Thrive Themes vs OptimizePress. I know.
You are looking for the most complete Thrive Themes vs OptimizePress comparison and yes, you are in the right spot. Being in the WordPress niche for around 10 years, it is only fair to say that I have seen quite a few WordPress builders. (more…)
Erik Qualman once said, “We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it”.
Can you believe that, folks? Social media is a key generator for your business; let it be either an online or a brick and mortar business, you need social media to literally survive in this world.
The challenges small businesses face is inevitable. Yes you — small business owners will face tons of obstacles which will either demotivate you or burn a hole in your pocket. As a social media consultant, I dare to say that there will be challenges in social media especially in two phrases; entry level and sustaining a marketing strategy to compete with the rest.
As Erik said above, social media is no longer a luxury; it is a needs that will determine success in business.
So, what are the challenges small businesses will face in social media? How do you overcome them?
Let’s break them down in this article, shall we? (more…)
Every entrepreneur wants to get noticed in a noisy world.
Yes, they do and so do you. But wait, me too! Today’s world is very much different.As you work on generating buzz for your brand, make sure to keep a solid foundation by using LLC Formation Services to create a legally recognized business entity, helping to secure real-world credibility as you rise to the top.
We are constantly finding for ways to beat the competition. Take this website for example. I am constantly finding ways to build a bigger audience and increasing the size of my email list.
Getting noticed in a noisy world does sound like a daunting task, right? I bet.
They want to see you do good, but never better than them. Remember that – Unknown.
This quote is point-on. In this marketing world, there aren’t that many friends that wish you all the best with your business truthfully. And to be honest, they will welcome your failure because if you fail (and fail more), they probably have higher chance to success. Plus, lesser one competition to compete with them.
Make sense?
In this post, you’ll learn the tips I used to get noticed in a noisy world. I’ve been through some tough times, but with multiple awards and honorable mentions such as from Harvard University’s blog, I am sure I could do you some favors for free, right? CONTINUE READING
Productivity tools make or break an entrepreneur’s productivity level.
One way or another, the right tools with the right planning will help you get more jobs done in a shorter time span. And when you have more time in your hands, you can achieve more tasks than what’s expected.
Juggling so many tasks can be daunting and lead to a lot of stress. If you’re an entrepreneur and you want to become more efficient, productive and successful, here’s a list of tools you need to use today.
Social media marketing is the next big thing in marketing. Regardless the size of your business, you got to engage in social and this is where Buffer helps you to improve your productivity level. You can schedule social media updates and perform serious analytics with Buffer. This makes building up your brand and company on social media extremely easy.
Hootsuite is a powerful alternatives to Buffer. However, Hootsuite works slightly different from its competitors. Aside from scheduling and analytics, Hootsuite helps to increase productvity but having the social listening feature. You can listen and engage with customers while understand the strategies taken by your competitors.
Working with a team and want to delegate tasks efficiently? Trello allows you to do so — and in style! The thing that makes Trello a powerful productivity tool is that it allows you to drag and drop between projects (or also known as boards). You can create checklists, images and texts to take productivity to the next level. It comes with a free account and you can subscribe for paid ones for more features.
Evernote is probably one of the best (and popular) productivity tools for entrepreneurs. It allows you to upload images, voice memo, texts, reminders and chat with your colleagues for team collaboration. What makes it really useful is the offline feature where you can access the notes anytime of the day from any mobile devices. Just like Trello, there are both free and paid accounts with different features.
This is an iPhone app and it does one thing (and only one thing) superbly well. It helps you to get organized and ensure that tasks are completed in a timely matter. Clear allows you to add new tasks and reminders under a few seconds. Simple actions such as swiping the tasks left and right would open up more options such as delete the task or marking the task as complete.
Another powerful task management app on smartphones. It integrates perfectly on computers too and the one thing that makes it stand out from the rest would be the ‘ morning notifications’. For example, when you set your day start at 9am, Any.Do will send you a reminder on tasks that need to be completed on the same day. You can snooze, change date or even set the tasks as complete. And the best part, it is free to download (paid plans available).
Looking for productivity tools to help your team with task management? Asana is a free project-management tool that allows teams to communicate without email, in one central location. Trust me, you can’t ask for more than this!
Entrepreneurs are always chasing for more time and yes, 24 hours isn’t enough. Fiverr is a market place to find for nearly everything (which starts at $5 per gig). If you are on a shoestring budget, you may want to consider getting a few gigs from Fiverr.
