Category: WordPress

4 Things I’ll Do If I’m Starting Affiliate Marketing All Over Again
Most affiliate marketers are often using the bootstrapping method. You know, spending minimum money and getting the biggest results.

I did the same years back, and I realized one thing. All my affiliate marketing projects were disastrous! I realized that I was only successful once I put in both money and effort into the projects.

And it didn’t take long for me to see the results. The first month was a couple of dollars followed by hundreds before touching thousands after six months or so, per project.

I thought it was just luck, economy and the way I targeted my keywords. I went into bootstrapping method again, and I ended up the rabbit hole. Sales dropped and my revenue sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

What the hell just went wrong?

This was the exact words I asked myself. I did research (oh hell I did), and I wanted to know what went wrong.

Seriously, this is not a coincidence. Every time I went into bootstrapping, I see massive failures even though I did everything similar to others.

Note to self: These are the 4 things I will do if I’m going to start affiliate marketing all over.

Heres a list what I found out.

1. Going for shared hosting instead of premium web hosting

This debate had gone on for ages. People talked about how good is A and how bad is B. You know the drill.

Here’s the problem. Most people don’t see the main issue, and I experienced that first hand.

The main reason why shared hosting isn’t working well for me in affiliate marketing was because of the freaking loading speed.

I mean, c’mon, would you wait for 5 seconds before the website loads?’

Probably not and that’s the whole issue. I see a lot of bloggers writing great stuff, but their bounce rate is off the roof! One of them was as high as 95% for crying out loud. Jesus!

Shared hosting is good because it saves you money. $4 a month is like a cup of Starbucks alright? Shared hosting is cheap, and each server could host thousands of domains at one time. You are not getting premium speed no matter what, as long as you are in the shared hosting environment.

So, what’s the solution? Premium web hosting like WP Engine and FlyWheel are top of the game. Often, you are expected to pay around $29 per month. I highly recommend these services ONLY if you are making enough from your blog to cover the expenses.

The solution to this challenge is simple. Get a better web host. Here are some great alternatives.
- CloudWays (Virtual Private Server) – $7 per month
- BlueHost (WordPress hosting) – $19.99 per month
- BlueHost (Virtual Private Server) – $19.99 per month
- HostWithLove (Semi-Dedicated hosting) – $19.90 per month
Take a moment to think about this. It doesn’t seem too expensive after all to have a good web host right?

Note: All of the above alternative web hosting provides 24/7 support as well as at least 30 days money back guarantee.

2. Cheap vs Premium WordPress themes

Bloggers are money conscious, and because of that, they often use cheap or free WordPress themes for their affiliate sites.

The results are devastating to say the very least. Their websites look bad, ugly and more importantly, exposing themselves to unnecessary risks of hacking and security breach.

Now, what do you think of the image above? Does it appeal to you in anyway that the writer is an influencer in the industry? Would you trust what you had read on the blog?

Seriously, I even doubt if the theme is mobile friendly!

Here’s a life fact: No matter how your attitude is in real life, you’ll still give a great first impression through your dressing. Make sense?

I often hear bloggers telling me this.

Reg, I know that Thrive Themes is the best in the market but I don’t have that much money to buy it. Furthermore, the monthly payment is going to kill me.

First of all, I’m a huge advocate to Thrive Themes, and it is one of the best WordPress themes for many affiliate marketers. Of course, unless you can afford $19 a month, there are many other options that you can choose from.

What you are doing is blaming your potential affiliate marketing failure because of not being able to afford for a premium theme. What?!

Let me tell you this. Thrive Themes is great and Thrive Themes is hot. But when it comes to WordPress themes, I still go for other alternatives because of the flexibility.

Alternatives that I use:
- StudioPress – $39.90 per theme (lifetime)
- Divi (Elegant Themes) – $89 per year (unlimited usage)
- OptimizePress – $97 per year (for three sites)
Here’s what you need to know. You might not have enough money to buy the best theme for now. So be it!

