Kevin Muldoon - Blogger, Internet Marketer, WordPress Junkie

Dropship to the USA With Ease With MerchMixer

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 10:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Dropship to the USA With Ease With MerchMixer

Even if you didn't realise it, if you have bought anything online, you've bought something that was “Dropshipped” to you. This means that the seller never held the goods. They simply received your order and then shipped the product to you via a third-party dropshipping company.

Dropshipping has always been a desirable way of selling products online as costs are minimal. As you do not have to worry about the logistics of storing goods, you can focus your energy on marketing and giving customers good customer support.

MerchMixer is free to use.

In this article, I would like to show you how you can dropship products to the USA using a service called MerchMixer. The service is free to use and greatly simplifies the task of building an online store.

What Does MerchMixer Work?

When I first looked into Dropshipping in the 2000s, you had to spend a ton of time trailing through dropshipping directories and blasting out emails to distributors to find long-term partners. Today, the process is much simpler.

Services such as MerchMixer can be used to set up a dropshipping business at the click of a button. MerchMixer is a free Shopify app and once you have connected it to your Shopify account, you can start dropshipping thousands of brand name products to customers in the USA.

MerchMixer is easy to use.

MerchMixer stores all products within the USA and is able to deliver orders to customers within three to seven business days. This is much better than dropshipping from China, where two to six weeks is normal for dropshipped products.

All orders come with free shipping. too This is obviously great for customers, but it also makes it easier for you to work out your own profit levels.

The key to MerchMixer is simplicity.

One feature that makes MerchMixer stand out for me is returns. When you dropship using a company in China, it's nearly always a one way street as there is no easy way to handle returns. So if a customer isn't happy and wants to return a product, you need to either accept a return directly yourself or give them a full refund.

With MerchMixer handling returns for you, you can not only offer customers a better service, but reduce the costs you incur with returns too.

Dropshipping with MerchMixer

In order to use MerchMixer, you need to have a Shopify account. Shopify is a fantastic hosted eCommerce platform that retails from only $29 per month.

Before you sign up to a premium Shopify plan, I recommend taking advantage of their free trial. It's zero-risk as it allows you to use Shopify for 14 days without even entering a credit card.

Once you have set up your Shopify store, you just need to install the MerchMixer app on Shopify. Simply click on “Add App”, enter your Shopify store URL and then approve the connection on Shopify.

MerchMixer can be installed with just a couple of clicks.

Once you're connected to MerchMixer, it will be listed in the app section of your Shopify account.

You can then start selecting the products you want to sell on your store. Shopify's use of frames makes it difficult to show you a larger screenshot of the products on offer, but as you can see below, at the time of writing there are 6,882 products to choose from.

The product listing page.

Thankfully, you don't have to review every single product. All 6,000+ products can be filtered by category and by cost. You can also sort products by price, cost, release date and order count.

Alternatively, you can simply use the search bar to find the products you want to sell.

Product categories on MerchMixer.

MerchMixer lists products from large international companies such as Logitech and Apple, however you will also find cheaper items from smaller companies.

For each item, you can see product images, a product description, the number of items and the cost. The cost of an item is how much it costs you to sell it. Whaever you charge above the product cost is the profit you make per product sold.

You can select multiple items at once and them import them into your store. All imported products can be viewed from the My Products page. Orders can be manually approved too and you can see your latest sales in the reporting area. You can also upgrade to a premium plan via the settings area.

Take the time to review each product you add to your store.

Once you have imported products into your store, you can manage them in Shopify just like any other product. This helps you easily see stock levels, the product category and more.

Clicking on a product allows you to customise things further. You can create your own description, upload your own images, change the price, add it to a collection and much more.

All products can be managed from your main Shopify product page.

That's all there is to selling products with MerchMixer. The whole process is simple and fast. In just a few minutes, you can add hundreds or even thousands of products to your store.

You can populate your online store in minutes.

Whilst the process of importing products through MerchMixer into your shop is simple, I do recommend spending some time researching the products you sell and modifying the sales information for each product.

The Cost of Using MerchMixer

MerchMixer is free to use. Under the free plan, you can import up to 100 products into your store. This is the best plan to start with as it gives you time to develop your store and market it. Once you start selling products regularly and your store is profitable, it pays to upgrade.

There are two premium plans available. The Pro plan costs $49 per month and allows up to 1,000 products to be imported, whilst the Premium plan costs $99 per month and has no import restrictions.

Three plans are available for MerchMixer.

The cost of each product is reduced when you upgrade to the Pro plan and reduced further when you upgrade to the more expensive Premium plan.

Becoming a premium member of MerchMixer also gives you access to support and to exclusive products that you cannot add under the free plan.

It pays to upgrade if you're making money with MerchMixer.

I believe MerchMixer's pricing policy to be highly competitive. There is no push for anyone to upgrade when they use the service, but once your store is successful, paying a little extra each money to unlock more products is worth it.

Final Thoughts

I have been impressed with what I've seen with MerchMixer. It only takes seconds to connect the service to your Shopify account and in just a few minutes, you can import a huge number of products into your store.

Even though I am not based in the USA, I could still use MerchMixer to build an online store that sells directly to American customers. The nature of dropshipping makes MerchMixer a great way to build up passive income with a relatively low amount of maintenance.