If you require a freelancer on a long term project, Elance is the answer. You can search for thousands of freelancers with different capabilities and price range. Personally, I love using Elance to find for Virtual Assistants (VA’s). The concept is pretty simple; You act as an employer and you post a project. Freelancers from all around the world will bid for the project and you can select them based on experience, price range etc. Payment could be done by milestones or after completing the project.
Believe it or not, social media platforms are great source of productivity hacks. For example, spending sometime on Twitter or Pinterest would give you a couple of ideas for your upcoming project. Plus, with social media being live 24-7, you know that you are going to get the latest trends — every single time.
Consider Talkwalker as a newer, more advanced version of Google Alerts. It offers more comprehensive results and more options that allow you to check for mentions of your company online. This helps with public relations and the chance to interact with people who are discussing your brand online.
DropBox allows you to share files with others, sync files across devices and ensuring your files are constantly accessible (while safe) in the cloud. As an entrepreneur, this is a great productivity tool as it allows you to share important files with your colleagues without needing to send an email attachment or using hard copies.
You already know about this tool, but the release of Chromebooks and the ability to convert and edit Microsoft Office documents make this productivity tool (and accompanying Docs and Sheets) a great way to collaborate and share documents with your clients, freelancers or employees. Do I really need to elaborate more on this?
Most entrepreneurs read a lot. For me, listening to audio version of the book is always an awesome way to save more time while increasing your productivity level. With both Amazon Kindle and Audible, you can listen to several audio books each month.
Are you looking for the latest networking event in town? Head over to EventBrite and discover tickets for small to medium size events at reasonable prices. EventBrite also allows you to create and host your own event in the case of need (which is awesome).
Looking for bigger events to join and EventBrite isn’t capable to provide such resources? Meetup is the tool for you. It is a super effective way to find influencers, local events and networking groups in just a few clicks of the button.
Do you find yourself rushing to get posts published on your company blog? Using an editorial calendar like this one would help you to publish posts in a timely manner. It also allows you to be more productive and ensure your readers are constantly getting updates without fail.
Looking for an all-in-one marketing platform for your startup business? Introducing the Rainmaker Platform; A complete marketing platform that allows you to build your own marketing and sales platform build under one roof. From superior web hosting to marketing tool, Rainmaker Platform takes your marketing and productivity level from A to A+ in just a few clicks. You can also try it for 14-days free using this link.
I bet you heard about email marketing before. Trust me, email marketing is a great productivity tool if done correctly. I use MailChimp as my email marketing provider and with it, I create multiple follow up emails and broadcast emails to be delivered at the right time — every week. MailChimp is set to send out welcome emails for new subscribers and specific emails for those who have completed several tasks; clicking on links, opening emails etc.
MailChimp has both free and paid plans which starts from $9 per month. Create a forever-free MailChimp account here.
IFTTT is the short form for IF This, Then That. Basically it allows you to create automated tasks to speed up your productivity level. One of my favorite (and most used) productivity hacks using IFTTT is when I tag ‘tasks’ to a post to Pocket app, it will automatically trigger and action which will add the the title and details of the post to my Evernote notebook entitled, Follow Up Tasks. Instead of manually saving the information on Evernote, IFTTT does it for me and it save up a lot of my time. At the moment, there are over 50 different actions and triggers to customize your automation.
I hope I didn’t miss out any productivity tools that entrepreneurs can utilize. If you have any which is not listed, feel free to leave a comment and tell me about it!
![How To Start A Blog In Just 5 Steps [Infographic]](https://www.reginaldchan.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/How-To-Start-A-Blog-In-Just-5-Steps.jpg)
You heard that you can make money with a blog and you are inching to start a blog. There are way too many guides out there on ‘how to start a blog‘ but you want just the facts.
Yes, you want a complete blogging tutorial that teaches you how to create a blog from scratch. You have no time to waste and certainly, you don’t want to waste money buying web hosting and domain names just to become another failed blogger.
You want to start a blog and start making money from blogging. I feel you –and that’s why I created this post for you; How To Start A Blog In Just 5 Simple Steps.
If you are the type that read, bookmark this post for future reference and if you’re a graphic-type of person, there’s an infographic right at the bottom of this post. And if you find this post useful, I would appreciate it if you can share this around or use the infographic in your blog post!
A domain name is like your brand and it matters even more especially when your blog get traction and more visibility. Most bloggers find it really challenging to find a blog name and allow me to hep you out on this.
