Category: Web Development

  • Should You Buy Thrive Themes?

    Should You Buy Thrive Themes?

    ​Do you think that Thrive Themes is worth it? Do you think it is worth buying Thrive Themes?

    In today’s short article, I’m going to share with you my honest option using Thrive Themes for almost a year now.

    Before that, let’s do a quick summary of what Thrive Themes is all about, shall we?

    Is Thrive Themes Worth It

    ​What is Thrive Themes?

    Thrive Theme offers a complete set of conversion focused WordPress themes and plugins for beginners and advanced WordPress users.

    ​By default, it comes with over 10 well-coded WordPress themes which focuses on:

    • check​Conversion
    • check​Speed
    • check​Lead generation
    • check​Easy to use

    ​Let’s be honest here. Anyone can create a WordPress blog under 5 minutes but​ not everyone can create a beautifully designed WordPress blog.

    And this is where Thrive Themes comes into play. Instead of messing around with coding and other complicated stuffs (like website loading speed), you can have all in one solution through Thrive Themes.

    For starters, the ready-made templates are easy to use and you can install them in just a few clicks. Yes, no coding skill required.

    ​Thrive Themes WordPress Templates

    ​I recently used Thrive Themes on my marketing agency (click on the link to take a look). The site looks awesome and everything is created in just an hour. Several landing pages and homepage are all done through drag and drop (thanks to Thrive Architect).

    ​Thrive Themes makes website creation really simple and you no longer require coding skills to build a WordPress theme. Seriously.

    Take a look at Thrive Themes below. Aren’t they beautiful?

    Thrive Themes vs Genesis Theme Framework ReviewSaveSave

    ​Thrive Themes Plugins

    ​The jewel of Thrive Themes is the Thrive plugins. Personally, this is the single and most important reason why Thrive Theme is worth it.

    At this point of time, Thrive Themes offers eight powerful plugins that you can purchase separately (click here to see the demo of each one) or have them all under Thrive Membership which will save you thousands of dollars a month.

    Here are a list of Thrive plugins:

    • check​Thrive Architect
    • check​Thrive Leads
    • check​Thrive Ovation
    • checkThrive Ultimatum
    • checkThrive Headline Optimizer
    • checkThrive Clever Widgets
    • checkThrive Quiz Builder
    • checkThrive Apprentice
    • checkThrive Comments

    ​What is Thrive Architect?

    Thrive Architect Review

    Thrive Architect is the most powerful WordPress visual builder in today’s market. It is flexible and it is very intuitive. As a matter of fact, this blog post is created using Thrive Architect.

    ​You can take a read about Thrive Architect in this review.

    ​What is Thrive Leads?

    What is Thrive Leads

    ​Let’s not talk about others and just me. Using Thrive Leads, I was able to launch my freelance course by building a mailing list around it.

    Do you know how many emails I have collected thanks to Thrive Leads on a monthly basis?

    Over 1,000 email subscribers!

    Even John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneur on Fire uses Thrive Leads. See the plugin demo here.

    ​What is Thrive Ovation?

    ​Thrive Ovation is one of those revolutionary plugins. This is extremely important if you are planning to take advantage of one of the most underestimated conversion boosters in the marketing world!

    ​Using Thrive Ovation, you can now set and forget testimonials directly on your WordPress blog. It allows you to organize testimonials in one spot and tag them for what they are about!

    Thrive Ovation

    The next time you need to use a testimonial on your sales page, you don’t have to dig into the thousands of emails you had. Instead, you can now find them under one roof.

    testimonials have the power to ease that anxiety and close the sale.

    Check out how Thrive ovation works here.

    ​What is Thrive Ultimatum?

    ​They call themselves as the ultimate scarcity marketing tool for WordPress.

    Here’s a quick quote from Neil Patel.

    “If you can create a stronger sense of urgency on your landing page or websites, then you can successfully spur people to do what you want them to do on your page (such as convert).”

    ​Does this makes any sense to you? I bet!

    Thrive Ultimatum

    ​Thrive Ultimatum allows you to:

    • check​Easily fixed date campaigns
    • check​Automatically recurring campaigns
    • check​Creating evergreen system
    • checkCreate 100% authentic evergreen scarcity
    • check​Using expiring links and bulletproof the tracking
    • checkDrag and drop builder included
    • checkShowing the right offer to the right audience
    • checkCreating unlimited scarcity campaigns

    ​Click here to take a look how Thrive Ultimatum works in real life.

    ​What is Thrive Headline Optimizer?

    ​I use Thrive Headline Optimize in all my blogs and websites. As bloggers and content writers, we spend most of our times trying to craft the best headlines to get better click through rates.

    However, what happens when you are down with 5 very powerful and well crafted headlines to choose from?

    Introducing Thrive Headline Optimizer.

    Thrive Headline Optimizer

    ​You can now easily add unlimited headlines and try them out. The best part, you can set it on automation and the plugin will automatically choose the best performing headline!

    To be honest, this is the only headline optimizer plugin that is worth the money!

    ​Click here to take a look at Thrive Headline Optimizer.

    ​What is Thrive Clever Widgets?