Of course, as someone who lives in the UK, I've not been able to place any test orders to see if my expectations of MerchMixer's packaging and shipping times are met, though I'm encouraged by the positive reviews of MerchMixer on Shopify.

To find out more, please visit the official MerchMixer website.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post Dropship to the USA With Ease With MerchMixer was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Kata – The Advanced WordPress Theme That is Free to Download

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 10:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Kata – The Advanced WordPress Theme That is Free to Download

The 2000s are remembered as the time when the vast majority of WordPress themes were free and the 2010s can be remembered as the “Decade of the Premium WordPress Theme”.

If the Kata WordPress theme succeeds, perhaps the 2020s will become the “Decade of the Freemium WordPress Theme” :)

Developed by Climax Themes, Kata is an advanced WordPress theme that comes packaged with many free website designs. It allows you to create beautiful websites via the Elementor Page Builder and features many pre-made templates for your header, footer, blog page and more.

Kata comes packaged with many pre-made designs.

Kata is free to download from WordPress.org and is 100% free to use, however a pro version is available for $29 that unlocks many useful options.

Regardless of which version you use, you will have access to many professional website designs which can be installed in a matter of minutes.

Kata lets you create a professional website at the click of a button.

Even if you select the free version of Kata, the number of features within the theme is impressive. This is in part due to Kata's support of the Elementor page builder and the additional Elementor blocks it adds.

Kata's Page Builder simplifies the task of creating complex websites.

No WordPress theme is perfect, but does Kata live up to its own name of the “Most Advanced WordPress Theme”?

Let's take a closer look at Kata and see.

Setting the Theme Up

The Kata theme zip file can be downloaded from WordPress.org and uploaded to your WordPress themes directory using an FTP client such as FileZilla.

Kata is available on WordPress.org.

Alternatively, you can install Kata from within the WordPress admin area via the appearance section.

Download Kata from the WordPress admin area.

Once Kata has been activated, you will be asked to install two required plugins: Elementor and Kata Plus.

Kata Plus is an all-in-one plugin that has a header, footer, and blog builder inside Styler (the new advanced tool for styling widgets) and comes with 18 practical widgets for creating different websites.
From WordPress.org

In other words, Kata Plus has to be activated in order for Kata to function correctly.

It is best to install the recommended plugins.

Once the plugins have been activated, you will see new admin menu items for Kata in the main WordPress admin menu and in the Appearance menu. Menu items for Elementor and Elementor Templates are added too.

Annoyingly, the main Kata menu is listed directly underneath Dashboard. This means it's listed above important menu items such as posts, pages and media. You can, however, move the Kata menu position elsewhere using the free WordPress plugin Admin Menu Editor.

The Kata admin menu.

When you select Kata, you are presented with their unique user interface which overrides the default WordPress user interface.

It first loads the theme activation page, though no activation options are displayed if you are only using the free version (I suspect this will be changed later).

This page also links to the Kata knowledge base and to the Kata Facebook page.

The Kata theme activation page.

The interface links to the main WordPress admin menu, key Elementor pages, Kata options pages and the WordPress theme customiser.

Kata's configuration area overrides the default WordPress admin interface.

Clicking on the settings cog displays links to the Elementor header, footer and blog templates. There is a link to create a course too, but you need to install LearnPress to use that.

You can also visit the Kata theme activation page, demos page and WordPress theme customiser from here.

The menu links to key Elementor pages.

The Elementor links could prove to be a little confusing for new users who haven't imported a theme demo yet. If you haven't imported yet, you will see a never-ending Elementor loading page when you try and access the theme builder for the blog, header and footer.

Clicking on the Elementor templates led me to blank pages.

Kata also adds a theme page within the WordPress appearance section. It effectively acts like a reference page as it links to key pages of the WordPress theme customiser, theme demos, support and documentation.

Pro features are also promoted on this page.

The Kata theme options page.

Overall, Kata is an easy WordPress theme to install and get familar with, though I do think they could improve the configuration setup. It's not terrible, however they have everything a little more complicated than it needs be.

I realise that developers introduce many features to enhance the experience for users, but I do not like Kata's dedicated theme interface area for a few reasons:

It is unnecessary and does not provide a better user-experience
I do not like WordPress themes and plugins who change key aspects of using WordPress
There is already a Kata theme options page within the Appearance section and all shortcuts to key pages could be placed there
There is no way to disable this interface

Hopefully, the developers will take this criticism on board and implement things differently in a future version of the theme.

Creating a Professional Website in an Instant

Theme demos allow you to transform your website design at the click of a button.

At the time of writing, there are currently 66 theme demos available in Kata. Ten of these designs are available free of charge, whilst 56 designs are reserved for those that upgrade to the pro version of Kata.

The designs can be filtered via nine categories: Blog, Business, Design, Food, Health, Online Store, Personal, Portfolio and Software. You can filter designs between FREE and Pro too.

Previews of all designs are available on the official Kata website.

All theme demos are listed on the Kata Demo Importer page.

Design can be subjective, however I was impressed by the quality of all pre-made Kata designs.

Kata's pre-made website designs look great.

