Category: Online Marketing

Why Are Magento Developers So Highly Sought After Today?

August 17, 2024
The Benefits Of Starting Your Business Online

August 17, 2024
Essential WordPress Plugins For Bloggers 2019

What are the essential WordPress plugins for bloggers?

In this post, we will dive deep into the top WordPress plugins that every blogger should use for their WordPress websites.

How good is WPX Hosting?

Want to know more about this managed WordPress hosting?

Best Website Builder Plugins

What makes a website beautiful? The layout, of course.

So, how do you create beautiful WordPress layouts if you don’t have coding skills?

Using WordPress builders is the answer. With that being said, here are the top website builders for WordPress users.

Thrive Architect

This is by far my favorite WordPress builders. Focused on speed, conversion and ease of use, Thrive Architect is a must-have tool for bloggers who wants to build beautiful WordPress themes without coding skills. Click here to try!

Divi Builder

If you are a website developer, you are going to love Divi. Divi simple pricing structure, plus hundreds of ready-made templates are highly affordable and makes website building extremely simple. Click here to try!

OptimizePress

If you are looking for a WordPress builder that comes with membership plugin, OptimizePress is the best money can buy. Easy to use and highly recommended by top affiliate marketers, this is definitely a heavy hitters in the market right now. Click here to try!

WordPress Form Builder Plugins

Forms are used on WordPress to collect feedbacks, used on “contact us” pages and even to organize surveys.

However, WordPress forms are boring and not compatible with the ongoing WordPress themes and plugins developments.

Here re the top ones that I truly recommend.

WPForms

WPForms is one of the most effective form builders for WordPress websites. This plugin is extremely easy to use and you can literally create a working form in just under 5 minutes. Zero coding skills required too! Click here to try!

Ninja Forms

Are you looking for a versatile WordPress form plugin? If you are, then Ninja Forms is definitely a great option for you. While this plugin is very easy to use, it also comes with advanced features that advanced users are going to love. Click here to try!

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is the most popular and most basic contact form plugin for WordPress. If you are looking for a free contact form plugin that doesn’t sucks, you are going to love the simplicity that this plugin offers. Click here to try!

Analytics Plugins for WordPress Websites

Regardless you like it or hate it, analytics (data) is important for your blog’s success.

But there’s a little problem with Google Analytics. It is extremely powerful but almost certainly every beginner finds it tough to use. There are so many options and filters that you can use to generate report — which it can be mind bogging.

via GIPHY

Thankfully, here are the top Google Analytics plugin that you can use on WordPress (thank God).

MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is my personal favorite when it comes to getting analytics data. Install this plugin and you will be greeted with several simple options to generate analytics reports. Click here to try!

Slimstat Analytics

If Jetpack Analytics is too heavy for your website, you are going to love this plugin. This is a leading web analytics plugin that light weight and doesn’t slows down your website loading speed. Click here to try!

Google Analytics Dashboard for WP by ExactMetrics

Previously known as GADWP, this is a light weight analytics plugin for WordPress that allows you to connect your WordPress site with Google Analytics. Click here to try!

Best Email List Building Plugin for WordPress Websites

Everyone knows that the money is in the list — and having a proper (and effective) list building plugin for WordPress is super important.

Here are the top email list building plugins that you should be using today.

Thrive Leads

If you want to build your email list, Thrive Leads is the best list building plugin you can ever find. I use it myself and am loving it. It is easy to use and works very well with nearly all major WordPress themes and plugins. Click here to try!

OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a cool list building plugin that is powerful, effective and more importantly, helps you to build your email list without dropping a single sweat. It has many advanced controls to give you the perks! Click here to try!

Bloom

If you are looking for a simple email list builder plugin, Bloom is here to answer your calling. Easy to use and very lightweight, this is one of my favorite email list plugin that offers simplicity and getting the job done, every time. Click here to try!