Use a premium theme that you can afford because that is going to differentiate you from the rest! Once you start making money from your blog, consider the option of upgrading.

BONUS: Discover how website design will impact your affiliate sales in my new 7-days affiliate marketing course. Sign up for free here.

3. Lead generation is dope, but expensive

We all know how important to build an email list. If you are not doing that yet, please do it right now. Start today.

It can be used thoughtfully to build loyalty and trust in your brand. Email marketing is important for building relationships with prospects, leads, current customers, and even past customers because it gives you a chance to speak directly to them, in their inbox, at a time that is convenient for them. InboundRocket.

Tim Ferriss, Pat Flynn, and Matthew Woodwards all make money through their email lists. If you want to become a successful affiliate marketer, then you need to start building an email list.

But, here’s the challenge. You heard that email marketing is expensive.

My answer: WTF?!

Email marketing can be costly, but do you know that you can start for FREE?

Option 1: You can use MailChimp for FREE if you have less than 2,000 email subscribers and send out less than 12,000 email a month. And it comes with email automation for all accounts!

Option 2: If you are a serious blogger and trying to manage your subscribers, there’s ConvertKit that allows you to create cool automation with segmentation for $29 a month if you have under 1,000 email subscribers.

Option 3: Thinking of selling courses, having advanced segmentation and dope email automation? Consider Drip (I’m personally using it), and it gives you everything you need to monetize your list including landing pages. The best part is you can use Drip for FREE if you have less than 100 email subscribers and $41 per month for 2,500 email subscribers.

Confused? Read my latest blog post here:MailChimp vs ConvertKit vs Drip – Comparing The Best Email Marketing Automation Software 2017

It is NOT important to have a paying email subscription service if you are just starting out. It is also important to note that you can quickly start email marketing for free and I find no reason NOT for you to start at all.

4. Should I be using premium plugins?

I am going to bust another myth. There are many premium plugins out there, but I’m just using one that I always hear people whining about.

I heard that Thrive Leads is powerful and because I don’t have that, I am not going to collect my email list.

Yup, you got it. That’s BS!

I get it. Thrive Leads could cost a bomb. At $67 per year and for a single website, it hurts a lot. For affiliate marketers who are bootstrapping, you know what I mean!

Back in those days, there weren’t any fancy WordPress plugins to grow my email list. As a matter of fact, most of us were stuck with Hybrid Connect and that was it. Soon after, Hybrid Connect ended its product and Thrive Leads was born.

Now, not being able to afford the godly Thrive Leads is not a problem. The problem is you. You are not thinking out of the box!

Here are several ways you can solve this.

Option 1: If you are using OptimizePress or X Theme, you don’t need Thrive Leads (there are some features in it that you can use to replace Thrive Leads).

Option 2: There are many alternatives such as Ninja Popups on CodeCanyon that costs on $25.

Option 3: You don’t need Thrive Leads if you use email services such as Drip because they come inbuilt with email list building features.

Important disclaimer: I am not saying that Thrive Leads is not useful (I use it on this blog). All I’m saying is that there are many other alternatives to Thrive Leads if the price is an issue for you. Do not limit your options because of something you cannot afford. That is just giving excuses to yourself to fail as an affiliate marketer.

Takeaway – Things I’ll Do Differently When Starting Affiliate Marketing All Over

Going cheap or bootstrapping is an excellent way to save money. As a plugin and theme junkie, I save thousands of dollars yearly just by going the more affordable options. However, when I start spending money on my blog for affiliate marketing, I tend to make more money online (thousands of dollars) on a monthly basis!

I’m not saying that you should (at any time) increase your spending because it is going to help you close more affiliate sales. All I’m saying is that using premium tools could easily help you achieve your goals in affiliate marketing faster.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and let’s discuss further!
March 20, 2024
Why Do Affiliate Marketers Need To Target Topics And Not Keywords?
I’m going to tell you right in the face, right now. You are probably doing your affiliate marketing wrong.

Are you promoting too many products under one roof? I bet! As a matter of fact, I’m also guilty of this in the past.

