress theme of your choice.

3. Final check

Once uploaded and activated, you will be able to see new WordPress theme live on your site. I would recommend you to run a quick check on your website using Incognito or another browser to ensure the website is accessible.

BONUS: More tips to change your WordPress theme without losing content

Want to get more out of your WordPress blog? I bet you do. Continue reading below to find more advanced methods in changing WordPress theme without losing the content!

Customizing WordPress themes before they’re live

Do you know that you should always customize the WordPress themes before going uploading it? This helps to ensure that your site isn’t ‘broken’ during the transition period. For your information, it could be a little bit of challenge if you are using shared hosting as not all web host provides such feature (at this point in time).

If you are using WP Engine (for example), you can use the staging area to create a clone version of your site and be doing the needed updates there. How to clone a WordPress site using WP Engine’s staging tool? Typically, most managed WordPress hosting allows you to use staging area which ensures that you will not lose content after changing the WordPress theme.

Once you are happy with the changes, you can transfer the updated site to your production site using the red button as seen below.

Pretty cool, right?

You can read more about WP Engine staging using this link.

On the side, I want you to know that SiteGround offers similar staging feature with lower features and pricing as well.

Customize option for real-time updates

Do you know that you can use the Customize feature to update the site’s content in real-time? I love this feature because it provides me with ‘what you see is what you get’ (WYSIWYG) option.

Here’s how it looks like:

If you have yet to use this feature, I suggest you try it out now!

Understand the layout differences on various devices

Changing WordPress theme without losing the content is one thing. Ensuring that the site looks good in different layouts is another.

How do you check your WordPress site if they look good on various devices?

Forget about the tools out there in the market. All you need is to leverage the Customize feature on your WordPress backend. Take a look at the image below.

Summary – How to change WordPress theme without losing content?

End of the day, there are many ways you can change a WordPress theme without losing the content. Always remember to backup as it is an important security feature!

March 20, 2024
Thrive Themes vs Divi 3.0: Which Is The Best?

Thrive Themes vs Divi. Which is the better choice?

I get this question all the time and I want to be really honest here. I don’t think there is a guide out there which cover a lot of what Thrive Themes and Divi can provide.

And in most cases, they are often one-sided due to personal preferences. I ought to be different and I hope you will find value in this post. More importantly, I hope you will be able to decide which is the best WordPress theme for yourself.

Important disclaimer

I want to disclose that I am an active affiliate for both Thrive Themes and Divi. However, I do have active purchases for both Thrive Themes and Divi (due to my nature of work). Therefore, I want you to be rest assured that I know exactly what I’m talking about.

Thrive Themes vs Divi: Overall design

Design and feel are two things that I look highly on. I am a minimalist guy and I don’t like complicated designs. Take a look at this blog and you will figure that out.

That’s only the core reason why I use StudioPress for my personal branding.

Now, Thrive Themes vs Divi, which has a better design?

Let’s take a look at what Thrive Themes can offer. By default, Thrive Themes comes with 10 themes that you can start with.

In comparison, Divi also comes with 10 inbuilt themes that you can choose from.

Until here, both Thrive Themes and Divi are both providing pretty decent designs. Therefore, I would give them an equal score here.

Thrive Themes 1 Divi 1

Thrive Themes vs Divi: Ease of use (uploading design and demo version)

At this point of time, it felt like a fair comparison and this should be a draw, right?

No! You’re wrong and this is where nearly EVERY marketer out there doesn’t tell you.

Divi is a clear winner here and allows me to explain to you further.

Imagine you are a complete beginner and have no coding knowledge. You purchase Thrive Themes and you hope to import the demo content, load it up and walaa, you are all set to go.

Here’s the problem. There is NO complete demo content upload or download available. Therefore, you have no choice but to do everything from scratch.

Don’t get me wrong. You can download the demo and upload them but you will be shocked after uploading. You probably have the colour and that’s much. No fonts nothing. The only way is to work from scratch again and that would take some time.

If you are going to for Thrive Themes, don’t be surprised with this! Again, it is not something bad, just troublesome.

Divi is no different either (in some ways). You can download the demo themes and upload them. Now, Divi flares here because you can get the complete demo version to your site. The only downside is that Divi comes with DOZENS of features that will make your head spin.