When you click to import a design, you will be asked to install and activate required plugins. For most Kata designs, the only plugin that you are required to activate is Contact Form 7, though you could easily substitute this with another contact form WordPress plugin.

Kata only asks you to activate Contact Form 7.

You will then be warned that “Previous data will be erased and a fresh WordPress without previous posts and pages will be imported”.

You are also advised that two demos cannot be imported at the same time. Therefore, if you import another design, the previous design will be erased.

The warning that is displayed before you import a design.

Next, you will be asked what you want to import. If you wish, you can only import specific elements of the design such as headers, footers and menus, though if you want your website to match the theme demo, you need to choose all.

Select what you want to import.

The design and content will then be imported.

All files are imported into your website.

As you can see from the above screenshot, many of the theme items were marked as red. This is because the source files could not be downloaded from Climax Themes. I was unable to import any Kata design, despite resetting my WordPress installation many times using WP Reset.

I do not believe this is an issue that every WordPress user will face with Kata. When I contacted the developers about the issue, they noted that they had not faced the same problem. They kindly set up a new test WordPress installation area for me that had Kata installed and everything worked fine.

At the time of writing, Kata does not provide a system information page that shows whether you have met server requirements so it is difficult for me to troubleshoot this issue. The main issue that arises with importing theme demos is a lack of memory, however my test website's PHP.ini file has a memory limit of 256MB so I doubt this would be the cause of the problem for me.

The theme import process failed.

I was able to successfully import designs in the test WordPress website that Climax Themes set up for me. In the demo importer documentation page, it states that a The Demo is Imported Successfully” message should be displayed, yet I never saw this message after installing any design in the free version of Kata.

The message you see when a theme has been imported.

Bizarrely, when I activated Kata Pro and imported a theme design, the import success message was displayed.

Success!!!

Kata's professional website designs are a big selling point, but their theme demo import system requires work. I have yet to get it working on my own WordPress website, which is something I would still like to work out, however even the working version of the theme on the Climax Themes test area needs refinement.

After importing designs in the free version of Kata, no success message was displayed, therefore I was unsure as to whether the design was successfully imported or not. I imported many designs and on a few occasions, I received green ticks during the import process as if everything was imported correctly, yet my website design did not change.

Kata does not advise you which design is activated either. It does highlight which designs have already been imported, but there is no way to quickly switch between imported themes, so this message is meaningless. Additionally, if Contact Form 7 is already activated, the importer requires you to deactivate it and then activate it again in order to proceed.

The biggest problem is that Kata completely erases all WordPress content whenever a design is imported. That is unneccessary, impractical and, quite frankly, unacceptable.

This system means that if you want to use Kata on an established website, you will need to backup all of your WordPress data beforehand and then import all content back afterwards.

Why do they do this?

Customising Your Website Design in Kata

Kata's theme demo import system needs to be refined, however I found the experience of editing website designs in Kata to be fantastic.

You will find a selection of customisation options for Kata in the WordPress theme customiser. If you select key areas such as the Header or Footer, you are taken to the corresponding builder in Elementor.

Kata supports the WordPress Theme Customiser.

I messed around with the theme customiser for some time, changing the size of my layout, changing menus and more. I never experienced any issues, but be aware that when you use a pre-made design in Kata, the header, footer, body and more, are all handled by Elementor, so you are a little limited with what you can do here.

In essence, Elementor has taken control over areas such as the header and footer that are normally controlled via the theme customiser.

Changing the container of my website layout.

When you are logged in and viewing the front-end of your website, you will see an option to “Edit with Elementor” at the top of the page. You can also open up the Elementor Theme Builder here for key areas such as the header, sticky header and footer.

Elementor can be accessed from the front-end of your website.

Elementor allows you to easily modify your website using a block system and a modern front-end editor. It is rightfully regarded as one of the best WordPress page builders on the market.

Climax Themes have made the integration between Kata and Elementor so smooth that beginners may be unaware where one solution ends and the other begins. They have also given Kata users more options for creating website designs by adding dozens of additional Elementor blocks.

Kata offers 17 essential blocks, 15 blocks for posts and pages and eight header blocks. A whopping 32 additional blocks are available if you upgrade to Kata Pro.

All of these blocks are added to the existing blocks available in Elementor in Elementor Pro. They give you more options for integrating lists, videos, images, posts, counters, meus, headers and more.

Editing your website using Elementor.

In the free version of Kata, you can modify your blog page, header and footer, through the Elementor theme builder. Additional builders are available in the pro version.

The builders give you complete control over how a specific area of your website looks. The developer's have made the right decision by letting using customise their theme in Elementor instead of the WordPress theme customiser.

Elementor's theme building system lets you customise every post and page on your website.

Design is an area where Kata excels. The available designs are all of a high standard and its close integration with Elementor means that you can customise every part of your website at the click of a button.

The inclusion of dozens of additional Elementor blocks to help you create unique content is the icing on the cake.

Upgrading to Kata Pro

The developers of Kata refer to the free version of the theme as Kata Lite. This version gives you access to ten free website demos, the standard styler, essential Elementor Widgets and basic builder functionality for your blog, header and footer.

Kata Pro is available from only $29 for a one website license. It unlocks 56 additional theme demos, significantly more theme options and building options and managers for plugins, icons and fonts. Additional features include preset styles, portfolio templates and a sections template library.