When I started my 7-days affiliate marketing course last week ([thrive_2step id=’6496′]you can participate now for free by clicking on this link[/thrive_2step]), one of the biggest and most common questions I get from the members is not making enough money or sales through affiliate marketing. Diving deeper into the question, I noticed that there is a serious trend in this.

99% of them are using 5 blogs or less to promote more than 100 products.

Now, here’s the problem. They are just becoming another Jack-of-all-trades in the market space. They are not making enough (or any) affiliate sales because they are lacking the much needed:
- Authority
- Speciality
- Trust
So, how do you solve this problem?

Lucky for you, you can actually solve this in just under one day.

Stop targeting keywords

Yes, the first step is to stop targeting specific keywords. Targeting specific keywords is NOT going to help you because you will be targeting way too many keywords that are not related to one another.

Let me give you an example. You are probably targeting more than one categories such as:
- Health and supplements
- Electronic items
- Household items
- Books
- Fashion (clothing, shoes, etc.)
The problem starts because you are giving mixed signals to the search engines and let me tell you that this is a bad thing. No one wants to/should confuse the search engines because it is going to affect your organic ranking!

You probably hear the pros talking about targeting the right keywords and I am not disputing the fact. No, I’m not.

What I’m trying to say is that you should target the right keywords and promote affiliate items within the same categories only!

Want to know why? Continue reading below.

Becoming an authority within the industry/niche

When you talk and promote things within an industry, you are building creditability in you. I’m not going to buy

I’m not going to buy a product that Simon is selling because he is selling over 100 different products from different industries. HOWEVER, I’m going to buy it from Josh because I had seen Josh talking about the same topic for a few weeks and he seems to know his stuff.

Sounds familiar? I bet it does!

You want to stand out from the crowd and the only way is to be an authority within your niche.

How to become an authority within the industry or niche?

Now, I have no plans to pull you down but heck, it is really easy if you think about it.
- Find the right industry
- Find the right topics
- Find the right keywords
- Find the right writing style
- Find the right product
Social media tools I recommend using: AgoraPulse, Hootsuite and Sprout Social.

Summary

Affiliate marketers need to target topics and not keywords because you need to build authority within your niche before you can start putting on your selling hat.

Are you ready to make thousands of dollars a month as an affiliate marketer … or you are just happy to make a couple of bucks a month?
March 20, 2024
Top 5 Plugins For Affiliate Marketers 2017
Thinking of starting a blog focusing on affiliate marketing? It’s about time, y’all!

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for bloggers to make money and let me rephrase that again. With the right strategy, you can make MORE money on affiliate marketing compared to any other blog monetization methods out there.

For starters, it is not impossible to make over $5,000 (in a very short time) solely on affiliate marketing. Most bloggers don’t make the cut because they aren’t using the right strategy.

Click here to get the right strategy.

Starting a blog is always the easy part. I even shared why I recommend using this web hosting for that matter (you can check out the post by clicking on this link).

The biggest question is what type of plugins you should be using to pump up your ranking?

Here are the top 5 plugins for affiliate marketers 2017.

1. Yoast SEO

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not joking when I say Yoast SEO. Yoast SEO helps you to rank your blog post on Google and probably a dozen of other search engines. You need Yoast SEO no matter what!

It is free to use and you can download it here.

Configuring Yoast SEO can be a slightly nasty task and [thrive_2step id=’6502′]click here to download the best settings for Yoast SEO.[/thrive_2step]

>>> Download Yoast SEO plugin here. <<<

2. Thirsty Affiliates

This is my number one plugin when it comes to affiliate marketing. Thirsty Affiliates is a freemium WordPress plugin.

What makes it really unique is the add-ons that come on the side. Here’s what you will get when you use Thirsty Affiliates plugin.