Of course, the easiest (but time-consuming) way is to read the manual first.

Sorry, Thrive Themes but Divi is a clear winner here. Not everyone has the time or knowledge to play with codes.

Thrive Themes 0 Divi 1

Thrive Themes vs Divi: Website loading speed

Anyone who is serious about managing a website will always take consideration of the loading speed.

On average, a website visitor expects the site to load under 2 seconds. Websites that load under a minute often rank higher on search engines compared to those sites that have slow loading speed.

Here’s one problem with these WordPress themes. Not all the WordPress themes out there are well coded for speed. Make no mistakes that there are premium WordPress themes that take ages to load.

I tested both Thrive Themes and Divi based on a new website, zero plugins and only similar content on the front page.

After three tests, the results are as below.

Thrive Themes: 1.2 seconds, 1.35 seconds, 1.2 seconds

Divi: 1.6 seconds, 1.86 seconds, 1.71 seconds

I was hoping that either one of them would hit the below 1-second mark but they didn’t. Nonetheless, the results are pretty obvious that Thrive Themes is definitely a better choice when it comes to loading speed.

The developers behind Thrive Themes are bold enough to share their mindset on website loading speed on their website (see below).

Thrive Theme 1 Divi 0

Thrive Themes vs Divi: Customization features

If you are looking for a premium WordPress theme that doesn’t require a single line of code to customize, then you are going to love both Thrive Themes and Divi.

Both of these are the leaders in the market for drag and drag WordPress builder. By far, no one had come close to what they can offer in terms of customization.

However, when comparing both of them, who will be the ultimate winner?

Carry on reading to find out.

Thrive Themes allows you to do customization with their Content Builder. This is how it looks like in action.

Thrive Content Builder is awesome and it works like charm. Among all the content builder, Thrive Content Builder certainly makes content building much easier.

But, there’s a problem with the content builder. It doesn’t play well with CloudFlare. Again, I have no issues with Thrive Content Builder but if you want to use it with CloudFlare, make sure you turn the CloudFlare Rocket Loader off.

Divi is different from Thrive Content Builder. Here’s how it looks like in action.

Yes, Divi is just like Thrive Content Builder. Customization can be done easily with Divi and Thrive Content Builder.

Divi has its own issues as well. The most common one is the size of the page and technology behind it. Due to the wide range of features, the page loads slower and it can be annoying if you are using a slow web host. A good web host can easily solve this problem any time of the day.

Thrive Themes 1 Divi 1

Thrive Themes vs Divi: Split testing

I know you are asking for this. Who doesn’t love split testing, right?

With split testing technology, you can test pages with different fonts, colour, and wording, to name a few. Here, Divi flares extremely well because split testing is inbuilt in all themes.

Using Divi, you can test out anything, from a small part of the page to the whole page. Basically, the sky is your only limit.

Until date, Divi is the only premium WordPress theme that allows you to do perform the split test on pages.

On the other hand, Thrive Themes do allow split testing but only on opt-in forms (email marketing). Of course, I certainly hope they will implement this in the near future.

But until then, Divi is the clear winner when it comes to split testing technology.

Thrive Themes 0 Divi 1

Thrive Themes vs Divi: Pricing review

Pricing is always a concern and I’m sure you feel the same too.

So, which is the better deal?

This is how much Thrive Themes cost.

And this is how much Divi costs.

From the above, it is clear that Divi is much cheaper when compared yearly. Divi also is a clear winner as it has the lifetime plan which is a single payment.

In terms of face value, Divi is definitely the winner but if you would take into consideration of the unlimited use of Thrive plugins, Thrive Themes is actually the one with higher value.

When you sign up for Thrive Themes, you will automatically able to use all the Thrive plugins to further skyrocket your website. With Divi, you only have access to a smaller number of plugins and other themes.

Thrive Themes 1 Divi 0

Recapping the Thrive Themes vs Divi review and comparison

Let’s calculate the score, shall we?

Thrive Themes and Divi both managed to earn four points after the review. So, which is the best WordPress theme?

Personally, I would recommend Thrive Themes if you are a blogger or managing a small business. Thrive Themes products are very much fitted into these categories and they will help you ‘fly’ high in the sky. See Thrive Themes in action here.