Premium plugins are included in the package too, such as Advanced Custom Fields PRO and Slider Revolution.

Kata Pro adds many useful features.

A ten website license is available for $99. If you're looking to install Kata Pro on multiple websites, this is the license to get.

A 14 day money back guarantee is provided with both Kata Pro plans.

Kata's premium plans are highly competitive.

Another reason to upgrade is to gain access to support from the developers, though it is worth noting that all users can access an extensive documentation area that shows you how to use Kata.

With most WordPress themes, my advice as to whether you should upgrade to the pro version heavily depends on whether you need those additional features. This is obviously the case for Kata too, however with Kata Pro retailing at only $29 for a single license, I believe most website owners should upgrade for premium support and the additional features it unlocks.

Some features, such as the additional bundled plugins, can perhaps be classified as a bonus more than anything else. Other features, such as Fast Mode, are handy extras (at best).

Fast Mode simply asks which type of website you want to build, what logo you want to use, what your website name is etc. It's clearly aimed at beginners, however for this to truly benefit beginners, it should be displayed after the theme is activated.

Kata's Fast Mode does work, but I am not sure how useful WordPress users will find it.

Features such as the plugin manager and font manager are more useful. The font manager, for example, can be used to import fonts from Google and Adobe. You can also import fonts directly via upload or by listing the URL of the font.

The fonts manager helps you add new fonts and manage them.

For me, there are two good reasons to upgrade to Kata Pro:

To gain access to all website designs
To enhance Elementor

Kata Pro gives you access to all 66 website designs so you have a larger variety of designs to choose from. It also gives you access to 32 additional Elementor blocks including reservation, content slider, employee information, pricing table, recipes and tabs.

32 additional Elementor blocks are available through Kata Pro.

Kata Pro enhances the theme builders for your blog, header and footer. It also adds builders for single posts, archives, search results, menus and 404 pages.

This gives you complete control over every aspect of your website design. For example, you could use the builder to create a unique search results page or a stylish 404 page that redirects users to your archives.

Kata Pro gives you far more control over your website.

Check out the Kata Pro pricing page for more information about what the pro version offers.

Final Thoughts

At the start of this article, I asked whether Kata lives up to its own name of the “Most Advanced WordPress Theme”?

At the time of writing, the answer to that question is yes and no. It's a stretch to say that Kata is the most advanced WordPress theme on the market, but it does have many great features and there is a lot to like. It's just a shame that the initial setup process is so frustrating.

It is important to note, however, that Kata is a new WordPress theme and developers frequently rush the release of their themes before properly testing and debugging their new product. As a reviewer, it does frustrate me that developers rush releases without ironing out bugs, however my hope is that they will refine the theme in the coming months.

The good news is that Kata has great potential and in 12 months time, it could be one of the best free WordPress themes on the market and could possibly give some popular premium themes a run for their money. It boasts many fantastic pre-made website designs and customising your website using Elementor is a joy.

I was also pleased to see the developers make the pro version of the theme available for only $29. If you do use Kata on your website, it is easy to recommend upgrading as you gain so many more features and functionality for so little money.

Of course, Climax Themes are going to have to tackle some issues with their theme before it can gain popularity.

Firstly, they need to review the benefit of overriding WordPress's default menu system. It overcomplicates things, makes everything less user-friendly and makes it harder to access important WordPress pages such as posts, pages, themes, plugins and settings.

Secondly, they need to fix the bugs with their demo import system.

Thirdly, and most importantly, Kata needs to stop erasing all WordPress content when a design is imported. It is unnecessary and is going to cause many website owners major headaches when installing Kata on an established website.

Pros	Cons
• Solid collection of professional website designs • Elementor integration is superb and it gives you total control over your website design • Kata Pro is available for only $29	• Kata's dedicated configuration area overrides core WordPress functionality • Theme demo system unnecessarily deletes all data on your website when a design is imported

You can learn more about Kata on the official Kata sales page, however the best way to learn what Kata can do is to install the free version of Kata on a test WordPress website to familiarise yourself with what it can do.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post Kata – The Advanced WordPress Theme That is Free to Download was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Switching to the Amazing DaVinci Resolve Video Editor

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 14:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Switching to the Amazing DaVinci Resolve Video Editor

Adobe Premiere Pro is an advanced video editor that comes with many great features. Those features do come at a price, with the software costing £19.97 per month here in the UK. Premiere Pro is included in Adobe's Creative Cloud suite of apps, which costs £49.94 per month.

I have paid for Adobe's Creative Cloud for several years because I used Premiere Pro for videos and Photoshop for images, however around 10 days ago I deleted my Adobe account and decided to start using DaVinci Resolve to edit videos instead.

DaVinci Resolve has everything you need.

Surprisingly, the core version of DaVinci Resolve is 100% free to download and use. Yes…100% free! There are no restrictions to using it whatsoever, which is even more surprising when you consider that after spending thousands of pounds on Adobe software, I was only ever able to install their software applications on two computers (which is a pain as I switch between one PC and two laptops regularly).

I'm still new to DaVinci Resolve, but every day I am discovering something new I love about it and with the power of hindsight, I am wondering why I didn't switch to it sooner. Especially as Premiere Pro had an awful track record of crashing.