Thirsty Affiliate is a plugin that cloaks affiliate links to nice and clean URL. Here are two examples:

Without cloaking: http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?B=346200&U=640392&M=28169&urllink=

With Thirsty Affiliates: https://www.reginaldchan.net/recommends/studiopress/

>>> Try Thirsty Affiliates here. <<<

3. Pretty Link Lite/Pro

Pretty Link Lite/Pro is one of the most popular options for cloaking the affiliate links and it works just like Thirsty Affiliates. Some of the features that are worth mentioning include clean and simple URLs, track the number of hits and unique hits per link, intuitive JAVA/AJAX admin user interface and much more.

While Pretty Link is very similar to its competitor, Thirsty Affiliates, I would say that it boils down to your personal preferences. Both are good and all you need to do is to select either one of them.

>> Try Pretty Link Lite here. <<<

4. OIO Publisher

Rotating banner for the win and there are no other plugins that come closer than what OIO Publisher can do. With OIO Publisher, you can:
- Setup different zones for ads
- Choose between hyperlink or banner ads
- Additional options such as inline ads or even custom ones
- Statistic reports
You can even decide to sell your ad space by using OIO Publisher’s marketplace to further increase your revenue.

>>> Try OIO Publisher here. <<<

5. EasyAzon

Are you thinking of monetizing using Amazon? If that’s the case, you’re in luck!

With EasyAzon, you can easily increase your affiliate sales with this plugin.

But wait!

What are the features of this plugin?
- Add links to Amazon Affiliate program right from your WordPress dashboard
- Link localization: If a user is coming from U.K, he will be automatically redirected to Amazon U.K. store. This way you won’t miss out on your commission
- EasyAzon let you add ‘˜Add to cart’ feature, which will let your reader directly add the product into their cart. This feature also increases the chances of getting paid for sale by 30 more days.
Make no mistake as this plugin is very powerful. I have seen several bloggers generating over 200% more affiliate sales on eBay using this plugin!

>>> Try EasyAzon here. <<<

The best plugins for affiliate marketers

I hope you find this useful and what is your favorite affiliate marketing plugins? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts!

DID YOU KNOW?

For a limited time only, you can sign up for my 7-days affiliate marketing course (worth $99) for FREE! Seats are limited, so secure yours today. Click here to join now.
March 20, 2024
Brainstorming For Affiliate Marketing Niche? Try Soaking Up Under The Sun!
Soak up that sunlight up, folks!

Over and over again, affiliate marketers asked about getting out from the crazy writer’s block.

My answer is simple: Sunlight.

Whenever I’m trying to brainstorm for profitable affiliate niche ideas, I try to stay in open areas. I found out that this helps a lot as the open sky gives me a lot of crazy ideas.

This is also the reason why I go for jogs daily!

Clear the mind. Just did a 35 minutes workout including jogging. Something that really intrigued me about workout (especially jogging) is that it frees my mind. I am not sure why but I tend to think better when I disconnect myself from technology and think under the open sky. #NoFilter #Justsaying #thinking #sky #entrepreneur

A post shared by Reginald Chan (@reginald.chan) on Jun 17, 2017 at 3:41am PDT

I am not saying that you’ll 100% get an awesome idea that generates 6-figures monthly when you are under the sun, but it certainly helps me to get the much needed:
- Clarity
- Focus
- Confidence
- Self-trust
The most critical part of soaking up sunlight and staying in the open is to disconnect yourself from any forms of technology. No phones and tablets. The only leeway you will ever get would be your fitness smartwatch or tracker.

BONUS: Sign up for 7-days affiliate marketing course to start making over $5,000 a month like the pros. And it’s absolutely free for a short time period. Learn more about it here
March 20, 2024
Cloudways Managed Cloud Hosting Review 2017
You found this article because you are interested about the Cloudways managed cloud hosting review 2017. I’m not going to disappoint you, you’ve come to the right place.

I promised to make this article as detailed and informative as possible. Therefore, I’ll be covering a wide range of topics related to Cloudways such as:
- What is managed cloud hosting?
- Introduction to Cloudways
- Cloudways managed cloud hosting review for the year 2017
- Advantages and disadvantages of Cloudways
- How to migrate a website to Cloudways?
I hope you find this article useful and I will appreciate it if you can share this on social media.