Best WordPress Security Plugin for WordPress Websites

You had spend money and time to get the website running —and you certainly wouldn’t want to open doors to hackers and malicious codes which can affect your website.

Here are the top security plugins for WordPress websites (that are free to use).

Jetpack

Jetpack comes with security features to ensure that your WordPress website is constantly safe from the bad guys. Jetpack security isn’t the full suite but it certainly does the job to protect your website. Click here to try!

Wordfence Security

You can’t compromise anything especially with web security. Wordfence security plugin is one of the most powerful and most advanced security plugin to ensure your website is always safe from hacking attempts. Click here to try!

All In One WP Security & Firewall

I wrote about this plugin sometime back and it is still one of the simple security plugin for WordPress users. I recommend this plugin to all WordPress users and you can read my review on it here. Click here to try!

Best SEO Plugin for WordPress Websites

You can’t ignore SEO if you want traffic to your website. While I admit that SEO is challenging, here are some of the best SEO plugins that will help you optimize your content in real time.

Yoast SEO

This is by far the most popular SEO plugin for WordPress websites. Used by bloggers and large organization, Yoast SEO helps you to optimizate your website content by providing powerful tips and best practices. Click here to try!

All In One SEO Plugin

If Yoast SEO is not your cup of tea, then you are going to love AIOSEO. Just like Yoast SEO, this plugin helps you to optimize both WordPress posts and pages to ensure that Google ranks them higher on search results! Click here to try!

What’s Your Essential WordPress Plugin?

As a blogger, what’s your essential WordPress plugin (that I might had missed out)?

Leave a comment below and tell me all about them!

August 17, 2024
How To Market On Facebook As A Small Business

You have definitely heard about Facebook and the number of people who spend their time there every single day. Well, it means that it is a perfect place to get your marketing done.

However, things are not that simple.

As you have probably expected, even something like social media requires a lot of understanding, especially once you start to put some money into it. Of course, the more time you spend on it and learn, it becomes clearer. And since everybody has to start from somewhere, this article is a perfect place to begin your journey.

Start with the Profile

Every Facebook page needs to have an optimized profile. This becomes even more important when you are running a business. Everyone usually starts with a profile picture and the cover.

After that, be sure to fill in all the blank information on the business page, such as the website, location, working hours, and so on. The more effort you put into it, the more professional everything looks.

Content with Intent

When you start posting, make sure that it is not some random text that makes no sense or serves no purpose. Every single message that you share with your followers needs to have a meaning behind it.

Moreover, there will come a time when you will have to boost these posts with money to reach more people. The sooner you become accustomed to such content, the better.

Recommended read: Facebook Business Manager Guide for Beginners

Insights

Understanding the demographics and whether your fans are truly the ones that would be interested in the business is important.

Luckily, Facebook has its own version of insights, and it provides all the information that the page owner would like.

Taking notes every day is probably overdoing it, but you should at least keep up with what is happening at least every week or so.

Schedule the Posts

Image source: Pexels.com

Depending on what time you post, you can expect more or less engagement. These things take time to test.

Do not expect to make a conclusion in a week’s time since the difference between posting on weekdays and weekends is also there.

Automation tools are perfect if you want to try a timeframe that would be impossible to check otherwise.

Facebook Stories

Facebook has recently introduced a new feature of stories. It serves as a way to diversify the content and share more trivial things with your followers. Of course, it serves more if you are trying to run a marketing campaign.

It is worth checking out the Facebook Stories: The Complete Guide for Businesses in 2019 on Oberlo’s website. It has all the information every business owner needs.

Encourage Your Audience to Join

Image source: Pexels.com

This serves two purposes. One is to get a stronger relationship with your followers, and the second one is having a different type of content to post.

The whole thing is pretty simple. Announce that you will share a picture that they take, an article that they will write, a video that they will make, and so on. Such incentives do wonders if you want to stand out from the competition and look more appealing.