Blackmagicdesign, the company behind DaVinci Resolve, can offer their video editor free of charge as they primarily make their money from selling hardware. They produce many premium audio and video editing consoles that are aimed towards Hollywood studios and broadcasting companies.

They do also offer a pro version of DaVinci Resolve called DaVinci Resolve Studio. This version unlocks advanced GPU acceleration, 8K video resolutions and frame rates above 60FPS. It also adds many useful audio and video effects and colour grading options.

I honestly believe 99% of YouTubers could get by without these additional features, however the studio version only costs a one-off fee of only £235. That is unbelieably cheap. Over a period of five years, the advanced version of DaVinci Resolve would cost £235, whilst Adobe Premiere Pro would cost £1,198.20.

Before I talk more about DaVinci Resolve, allow me to explain exactly why I deleted my Adobe account.

Why I Stopped Using Adobe

Premiere Pro could be a frustrating program to work with. It requires more CPU power than most other video editors, which meant playback could stutter badly unless you rendered every clip into cache.

Stability was an issue too. In all my years of using Premiere Pro, I don't think I went one full week without it crashing. Due to this, I got into the habit of saving projects constantly, yet there were still times I lost a lot of work. I was never a big fan of their keyframe system either as it made advanced audio and video editing unnecessarily difficult.

Despite these issues, I liked Adobe Premiere Pro. I still do. It's generally a user-friendly video editing solution and it's powerful too. I haven't stopped using Adobe apps because their software is bad.

The reason I deleted my Adobe account is because their customer support is awful. Truly awful. I have had dealings with them in the past and I always left their chat box frustrated and disappointed, however you have no option but to speak to them as Adobe if you want to remove your bank card, delete your account or upgrade your account. You simply can't make any major account changes online so you have to speak to their chat team.

When I spoke to them the other week, their customer support team managed to convert me from a loyal subscriber to an ex-customer in just 90 minutes. I explain what happened in detail in the video below.

I will summarise what happened in 90 minutes:

They refused to change the location that is assigned to my account
They repeatedly left me hanging there for 5 to 10 minutes at a time
They rejected my request to take advantage of a Black Friday offer
They eventually sent me a “Deal” that actually cost more than what I am paying just now
They deleted my account and immediately removed access from all Adobe applications, despite the fact my latest monthly payment had just been paid from my credit card
Despite deleting everything, the support representative refused to answer my questions about it
They just ignored every reply until I quit
The next support rep did nothing either
Adobe responded on social media and publicly appeared apologetic, but privately did not message me back

Eventually, after a lot of hassle, Adobe did refund my last monthly payment.

Unfortunately, the problems did not stop there. I soon discovered that without an active Adobe account, I could not delete any of their applications from my computers (three computers in total). I am still shocked that Adobe are doing this. They are completely overriding core Windows functionality and preventing you from removing their apps. Even uninstall software such as Revo could not remove Adobe.

After complaining about all of this on Twitter, Adobe eventually recommended a cleaner tool they have developed which removes their software.

Adobe's software infiltrates your computer like malware.

To say I was frustrating by this whole experience would be an understatement. Their support team is simply terrible. It baffles me how a company worth billions can treat loyal customers with such distain.

An Alternative to Photoshop

After deleting my Adobe account, I thought “What Now?”.

I have tested thousands of applications over the years, but I had relied on Adobe software for so long that I never really took the time to truly learn alternative solutions.

So I started looking at Photoshop alternatives. The one that I was most familar with was the free application GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), however I downloaded and tested several photo editing applications in total.

Photopea is a hidden gem.

I am still reviewing my options, however the solution I like the best at the moment is Photopea. Like GIMP, Photopea is free to use, but it's not an application that you download to your computer. It's a browser based photo editing solution.

I had not considered a browser-based solution previously, however Photopea works quickly and its interface is closer to Photoshop than any other solution I tried.

I recommend trying it out Photopea as it's seriously impressive what it can do.

What Can DaVinci Resolve Do?

Thankfully, I did not have to spend time thinking about an alternative solution to Adobe Premiere Pro. I had already tried DaVinci Resolve and liked it, but just hadn't switched to it as I was so accustomed to using Premiere Pro.

So I downloaded DaVinci Resolve, installed it on my computer and started editing my first video. Cards on the table…I was lost. It probably took me four times as long to edit the video as in Premiere Pro as I had to familarise myself with the user-interface and relearn how to make audio changes, transitions, cuts, edits and more.

Once I had completed that first video, I had a much better understanding of how everything works in DaVinci Resolve. I've since used it to edit four videos and at this point, I'm editing at around the same speed as I did with Premiere Pro.

Many appear to be much easier to complete in DaVinci Resolve. This includes creating titles, transitions, audio enhancements and adding effects.

Editing a video in DaVinci Resolve.

Adobe tends to use separate applications for everything. For example, you use After Effects for advanced effects and when you export a video, you are advised to use the Adobe Media Encoder app. Likewise, whilst you can do basic audio edits in Premiere Pro, you normally have to export your audio to Adobe's Audition app in order to access advanced audio editing features.