What is managed cloud hosting?

According to Techopedia, managed cloud hosting is a process in which organizations share and access resources, including databases, hardware and software tools, across a remote network via multiple servers in another location. In managed cloud hosting, servers are purchased in slices or as a virtual server.

If the above sounds geeky for you, don’t worry. Here’s a simplified version for the meaning of managed cloud hosting.

Managed cloud hosting is not like your average shared hosting service (example, Bluehost). In shared hosting service, you will most probably share the same hosting environment with over a thousand or other users.

Compared to cloud hosting, you can utilize the entire server allocation for your usage. The server is also hosted on a virtual server where accessing it would require a remote network connection.

The term ‘managed’ simply means that the server or servers are maintained by one or more support team. Thus you don’t have to worry about server maintenance.

I’m a huge fan of managed cloud hosting and to be extremely honest with you, cloud hosting services aren’t the cheapest in the market. However, they are probably one of the best especially when it comes to server performance.

Searching for the cheapest managed cloud hosting platform? You don’t have to look far as Cloudways is the best (and cheapest) managed cloud hosting platform you can find in today’s market.

Introduction to Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform

Cloudways has long been in the industry of virtual servers. I’ve used them several years back, and they are affordable.

Back in those days, Cloudways only have Digital Ocean and Amazon Web Services (AWS) as their provider. Now, Cloudways is working with several other partners such as Vultr, Google Cloud Platform Live, and Kyup.

Here are some reviews on Cloudways:

“Cloudways is an interesting company because it is in the process of moving from a service offering, where every deployment is essentially a custom one, to a far more productized approach.” – Ben Kepes, Forbes

‘Cloudways takes care of the management of open-source tools for hosting websites, like Magento, WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.’ – Jordan Novet, Venture Beat

“Cloudways indicates the emphasis is on simplicity, targeting SMBs that have little to no desire to operate or administer the infrastructure themselves.” – Liam Eagle, 451 Research

“There’s a lot to like about Cloudways. The Web host has flexible plans, killer Web-based customer support, and excellent uptime. It’s a company that you can count on to keep your site up and running.” – Jeffrey L. Wilson, PCMag.com

“Cloudways is always a fun company to test. It showed major performance improvements in this round (2015) and earned an honorable mention. It was by far the most improved provider between tests.” – Kevin Ohashi, Review Signal

Cloudways managed cloud hosting review for the year 2017

In all my reviews, I am always very strict about performance, scalability, cost and support. Coming from the customer service industry, these are just values that I cannot overlook and are often considered the core of any business.

1. Cloudways managed cloud hosting server performance review (rating 9 out of 10)

For starters, I want to be straightforward to say that I am not testing on their smallest package, 512 MB server. Instead, I’m using two servers of 1 GB and 2 GB respectively. Therefore, my review will be based on both of them.

Of course, 512 MB server would probably be enough to host a brand new website or smaller ones. With the websites that I manage, I need more firepower of course.

Regarding performance, Cloudways exceeds my expectations by miles apart. Due to traffic and security concerns, I always use managed WordPress hosting as my go-to web hosting service. If you are wondering, I’m using WP Engine, and the package was Professional.

Here are the stats when I was still using WP Engine:

Here are the stats when I am using Cloudways managed cloud hosting:

Now, take a look at the top. The stats are very clear and straight forward.

It certainly looks like Cloudways is really good and could easily consider as overperforming since I’m comparing it head-on with one of the world’s best WordPress hosting, WP Engine.

Cloudways comes with Varnish feature as well, therefore, works like a charm and allows your website to load faster than most web hosting services could.

Plus, being a managed cloud hosting platform, there are more allocated resources for your website which will directly affect the loading speed.

Bear in mind that I’m using Cloudways 2 GB ram on Digital Ocean that costs me $34 a month compared to WP Engine Professional plan at $99 per month.