Giveaways

No post will have as much engagement and reach as the one which offers something for free. You have probably seen plenty of contests on Facebook where the page asks to share, like, comment, tag, etc.

Some individuals like to exploit it and run fake giveaways, not giving the prize to the winner after the whole thing is over. However, these things tend to reach daylight, and you can forget about having any positive reputation afterward.

Facebook Groups

Another method to diversify your business and expect user-generated content is by creating a Facebook group. It is a place where everyone can share the information, invite others to join, and so on.

The biggest advantage of a group is that organizing a discussion is much easier. Similarly, you should consider creating a subreddit. Reddit is one of the most popular websites on the internet, and while it is not considered social media, it is still a good place to advertise yourself.

Continue to Learn

Image source: Pexels.com

Just like any other thing on the internet, Facebook will continue to evolve and change. In order to not fall behind the competition, you need to be at the top of the game. Therefore, make sure that you are up to date with any changes or new features that get implemented.

As things stand right now, Facebook is without a doubt one of the best websites on the internet when it comes to running a marketing campaign. Even if a page might not seem like a direct business technique to regular users, you, who is behind it, should understand the pros and cons of it.

And following these tips makes everything much easier!

August 17, 2024
What Is Conversational Forms by WPForms?

If you are concern on the form completion rate, you came to the right place.

This article is all about Conversational Forms which is one of the popular WPForms addons.

What is the Conversational Forms addon?

Here’s what they are saying about the Conversational Forms addon.

“Conversational Forms addon by WPForms helps make your web forms feel more human, so you can improve your conversions. Interactive web forms made easy.”

– WPForms –

Of course, this leads to one major question for all of us (including you).

How does Conversational Forms works?

Glad you asked!

Carry on reading below to learn more.

Meantime …

Want to see WPForms in real-time?

WPForms is known as the most advanced and absolutely beginner friendly for website owners, developers and bloggers. Don’t just hear my thought about — try WPForms right now!

What makes Conversational Forms by WPForms unique?

For me, the most important feature is the ease of using it. WordPress can be very complicated especially for beginners, and using WordPress plugins such as this one shouldn’t add more challenge to the matter.

When it comes to ease of usage, there is no doubt in my mind that Conversational Forms rocks.

Quick and easy setup i definitely for the win in this case.

Reduce cart abandonment with Conversational Forms

It is tough to drive traffic to your website … and it felt even worst when you are unable to convert these website visitors into paying customers.

“Do you know that Conversational Forms is the first true interactive form layout built exclusively for WordPress that is guaranteed to boost form completion and your overall form conversions?”

Question of the day

Regardless whatever your plans or goals are in creating forms on WordPress, Conversational Forms should be in your arsenal.

Here’s how an interactive survey can be done thanks to Conversational Forms by WPForms.

How can Conversational Forms helps you to boost completion rate?

The concept is rather straight forward … to be honest.

Instead of asking all twenty questions at once, Conversational Forms takes the one question at a time approach similar to a face-to-face conversation. The full-page conversational form layout makes your form less overwhelming and more personal, leading to a better form completion rate.

In other words, you can remove the anxiety and lack of time mindset which will lead to higher completion rate.

How easy it is to setup Conversational Forms?

Relatively easy. This is one familiar backend which you will see after installing WPForms.

Here, you can easily perform adjustment and amendments to the forms in just a few clicks.

You can easily add custom header logo, color schemes and even enable/disable the Conversational Form mode.

Want More?

The best part about conversational form landing pages is that your users can complete the entire form using just their keyboard similar to as if they were having a chat conversation on Messenger.

Conversational forms can also be used on:

1.

Survey Forms. Instead of overwhelming people with a lot of survey questions, use the Conversational Forms’ one-question at a time approach to improve your survey completion rate.

2.

Job Application Forms. 60% of job seekers abandon the job application forms because they’re too long or complicated. With conversational forms, you can make your job application forms easy (source).

3.