There are several rules of thumb when it comes to choosing a domain name:
Domain usually costs anywhere from $0.99 to under $10 per year. There are many domain registrars out there such as GoDaddy and NameCheap which sells at super low prices.
Want to save money in domain name and get a free one? Continue reading Step 2!
To be included in you reading list: ProBlogger Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
Web hosting is like the power company that lights up your home (in this case, home is your domain). One of the biggest mistakes done by bloggers is choosing really, really cheap web hosting companies due to the obvious reason; dirt cheap cost.
The results? Tons of downtime and even possibility of hacking which leads to angry visitors and lost of revenue for you. If you think about it, this isn’t the reason of you starting a blog. You want to make money or passive income from blogging!
So, here are some guidelines you need to know when choosing a web hosting company:
Since you are starting out in blogging, you should be getting shared web hosting as this is the most affordable one. While there are higher end ones like WP Engine, you’re still in good hands especially when your blog is hosted with a professional web hosting company with affordable prices.
Why? Because it doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket.
If you need recommendations, I recommend using BlueHost (read my review on Bluehost) because it costs only $3.95 per month and all the goodies such as free domain name, free site builder, professional support and money back guarantee under one roof. Of course, you only get this deal when you use this link (original price is $5.99 per month).
In the 3rd step on how to start a blog, you need to install a blogging platform. Here, I would recommend you to install WordPress as it is one of the most flexible blogging platforms for both beginners and businesses.
Big brands such as Tech Crunch, The New Yorker and Sony Music use WordPress for their websites.
By default, most shared hosting service providers would have cPanel system which you can use to install WordPress. If you slightly geeky, here’s the real definition of cPanel credits to Wikipedia:
cPanel is a Linux based web hosting control panel that provides a graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a web site.
If you are wondering if you could create a blog without WordPress, yes you could — but would you? Millions of blogs out there are powered by WordPress because it is flexible and super scalable. As a matter of fact, WordPress allows you to change every expect of your blog (with some coding knowledge).
Right now, you may be thinking, “Hey Reginald, this is just too much for me. I am working/studying and I have absolutely no time to spare. I demand to know how to start a blog fast!”
Yes sir! Pardon me for all the jargons I said in the past few paragraph. You want an easy way out? Signup for BlueHost web hosting and they will give you a free domain. Then the magic happens. BlueHost has 1-click install for WordPress. All you need to do is to click and wait.
Now you are all set … under 5 minutes. Yes, sign up for BlueHost here (If you cancel within 30 days, you receive a full refund on your hosting service and if you cancel after 30 days, you receive a prorated refund for the remainder of your hosting term).
Yes, you just started a blog. Pretty simple right?
No, it’s no over yet! There’re two more steps and the next step (really simple one, I promise) is setting the blog up.
On your dashboard (accessible through http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin), head over the left panel and click on Settings > General as seen on the image below:
Once the page is refreshed, you will see a new page and this is the main switch box for your blog. See the options in the image below? Fill the details according to the details of your blog.
Once everything is done, click on the Save button.
Important note: Tagline should be no longer than 160 characters.
Bonus offer: See why over 164,000 website owners trust StudioPress Themes!
What are WordPress plugins?
WordPress plugins are bits of software that can be uploaded to to extend and expand the functionality of your WordPress site.
In short, plugins help you to do wonders with your blog (even when you have no knowledge about) and it increases productivity.
Plugins can be installed directly from your blog’s dashboard. Click on the left panel and select Plugins.
A new page will be visible and you can search dozens of plugins directly from the WordPress repository. As of this point of writing, there are over 37,900 plugins available for download to your blog.
Here are some important plugins you need to have when you first start a blog:
Alternative plugins for advanced bloggers:
WordPress comes with some beautifully made themes which you can use for free. But if you would want a more custom look and feel, there are tools such as Thrive Theme Builder that allows you to create custom custom blog templates without a single line of code. Besides that, you have StudioPress who offers dozens of professional made blog templates ready for download at very reasonable prices.
Did you know that you have finish all the 5 steps in ‘how to start a blog‘?
Yes, give yourself a pat on the back and maybe some beer. You have successfully create a blog from scratch (and without pulling a single strain of hair). Well, that’s awesome right?
Of course, starting a blog is just the first step in your blogging journey. What’s coming up next is how to make money with a blog (subscribe here to be kept updated)!
![How To Start A Blog [Infographic]](https://www.reginaldchan.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/How-To-Start-A-Blog-Infographic.jpg)