A critical Cloudways managed cloud hosting review is not complete without sharing the information of Let’s Encrypt and RackSpace’s email feature. According to Google, websites that have SSL would rank higher than most websites that don’t. When you use Cloudways, it is easy to apply for an SSL certificate (for free). The entire process takes around 5 minutes and can be done only when you have the domain pointing directly to the allocated IP address on Cloudways.

As for RackSpace email feature, it is chargeable at $1 per email (per month) and trusts me; this is an awesome feature compared to others. Bear in mind that you can easily have this service by clicking on the “Addon” button to purchase the service.

2. Cloudways managed cloud hosting scalability (rating 10 out of 10)

Need to scale your website because you are growing? No problem!

With Cloudways, scalability is never an issue. As a matter of fact, you can easily do so by just dragging the scale up to the designated value, and the billing will automatically be reflected.

Managed cloud hosting such as Cloudways allows you to scale down your website as well easily. This can be done by creating a clone server and selecting a lower tier cloud hosting package that fits your need.

Noticed the ease of upgrading and downgrading on Cloudways?

When it comes to scalability, I would give Cloudways scalability of 10/10 because it is just that simple and can usually be completed in 10 minutes.

3. Cloudways managed cloud hosting pricing/cost (rating 10 out of 10)

At this point of writing, I’m residing in Malaysia, and my exchange rate for USD is approx 4.46. So, let’s take the instance that I’m using WP Engine $99 per month.

USD 99 x 4.46 = RM 441.54

This means that I should be paying approximately RM 441.54 every month just for web hosting!

Now, when I use Cloudways, I’m being charged at $32 per month.

USD 32 x 4.46 = RM 142.72

That’s approximately 67% saving every month!

Let’s do us all a favor and think hard on this. We all talk about web hosting speed, security, performance and probably a dozen more features but at the end of the day, the price matters the most.

When you use Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform, you are doing yourself a favor by getting the best performance as well as easy on your wallet.

[feature_box style=”8″ only_advanced=”There%20are%20no%20title%20options%20for%20the%20choosen%20style” alignment=”center”]

Oh by the way, do you know that Cloudways doesn’t tie you down with prepayment? All subscriptions are based on month to month basis.

[/feature_box]

4. Cloudways managed cloud hosting support (rating 8.5 out of 10)

When it comes to supporting, Cloudways go a long way in making their customers feeling happy and satisfied.

For starters, you will receive a telephone call from their support team a few days after signing up for their service. And on top of that, you have the ability to hop onto their ‘live chat’ sessions for any help. Until date, the waiting queue for live chat is always fast and usually, the wait time is under 30 seconds.

Typically, their support team is very well trained in most scenarios, but from time to time, you will meet up with a few who are less experienced. While they will try to help out as much as they could, it would be a little annoying when you have to repeat yourself a couple of times!

Now, when it comes to rating the level of support provided by Cloudways, I would give them a nice 8.5 out of 10. If they could have more experienced staffs working throughout the clock, it will probably further increase the satisfaction level of the customers.

5. Simplicity in managed cloud hosting (rating 9.5 out of 10)

Simplicity and user experience are two vital components for any web hosting service. As most beginners or webmasters don’t want to spend the entire day getting the server up and running, both of these are more important than ever.

Here’s a screenshot of my dashboard:

As you can see, it is very straightforward and pretty for the eyes.

Managing a cloud hosting server is not an easy task. It often requires experience and certain knowledge before you can have a fully running service. With Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform, it is extremely easy to create and manage your cloud servers.

Cloudways allows you to:

[bullet_block style=”size-16″ small_icon=”1.png” width=”” alignment=”center”]
- Create managed cloud servers quickly
- Manage servers easily
- Scale up or down the server
- Turn on and off Varnish
- Reboot the server
- Purge the cache
- Clone the server
- Install SSL certificate under 5 minutes
- Change PHP settings
- And much more
[/bullet_block]

The above can be done on all Cloudways managed cloud hosting servers without any coding. You can either turn on or off specific services with just a few clicks.