If you are looking for a professional WordPress theme for your business, Divi is a better choice because it offers more customization and features which fit well for business and professional nature. Take a look at Divi here.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and let’s discuss.

March 20, 2024
What Is The Best WordPress Hosting Site?
Best WordPress hosting site. I’m sure the answer varies and it is highly dependable to individuals. For me, I have my fair share of experiences using shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting and even virtual private servers (VPS). In this post, I’m going to share with you the best WordPress hosting sites based on price and more importantly, server performance.

Top choice: WP Engine – Excellent performance and customer support

Plans: As low as $35 per month (25,000 visits)

Advantages using WP Engine
- VPS environment for speed and performance
- Inbuilt cache feature
- One-click automated migration
- Bulletproof security
- 24/7 chat support
- Staging environment
- Transferable installs
- PHP 7 ready
- LargeFS
- Automated SSL certificates
- Content Delivery Network (CDN) (optional and higher plans)
- GeoTarget (higher plans)
- Content performance (higher plans)
- Launch readiness assessment (higher plans)
- Multisite ready (higher plans)
Limited Time Offer – 2 Months Free

Disadvantages using WP Engine
- Pricing is higher than traditional shared hosting
Secondary choice: FlyWheel – Affordable pricing and unique billing feature

Pricing: As low as $14 per month (5,000 visits)

Advantages using FlyWheel
- No overage charges (only automatic upgrade to next plan)
- Free site migration
- Free SSL certificate
- Free staging sites
- Transferable billing to clients
- Content Delivery Network (CDN) (optional and higher plans only)
- Multisite (higher plans only)
- 24/7 support via email only
Try FlyWheel today!

Disadvantages using FlyWheel
- Smallest plan only suits for really small websites
- Pricing is higher than traditional shared hosting
- Lack of live chat feature is a game changer
Third choice: SiteGround – Excellent pricing with a scaled down performance

Pricing: As low as $3.95 per month

Advantages using SiteGround
- 24/7 live chat
- Super affordable web hosting plans
- Scalability
Try affordable WordPress hosting with SiteGround.

Disadvantages using SiteGround
- All plans are based on shared hosting
- Server performance is based on plans you had signed up
- Advanced support is considered ad-hoc services and chargeable
New entry: Kinsta Hosting – Blazing fast servers powered with Google Cloud Platform

Pricing: As low as $30 per month

Advantages using Kinsta
- Powered by Google Cloud Platform (VPS)
- Blazing website speed
- Scalability and powerful web hosting for both small and enterprise websites
- Staging area
- Inbuilt cache system
- 24/7 live chat
Click here to see all the benefits using Kinsta!

Disadvantages using Kinsta hosting
- Pricing is steep for small website owners/beginners
What is the best WordPress hosting site?

Personally, I would choose for WP Engine as my first choice. For the price of $35 a month, I can rest assured that my sites are always protected and secured. More importantly, downtime is never a problem and the support team over at WP Engine is willing to go beyond simply because they could. For me, this is definitely a deal breaker as I do not want to be charged for every support I require. Take a look at this post and you will understand why.

If you are a web developer, FlyWheel (or GetFlyWheel) is a great choice for you because it provides easy billing features. In other words, you can transfer the charges over to your client through FlyWheel’s dashboard. There is no more mess and you can focus on the thing that you are best in … which is designing the site. The downside of FlyWheel is the plans are pretty much similar to WP Engine and therefore, you will get a better deal when using WP Engine instead. The Tiny plan from FlyWheel allows up to 5,000 visits in a month and let’s be real honest — that is really insufficient for most bloggers.

SiteGround is the lowest in the comparison tier. While the low plans are great for starters and beginners, the servers are optimized for WordPress hosting but they are still shared web hosting. This means that it is NOT managed WordPress hosting and you will get lower performance servers when compared to WP Engine and FlyWheel.

Last but not least, the newest entry is Kinsta hosting. Kinsta offers a simple solution for both entry level websites and business websites. With pricing starts at $30 per month, Kinsta offers top notch VPS performance (thanks to Google Cloud Platform) and inbuilt cache plugin that makes your website loads insanely fast. Plus, the support team is available 24/7 via live chat to answer all your doubts and challenges you may face in web hosting.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and tell me which web host you are currently using!
March 20, 2024