Event Planning Forms. As an event planner, you know how many questions you have to ask clients to plan the perfect event. The step by step, one question at a time approach helps you get the data you need without tiring your clients.

What are you waiting for?

Gte started using Conversational Forms by WPForms right now (click on this link to get started). You can also take a look at the full features here.

August 17, 2024
WPX Hosting Review: Is This The WordPress Hosting For 2019?
We rely on web host a lot.

And when our website goes down, we lose money, traffic and of course, endless headaches.

In the past, I had experienced first-hand on countless web hosting services — which I’m sure you had a few for yourself, right?

Here’s the thing.

There is no perfect web hosting company and what really matters often boils down to website performance (speed), fixing issues and customer support.

Among the above three, my biggest concern is always performance.

This website itself serves over 150,000 visitors in a month. I need blazing fast servers that don’t buckle when a handful of people are viewing my website at the same time.

So, will WPX hosting be any different from other managed WordPress hosting services?

Keep on reading this review to find out more!

Do you know that WPX Hosting is one of our top 10 WordPress hosting services that we truly recommend?

Game Changer for Managed WP Hosting?

WPX Hosting is one of our top 10 WordPress hosting services that we truly recommend.

Before WPX Hosting

Prior to using WPX Hosting for hosting my money sites, I was using Kinsta.

And make no mistake.

Kinsta offers (almost) everything I needed in a web hosting service:
- Blazing speed thanks to Google Cloud Platform
- Premium CDN (which is known as KinstaCDN) for faster delivery of resources
- 24/7/365 live chat support which solves all my problems, every time without complaining
- Nightly backup securely saved in servers around the world
- 1-click staging, restore and backups for some development works
Well, it was close to perfect …

Except for the payment part.

As you can see, here’s what Kinsta plans and pricing structures look like:

I took up the Business 1 plan that consists of 5 WordPress installs, 100,000 monthly visits. 15 GB of disk space and 200 GB of Kinsta CDN.

But with over 150,000 monthly visits in a month, I’m constantly paying overages at $1/1,000 visits.

While I don’t mind paying for the overages, I felt it is not worth the money.

Just like any other bloggers, I decided to find for other web hosting alternatives that are more affordable (that don’t cost a bomb) and comes with superior server performance.

I did a full list and decided these are the best alternatives to Kinsta.
- SiteGround
- Cloudways
- Bluehost Pro
- WPX Hosting
SiteGround

I used SiteGround for quite some time and I love what they do. Beautiful website, great support team and above average server performance (with very decent web hosting price).

The only problem I had with SiteGround was with my translation plugin. For every post I publish, the plugin will translate into various languages.

And make no mistake. Other languages are driving a lot of traffic for my website.

Take a look at the analytics here.

While SiteGround is a great choice, I still have doubt on it.

I wouldn’t want my website to be penalized simply because of any over usages.

You can also read this post (on why I moved out of SiteGround).

Nonetheless, SiteGround pricing really unbeatable at only $12 for a super optimized and fast web hosting servers. You can check out their features here.

Cloudways

I thought about Cloudways a few times and used them over the years too. Cloudways is a fully managed VPS service that fits perfectly well for WordPress websites.

I love their pricing and I can even choose hourly or monthly charges (hourly comes handy in development mode).

But again, I had some issues with them and to be exact, it was on April 2018.

I took up a powerful server on Cloudways (sitting on Digital Ocean) with 4 cores. After ensuring the website can last through the heavy traffic, I shut down my laptop and went for a nice three days trip to Langkawi Island, Malaysia.

I came back home hoping to see a few hundred dollars in advertisement and affiliate sales …

But I was badly disappointed.

via GIPHY

The server crashed and while Cloudways promoted that there are automatic reboot after crashes, it didn’t happen for mine.

And with that being said, I still have doubts using Cloudways especially when it comes to hosting money sites.

You are looking for affordable WordPress VPS hosting, Cloudways is still a good option. With VPS services that starts from $10 per month, you can’t really complain. Seriously.