It is so easy that you can even migrate your website using Cloudways’s migrator tool!

In the scale of 1 to 10, I would give Cloudways simplicity and user experience at the score of 9.5.

Yes, Cloudways managed cloud hosting is seriously that good!

How to migrate to Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform?

Do you remember paying hundred of dollars just to migrate your website from one web host to another? Yes, those days.

With today’s technology, you are no longer bound for that. Instead, you can use migration tools provided by some hosting companies to ease the job. Currently, Cloudways is the only managed cloud hosting platform that offers such service.

The process of migrating to Cloudways is simple. Here are the steps:

[step_graphics style=”4″ color=””][step style=”4″ text=”1″ headline=”Create%20a%20new%20cloud%20server%20on%20Cloudways”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”2″ headline=”Install%20Cloudways%20Migration%20Plugin%20from%20the%20WordPress%20repository”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”3″ headline=”Complete%20the%20information%20required%20and%20click%20on%20the%20’Migrate’%20button”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”4″ headline=”Typically%2C%20the%20transfer%20would%20take%20at%20least%2030%20minutes%20to%20a%20few%20hours%20for%20completion”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”5″ headline=”Check%20your%20newly%20migrated%20website%20using%20the%20temporary%20URL”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”6″ headline=”If%20everything%20is%20ordered%20and%20you%20are%20satisfied%2C%20change%20the%20IP%20address%20to%20point%20back%20to%20Cloudways%20managed%20server”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”7″ headline=”In%20Cloudways%20domain%20tab%2C%20add%20your%20primary%20domain%20name%20to%20the%20server”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”8″ headline=”Install%20SSL%20certificate%20using%20Let’s%20Encrypt%20for%20free%20version%20or%20upload%20your%20custom%20one”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”9″ headline=”Setup%20W3%20Total%20Cache%20plugin%20for%20better%20performance”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”10″ headline=”If%20you%20are%20crazy%20for%20speed%2C%20consider%20enabling%20Redis%20for%20your%20Object%20Cache%20on%20W3TC%20(ensure%20that%20you%20install%20Redis%20on%20your%20server%20before%20enabling%20this%20option)”][/step][/step_graphics]

IP propagation takes time. Therefore, do not panic if your website doesn’t load or shows 404 error.

Advantages of using Cloudways managed cloud hosting

Cloudways is still one of the best managed cloud hosting platforms you can find on the market today. It is highly affordable, and the server performance is better than most web hosting services.

When you use Cloudways, you will get powerful servers all to yourself as well as excellent customer service. Another plus point is that Cloudways is a fully managed cloud hosting platform. This means that you don’t have to go all the way to learn how to manage a server. Cloudways teams will take care of the maintenance for you.

As Cloudways is very affordable, it makes all the sense that Cloudways is more popular than most VPS or cloud hosting platforms within the industry. While most VPS and cloud hosting services would cost above $50, it only costs as low as $10 with Cloudways.

Disadvantages using Cloudways managed cloud hosting

Cloudways is not created to fit everyone’s needs. After all, there is no product in this world that fit everyone in the market. One of the biggest disadvantages using Cloudways is the price.

Allow me to explain.

When you use Cloudways, you need to understand that Cloudways works as an intermediary between you and the cloud provider. Therefore, you are required to pay slightly more when using Cloudways.

Take a look at Digital Ocean pricing structure:

And here’s the pricing structure for Digital Ocean on Cloudways:

Do you see the differences?

I know for a fact that many people consider it as a huge cost disadvantage. Well, it depends on how you see it.

Creating a droplet on Digital Ocean is easy and price efficient. However, you are required to do all the server maintenance yourself. Compared to Cloudways, the dashboard and systems are setups for you. Instead of using command code to get the droplet in Digital Ocean running (which could take hours if you are inexperienced), you can opt to pay slightly more for a full-fledged service through Cloudways.

Now, can you consider this as a disadvantage for Cloudways? Go figure!