DaVinci Resolve manages all of this better by packaging a dedicated audio editor called Fairlight directly into the video editor. Media encoding is handled internally via the Deliver page too. There are also areas for managing media, cutting, editing, creating visual effects and colour grading.

Now I do appreciate that there are many situations where having a dedicated application for doing something is better, but I quickly discovered that I prefer having everything in one application, not many. It allows you to switch between video editing, colour grading, effects and audio editing, extremely quickly.

At the time of writing, I am using DaVinci Resolve in a simplistic way as I am still learning how everything works, but it is easy to see why the software is used by many large film studios.

An Opportunity to Improve the Quality of My Videos

I think we are all guilty of being stuck in our ways and just doing the same thing day in, day out. This is certainly true for me when it comes to creating videos. I haven't improved the look of my videos for some time. In fact, I have probably been using the same lower third and outro for five years now.

Deleting my Adobe account has given me the opportunity to hit the reset button and review how I do things.

Video thumbnails are something I need to improve.

I have set the ball rolling already by testing many of the effects that are available in DaVinci Resolve. I am planning on upgrading to the studio version too as it adds support for advanced noise reduction and gives you access to many useful video effects.

There are a number of areas where I can improve the design of my videos:

Intros and outros
Transitions
Effects
Titles
Thumbnails

I have earmarked a few websites for graphical resources to help me improve. This includes Design Bundles, a digital marketplace with close to one million products. They have a small selection of colour grading LUTs (Lookup Tables) for DaVinci Resolve and dozens of professional YouTube thumbnail templates.

Websites such as Motion Array have video templates for DaVinci Resolve, although many of them do seem to be limited to 1080p, which isn't ideal as I'm uploading videos in 4K. Ideally, what I want is a large collection of templates, effects and graphics, that I can utilise within DaVinci Resolve whenever I create a video.

What's clear is that I need to start making steps to move forward and not stand still.

Final Thoughts

It might have taken a rude shove from Adobe to convince me to start using DaVinci Resolve, however I am glad that I have jumped ship.

The software is not only free to use, it's also less buggy and makes integrating effects into videos simpler. It also comes packaged with a fantastic audio editor and 4K playback is more stable too.

Obviously, the basic editing skills I learned from Premiere Pro have helped me get going, but I am still at the start of my DaVinci Resolve journey. My hope is that the overall look and feel of my videos will improve over time because of it.

If you are looking for an affordable video editor with a ton of advanced features, I highly recommend checking it out.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post Switching to the Amazing DaVinci Resolve Video Editor was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

8 Useful Tools for YouTubers

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 15:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon 8 Useful Tools for YouTubers

I have spent thousands of pounds on recording equipment to help me record videos for my YouTube channels. My recording setup consists of a sturdy desk, multiple cameras, webcams, studio lights, a powerful PC, monitors, microphones, video capture cards, audio interfaces, tripods, brackets and more.

Software is vital to what I do too. Adobe's Creative Cloud gives me access to over a dozen useful applications, but I mostly pay the monthly subscription fee as I use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit my videos and Adobe Photoshop to edit images.

YouTubers frequently give a behind the scenes look at their recording studio and show you what cameras they use, what lights they use and where they place important accessories such as tripods. There's normally a passing reference to their preferred video editor too, however you rarely hear about the other tools they use to produce their videos.

So what I would like to do in this article is share with you eight applications and services that help me record, edit and publish YouTube videos.

1. Screencast-O-Matic

Screencast-O-Matic is a screen recording tool that works with Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Chromebook. It's a user-friendly solution that lets you display your webcam and make small edits to your video afterwards. Whilst I do use OBS for many screen recordings now, I continue to install Screencast-O-Matic on all my computers as there are many situations where it's the better option.

Screencast-O-Matic is free to use, however the free version places a watermark on videos and does not give you access to all features. I have been using the full version of Screencast-O-Matic almost as long as I've been publishing YouTube videos. This is the version I recommend getting as it gives you access to all features and only costs $19.80 per year, which is an effective rate of just $1.65 per month

Screencast-O-Matic is cheap, easy to use and extremely useful.

2. OBS

You'll find many useful broadcasting applications available online, but the one that should be top of your list is OBS (Open Broadcaster Software). Available for Windows, Mac and Linux, OBS is a flexible solution that lets you do almost anything. It's undoubtedly the most popular application for recording videos through your computer, in part because it's amazing and in part because it's 100% free to download and use.

Without doubt, OBS is the most important software in my whole YouTube setup. In my recording studio, I have two Sony cameras connected to my PC using video capture cards and two Logitech Brio webcams. OBS captures footage from all of these cameras, which enables me to do live streams and record screencasts, tutorials, product reviews and more.

Many YouTubers stream live using Streamlabs and OBS Live. These applications are essentially variants of OBS that have additional features for gamers and live streamers. I do have these applications installed, but I generally prefer to use OBS to stream.

OBS is awesome…there…I said it!

3. Handbrake

Handbrake is a free video conversion tool that is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It can be used to convert any video into any other video format.

In an ideal world, you would never have to use an application such as Handbrake, but you will frequently find yourself in a situation where you need to convert a video's frame rate, its resolution, its file size or its codec. Even today, video editors such as Adobe Premiere Pro do not support all video codecs, which is why Handbrake is so important.