    ​Do you ever wish to have the widgets showing only to specific audience, post or pages? Now, you can with Thrive Clever Widgets.

    The concept is rather simple. You can customize each widget to be visible only to selected criteria.

    Thrive Clever Widgets

    This way, you can start delivering only the right content to the right audience at the right time.

    ​Click here to take a look at Thrive Clever Widgets for yourself!

    ​What is Thrive Quiz Builder?

    ​Do you know that one of the best ways to build traffic and conversion is through quiz?

    Having the right quiz is going to make your blog more fun and more importantly, you can resonate better with your audience.

    Thrive Quiz Builder

    ​What makes Thrive Themes worth is it the fact that with Thrive Quiz Builder, you can easily create powerful engaging quiz into a potent way to grow your business.

    See Thrive Quiz Builder in action here.

    ​What is Thrive Apprentice 2.0?

    ​Thrive Apprentice 2.0 is Thrive’s flagship plugin for online courses. With Thrive Apprentice, you no longer need to pay hefty sums for other membership programs to create a community out of it.

    Thrive Apprentice 2.0

    You can now do it with cost efficient and not burning a hole in your pocket.

    What makes Thrive Apprentice so powerful is the ability to merge with all the Thrive products and work meticulously well.

    And that is probably just an understatement. Take a look for yourself here.

    ​What is Thrive Comments?

    ​Last but not least, the newest product from Thrive Themes is the Thrive Comments. Thrive Comments allows you to start engaging with your audience in new ways you can never imagine. At the very least, no WordPress plugin is able to achieve what Thrive Comments does!

    Here’s what you need to know. Thrive Comments is only open to current members of Thrive Themes and therefore, you will be able to use this plugin with a paid membership. Nonetheless, you can take a look at Thrive Comments using this link, for a free 30 days money back guarantee.

    ​Is Thrive Themes worth it?

    ​Absolutely, no doubt in my mind that Thrive Themes is really worth it. With the amount of value the themes and plugins can provide, it is insane for not even considering Thrive Themes.

    ​Click here to get the best discount for Thrive Themes!

    Now, it is your turn. What do you think? Leave a comment below and tell me what you think!

  • Don’t Lose Content The Next Time Changing WordPress Theme

    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.

    Backup_using_cPanel

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

    nackup using backup wizard

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

    Backup_using_Wpengine

    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.

    how to use wpengine staging area

    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.

    how to change wordpress theme

    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.

    deploy from staging to live

    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:

    customize wordpress theme

    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.

    mobile version wordpress theme

    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!

  • Thrive Themes vs Divi 3.0: Which Is The Best?

    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).

    SpeedTest_Thrive_Themes

    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 ReviewThrive 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.

    divi customization feature review

    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.

    divi split test feature

    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.

    Thrive Themes Pricing

    And this is how much Divi costs.

    Divi Pricing

    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.

  • What Is The Best WordPress Hosting Site?

    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.

    The Best WordPress Hosting Site

    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!

  • How Much Money Can You Make As An Affiliate Marketer?

    How Much Money Can You Make As An Affiliate Marketer?

    How much money can you make as an affiliate marketer?

    Over and over again, this is one question asked by bloggers around the world. This is not surprising since affiliate marketing is a powerful way to make money, especially on the side.

    To get to the point, the answer to the question is often “it depends.” Typically, you can make anywhere from a couple of dollars to thousands with affiliate marketing.

    For a complete beginner, you probably will make a few bucks from every sale and probably under 100 dollars in a month, assuming that you have a decent blog (learn how to start a killer blog that converts). For advanced and seasoned affiliate marketers, you can start aiming for at least a thousand dollar a month if you are very active.

    Personally, I make anywhere between three to five thousand a month from affiliate marketing because I am devoted to it.

     

    What does devotion mean to you?

    • At least five blog posts in a week
    • At least three social media posts (promoting the blog post) in a week
    • Using the right SEO strategy
    • Keeping my WordPress blogs look fantastic and professional

    More importantly, it is critical to understand that success is only achievable when you know exactly what to do. And that’s why I created an affiliate marketing course to coach beginners on what to do to make money as an affiliate.

    And that’s why I created an affiliate marketing course to coach beginners on what to do in order to make money as an affiliate. [thrive_2step id=’6496′]Click here for more information.[/thrive_2step]

    What do you need to make money as an affiliate marketer?

    1. Choosing the right niche

    A niche is going to differentiate you from making thousands of dollars to a low-profit one. When it comes to choosing a niche, you want to be finding niches that are anywhere between average popularity to high popularity.

    2. Setting up social media accounts

    Take some time to set up your social media accounts. This way, you will be able to connect and interact with right-minded people. Ultimately, this will be the platform for you to promote your affiliate marketing products.

    3. Start a blog

    A blog is always crucial for your success in the digital world. Starting a blog is extremely affordable and often under $5 a month. If you want to start a blog hassle-free, consider using this service.

    4. Publish content constantly

    Affiliate marketers are active in publishing content. Regardless it is writing a blog post or a video; you need to do it regularly. Most of the time, affiliate marketers who hustle the most will make the most money!