Summary: Cloudways managed cloud hosting review 2017

If you are looking for a good and affordable managed cloud hosting service, you should consider using Cloudways. After all, the entire operation system is set up to ease your burden, save you more time and ensuring that your website is up and running the short time possible.

On the other hand, Cloudways is less effective if you know about coding and server management as there are many Cloudways competitors such as Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services and Linode to choose from. Of course, those are an unmanaged cloud hosting compared to Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform.

To end my Cloudways managed cloud hosting review for 2017, allow me to stress that I highly recommend Cloudways because it is highly scalable, user-friendly and a high-performance cloud hosting platform for both beginners and advanced users. With affordability in mind, there is absolutely no doubt that Cloudways is the best managed cloud hosting you can find in 2017.

Click here to try Cloudways for free and judge Cloudways by yourself!
March 5, 2024
How to Serve Static Content From a Cookieless Domain
Want to know how to serve static content from a cookieless domain?

You came to the right place. In this article, I’ll be sharing with you how to solve the irritating “serve static content from a cookieless domain” warning.

If you are using Pingdom, this sight is just too common for many:

Disclaimer:

Due to the latest changes with the web and new protocols such as HTTP/2, it is safe to ignore this warning for now. However, I’m still a strong believer that we should find a solution to fix the “serve static content from a cookieless domain” warning if we can.

And yes, this article will show you how.

if we can.

And yes, this article will show you how.

How to fix the “serve static content from a cookieless domain” warning?

Here’s the quick and direct response to your question. In order to serve static content from a cookieless domain, you can either re-configuring your WordPress website or use a Content Delivery Network (or CDN in short).

Solution 1: Re-configure your WordPress website to serve static content from a cookieless domain

This method is free but at the cost of some work and knowledge.

For starters, you need to understand that the way your website is being configured will play a crucial role in the success of this method.

If you use a top-level domain such as domain.com, then you would need to actually use a separate domain altogether. If you are using www.domain.com then you could simply set up a subdomain such as static.domain.com.

As most websites are configured on www.domain.com, the method below is strictly for websites with www:
1. Create a subdomain
2. You can use any name and I’m using static.domain.com. This is where you will be delivering your files from (and ultimately solving the server static content from cookieless domain warning.
3. Point your subdomain to your wp-content directory with a CNAME.
4. Not sure what is CNAME? Here’s a quick source for you.
5. Edit your wp-config.php file to reflect the following:
define(“WP_CONTENT_URL”, “http://static.domain.com”);
define(“COOKIE_DOMAIN”, “domain.com”);

Not sure where to find wp-config.php file?

The configuration file of your WordPress script is located in the WordPress installation directory and its name is: wp-config.php

You can edit it through cPanel –> File Manager. Find the file, click on it and from the top menu choose “Edit”.

Solution 2: Using CDN to serve static content from a cookieless domain

The fastest solution to serving static content from a cookieless domain is by using a Content Delivery Network.

Here’s the concept: If you offload all your static content to a CDN or a file storage service like MaxCDN, keeping the static file requests cookie-free should be easy as long as you haven’t set up a CNAME record on a subdomain that receives cookies from your top-level domain.

For Google and other search engines, it doesn’t matter the files are hosted on 3rd party servers or your own.

Remember that it is all about the domain that the request is made to and making sure nothing on that domain sets any cookies.

Why use Content Delivery Network such as MaxCDN?

The answer is simple. It is easy and hassle free. You don’t have to crack your head or mess with confusing codes just to serve static content from a cookieless domain.

Besides that, MaxCDN is seriously affordable and apart from solving your static content serving, it also helps you to speed up your website loading speed by the seconds!

Don’t forget that Google gives higher ranking to websites that load faster (and under 1.5 seconds).

Learn more about MaxCDN and click here to get MaxCDN discount.

How to know if you have successfully serve static content from a cookieless domain?

Once you have completed either of the steps above, you would need to clear your browser cache and empty the cache plugin. You may also decide to leave it for a few hours before checking on Pingdom Tools.

You will know it is successful when you see the following:
March 5, 2024