Read more about Cloudways here.

BlueHost Pro

I talked about BlueHost Pro a lot and this was definitely in my mind.

BlueHost Pro is not like BlueHost shared hosting. Everything is way much better and the support is awesome too.

I thought of moving my money site to BlueHost Pro and after some considerations, I decided not to use BlueHost Pro.

Here’s why.

“BlueHost Pro is good for many people, but not for me.”

– Reginald Chan –

For example, I don’t use Jetpack and thus, Jetpack Pro wouldn’t be beneficial to me. I don’t require BlueHost SEO because I am happy using Yoast SEO. Finally, I don’t require 100 free premium WordPress themes because I’m happy with StudioPress + Thrive Architect.

While BlueHost Pro is really a great choice, I don’t see myself using it that much. You can check out the entire BlueHost Pro feature (by clicking on this) or read the review here.

WPS Hosting

Finally, WPS Hosting.

I heard about WPX Hosting and even used for my own non-money websites.

But now, I’m my money site to WPX Hosting. This is entirely a different ball game because there are more at stake.

My first impression of WPX Hosting is pretty bad. Firstly, I’m hoping for a professional business-look homepage. Instead, WPX Hosting is pretty much cartoon-like concept which isn’t really my taste.

However, I read about what Matthew Woodward talked about WPX and I even had some of my sits hosted on it. So, there goes the benefit of the doubt.

Because I was capping around 150,000 visits in a month, I had to go with a bigger plan, Professional plan at $49.99 per month or $41.58 per month when I pay annually.

This plan comes with a whopping 20 GB storage, 200 GB bandwidth and WPX Cloud CDN. Here’s the full pricing structure.

I signed up for a brand new account around 10.54am and I submitted the request for a single website migration. I got an email at 10.59am to notify me that the work is in progress (and they require a little bit more information of my previous web host).

I was impressed that they are really that fast in replying to me.

Okay, I used to think that the customer support at WPEngine and Kinsta are rock solid. Now, WPX Hosting is also in the list!

My choice for choosing WPX Hosting for my money site is simple. There are many web hosts which are terrible. They offer unlimited plans that are severely limited when you actually read the fine print. Not cool at all.

They cram as many customers into each server as possible without considering performance.

So, when simultaneous visitors land on a site, page load times skyrocket and user experience is ruined.

Not sure if WPX Hosting is for you?

Take a look at what WPX Hosting can offer right now!

WPX Hosting Review Part 1: A Simple Interface That Simply Works

One issue that I find with a lot of web hosts is that for first time users, or even some more experienced users – the interface can be unnecessarily complex.

This is what the common and simple cPanel hosting looks like.

WPX Hosting interface is simple and very straightforward. This is how it looks like on the backend.

I came from Kinsta with custom dashboard, so it’s nothing much to “wow” about for me. But for other bloggers and website owners, this new interface is definitely a game changer.

WPX Hosting Review Part 2: Handle Traffic Spikes Without Affecting User Experience

This … is … golden.

WPX Hosting infrastructure are designed to host large, resource intensive ecommerce websites. Therefore, hosting big websites aren’t a problem at all.

Do you know that WPX Hosting typically leave 50% of a servers resources available? This results in fantastic performance and the ability to deal with traffic spikes.

And not only that!

As soon as the number of customers on a machine could potentially impact performance, they’re moved to another machine.

WPX Hosting Review Part 3: How Does WPX Hosting Performs Under Load?

Impressive is the word.

With minimal optimization and a little help from MaxCDN (now StackPath), This is the kind of performance that’s possible:

The above image is a test ran with LoadImpact.com that tests how page load times are impacted with multiple visitors on the site at the same time.

Most visitors experienced loading times of under 1 second, which is incredible.

Here’s the good news:

From November 2018 onwards, WPX Hosting offer their own CDN with 20+ endpoints around the world.

It’s built by them – this isn’t just some other CDN slapped on the side. This means they can tweak and optimize it for better performance.

And it is absolutely free!

Yes, WPX CDN is included in all hosting packages.

WPX Hosting Review Part 4: Beyond Excellent Customer Support

I am a tough customer to handle, and I am not afraid to admit that.

WPX Hosting support teams are well-trained and are very experienced. They know WordPress and they know managed hosting — and these make all the difference.

Here’s an example of scenario which a web hosting company I no longer use and recommend:
- My website was broken and I need fast resolution, only to wait for 20 minutes in queue for the live chat agent
- The live chat agent was okay, but she wasn’t able to resolve the matter (and the ticket is escalated to the level 2 support)
- They said they need to check on the problem, and they will get back to me via email
- After two hours, my website is still down and they finally got back with the ticket — telling me that they would need to charge me $100 to do the needed repair (at this point, I went “WTF)
Now, here’s what happens when you reach out to WPX Hosting support via live chat:
- A warm greeting and response back to you under 60 seconds (super cool)
- Attentively listen/read my concern and given assurance it is being looked at
- Minutes later, I’m being responded via email or live chat that the job is done/resolved at no cost
Time is money and a website that is down … is not going to generate any sales for you.

WPX Hosting Review Part 5: Website Security Like No One Else

I choose managed WordPress hosting because of two things; website speed (performance) and security.

WPX hosting provides free SSL and unlimited website migrations at no cost.

If at this point you think that you can find this on any other web hosting companies, take a look at this email from them.

I was reaching out to the support team over at WPX Hosting to check on the status of my website migration. They responded to me and even told me that one of my money site is affected with some malicious codes.

This is where I go “WTF” — and my previous web hosting company didn’t notice anything about it!

Before I was stomping the ground, I was pleased that the WPX Hosting team said that they will take care of everything. Now, that’s a huge relief!

WPX Hosting Review Part 6: Is WPX Hosting Worth The Money?

I decided to move all my websites to WPX Hosting because it is affordable and comes with superior support.

As shared above, I’d looked at other WordPress specialist web hosts but the technical limitations and pricing structure put me off.

WPX Hosting gears their plans around a monthly maximum bandwidth, which can be offset even further by using a CDN like MaxCDN (now StackPath).

Here’s a closer look at their pricing plans:

For more information on their plans & pricing, click here.

WPX Hosting Review Part 7: Advantages & Disadvantages Using WPX Hosting

There are a lot of good things that WPX Hosting offers, and here are the most important ones.
- Built to handle traffic without sacrificing page load times
- Fast and effective support
- Amazing pricing in comparison to competitors
- Supports emails (unlike some WordPress hosts)
- Easy to use interface (all the important stuff is 1 click away)
- Can support other content management systems (not just WordPress)
- Enterprise level DDoS protection
- Malware scanning and cleanup
Just like any other managed WordPress hosting services, WPX Hosting is not protected from some disadvantages too.
- Interface is lacking on features but this could be classed as a pro since the interface is easier to work with
- No phone support (but live chat & email is very fast)
- Dashboard not showing stats (compared to Kinsta)
Summary: WPX Hosting Review 2019

I host multiple websites (even clients’ websites) on WPX Hosting, and the experience had been great.

But it gets better because they keep adding new features without adding to the cost. For example, they offer free malware cleanups and a free in-house built CDN.

The bottom line is this.

They really seem to care about their customers, unlike a lot of the big web hosts out there. And their page load times are impressive, and they have the support to match.

WPX Hosting Review: Performance + Security + Affordability

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that WPX Hosting is definitely worth the money. Ranked number one on G2Crowd for web hosting, I’m sure WPX Hosting had “wow-ed” more customers than just me. Want to give WPX Hosting a run? Click the button below and give WPX Hosting a run for your money. Plus, you get 30-days (iron clad) money back guarantee if it fails to impress you.
August 17, 2024