Handbrake is a lifesaver and may prevent you from having to record videos again.

4. VideoProc

An alternative to Handbrake is VideoProc. VideoProc is a more user-friendly solution, however I've generally found Handbrake to be the more reliable video conversion tool.

VideoProc can be used to backup and convert DVDs and it also features a screen recording tool. Whilst those are useful, the reason I continue to use VideoProc every week is due to its download tool.

The VideoProc downloader lets you download complete videos and audio from over 1,000 different webites. This includes YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and more. I use it all the time to download older videos of mine so I can reference them in newer videos.

VideoProc retails from only $29.95. There's many free video downloading tools and services online, but VideoProc is the best I have used as it always allows you to download videos at their highest resolution.

Check out my full review of VideoProc to learn more about what it can do.

VideoProc is the best video downloader I have used.

5. Audacity

I do my best to ensure audio is recorded correctly at the time, but from time to time you do need to isolate audio from a video and make improvements.

Adobe Audition has many tools for enhancing audio, however I usually turn to Audacity when I need to remove background noise and buzzing from clips. Audacity is free to download and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It's easy to use, but if you are unsure about anything, you will find a ton of Audacity tutorials on YouTube that walk you through common audio enhancement techniques.

Even if you are using another audion solution such as Adobe Audition, I recommend installing Audacity so that it's there when you need it.

Audacity can help fix audio mistakes and make your audio sound siginificantly better.

6. Outro Maker

Intro and outro clips are common on YouTube and other video platforms. You can purchase professional outro clips from marketplaces such as VideoHive for around $15, and whilst these look great, they all require you to make edits yourself in Adobe After Effects or another advanced design application.

That is why services such as Outro Maker are so appealing as they simplify the whole process of making outro screens. All you have to do is select an outro template and then select the videos you want to appear on the end screen. That's it.

Outro Maker is available from only $2.99 per month, however their $7.99 per month premium plan is a better option as it lets you insert custom links and use custom audio and video backgrounds.

An example of what you can do with Outro Maker.

7. Social Blade

Social Blade is a marketing tool that helps you analyse social media profiles. It supports a ton of services including YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Daily Motion and more.

The service is popular among YouTubers as it allows you to see estimated analytics of your own YouTube channel and your competitors. This helps paint a better picture of how your channel is performing.

The service is free to use, however premium plans are available from only $3.99 that provide you with more information.

Social Blade gives you an insight into any YouTube channel.

8. TubeBuddy

Another fantastic tool I recommend using is TubeBuddy. Certified by YouTube, TubeBuddy is a browser extension that provides you with dozens of tools to help you manage your channel.

There are tools to help you upload videos quicker, add cards and end screens, improve the search engine ranking of your videos, manage your publishing schedule and more. It greatly improves YouTube Studio and gives you a better insight into keywords, analytics and more.

TubeBuddy is free to use, however their premium plans unlock many more features. From only $9 per month, you can gain access to additional publishing tools, a thumbnail generator, bulk processing, additional monetisation options and advanced analytics.

TubeBuddy will make your life a lot easier.

Final Thoughts

I take advantage of many free and premium tools and services to help me manage my YouTube channels. Some tools help me record, some help me fix mistakes and others save me time.

Without doubt, every tool I have mentioned in this article makes my life easier so I emplore you to review your own software setup.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post 8 Useful Tools for YouTubers was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

The Raspberry Pi 400 – The Computer That’s Inside a Keyboard

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 15:05:13 GMT

Kevin Muldoon The Raspberry Pi 400 – The Computer That’s Inside a Keyboard

The Raspberry Pi 400 is was announced last week by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It's essentially a modified Raspberry Pi 4B which has been built inside a nice white/red chiclet style keyboard.

As soon as I saw the annoucement, I ordered the Pi 400 from The Pi Hut. It's available for £67 on its own, but I opted for the £94 Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit as it also includes the official USB-C power supply, USB mouse, HDMI cable, a 16GB micro-SD card with Raspberry Pi OS and the Official Beginner's Guide book.

In the video below, I unbox the Raspberry Pi 400, open it up and show you what you can expect with Raspberry Pi OS.

Please read on to learn more about this fun little computer.

Raspberry Pi 400 Specificatons

The Raspberry Pi 400 boasts a quad-core Cortex-A72 CPU, 4GB of memory, two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, two micro HDMI ports, gigabit ethernet, micro SD card, USB-C port for power and a kensington lock. It also has Bluetooth 5.0 and a GPIO header which allows the computer to be expanded in many weird and wonderful ways.

I was surprised to see that the Pi 400 does not have an 8GB memory option as that is available with the Pi 4B, though the computer still feels snappy when you're using it.

The ports available on the Raspberry Pi 400.

The Raspberry Pi 400 specifications page gives you a full breakdown of what's inside. A Raspberry Pi 400 Product Brief can also be downloaded that gives more information about the computer.

Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.8GHz
4GB LPDDR4-3200
Dual-band (2.4GHz and 5.0GHz) IEEE 802.11b/g/n/ac wireless LAN
Bluetooth 5.0, BLE
Gigabit Ethernet
2 × USB 3.0 and 1 × USB 2.0 ports
Horizontal 40-pin GPIO header
2 × micro HDMI ports (supports up to 4Kp60)
H.265 (4Kp60 decode); H.264 (1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode); OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics
MicroSD card slot for operating system and data storage
78- or 79-key compact keyboard (depending on regional variant)
5V DC via USB connector
Operating temperature: 0°C to +50°C ambient
Maximum dimensions 286 mm × 122 mm × 23 mm

Despite being developed from the UK, the Raspberry Pi Foundation have always had a global appeal. As such, the Pi 400 is available in many regional variants: UK, US, DE, ES, FR, IT and EU.

So What is the Raspberry Pi 400 For?

The Raspberry Pi Foundation was created in 2009 to promote the study of computer science in schools, however their focus on low-powered flexible computers made them attractive to everyone.

Their first product, the Raspberry Pi Model B, was released in 2012. It was something I was keen on getting right away, but I did not jump into the world of Raspberry Pis until five years later when I picked up the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. I published a host of YouTube videos about it at the time including a general setup guide, a guide about how to play retro games on the computer and many game playing sessions.

So what is the Raspberry Pi 400 for?

Well, out of the box, it's a useful little personal computer that has everything you need to learn programming. Some people assume that's all it's for, but they're missing the whole point of buying a Raspberry Pi computer.

Raspberry Pis are low powered devices. Whilst laptops generally use 30 to 150 watts of power and desktop computers can use several hundred watts, a Raspberry Pi usually uses around three to five watts. This makes them a great choice for systems that are online 24 hours a day.

Dozens of operating systems are available to Raspberry Pi users and there's a market with thousands of affordable accessories. This allows Pi computers to be…well…almost anything.

You can use a Pi such as the Raspberry Pi 400 to play retro games, automate your connected home, create a home security system, remove advertisements from your home network, create a NAS drive, build a magic mirror that shows news and weather and more.

If none of that interests you, you can simply use the Pi 400 to experience Unix, Linux or Windows!

Final Thoughts

The Pi 400 only arrived on my doorstep seven days ago and unfortunately, I have yet to experiment with it as I've been so busy with work and fixing things around the house.

Raspberry Pis can be used for almost anything, but the fact the Pi 400 has an integrated keyboard means that it lends itself to certain projects over others. It just makes sense to use a Pi Zero for smaller devices and the Pi 4B when no keyboard is required.

So what will I use the Pi 400 for?

At the moment, I am leaning towards a few different projects:

Personal Computer: Keeping it as a personal computer and using it to test Linux distributions, familiarise myself with Unix and learn Python and other programming languages.
Retro Games Computers: My Raspberry Pi 3B can already emulate most games consoles up until around 1995, but the Pi 400's integrated keyboard makes it a great fit for building a gaming console specifically for the Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Amiga 500 etc.
Home Network: I have been building a home network recently. My whole house is wired and I'm in the process of purchasing access points. Raspberry Pis can be used for firewalls, access points, VPNs, blocking advertisements, monitoring network bandwidth, NAS drives and more. Whilst a Raspberry Pi 4B could do all this, the integrated keyboard could prove simplifiy the whole setup.

Please visit the official Raspberry Pi 400 page to learn more about what this versatile computer can do.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post The Raspberry Pi 400 – The Computer That’s Inside a Keyboard was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

9 Online Accounting & Invoicing Services to Manage Your Online Empire

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 12:00:33 GMT

Kevin Muldoon 9 Online Accounting & Invoicing Services to Manage Your Online Empire

Whilst I do my best to prioritise tasks, many things get put to the side time and time again due to a lack of time. One aspect of my business I have continually put to the side is accounting. For over 20 years, I have had an extremely dated and impractical way of managing payments, invoices, income and expenditure.

I have handled most things manually. For example, I regularly create invoices in Microsoft Word Online and then download the invoice in PDF format and email it to clients. Likewise, when advertisers need to pay me, I just send them my PayPal email address or direct them to this blog's advertising area that displays simple PayPal buttons.

Cloud accounting services can help with invoicing, reports, payments and more.

It's time to drag my ass into the 21st century. As such, I have been checking out many online invoice and billing services. My hope is that one of these services will reduce the time I manage invoices and payments and help me streamline tax returns every April.

In this article, I would like to share with you the best accounting, invoicing and billing services, that I have came across so far.

Enjoy.

A Quick Word About Pricing

On this blog, I generally reference USD ($) whilst talking about products and services as its the de-facto currency of most online companies. A few of the accounting companies I have referenced in this article market their services differently in each region, which can lead to different prices across the globe.

Whilst it is not practical for me to reference pricing from every country, I have referenced GBP (£) prices for a few services as this helps paint a better picture as what you can expect to pay (in Europe (as UK prices tend to be a little higher!).

1. FreshBooks

FreshBooks is undoubtedly one of the most recognised accounting services online. It's a modern solution that features a dedicated iOS and Android app for managing your business whilst on the move.

The service helps you manage invoices, payments, expenses, time tracking and project management. Proposal estimation software is also available together with a host of accounting tools to help you automate the financial side of your business. Their reports look fantastic too and each plan includes access for two staff members.

FreshBooks is an affordable solution and they frequently run offers to reduce prices further. The price you pay depends on the number of billable clients you need and if you choose to pay monthly rather than yearly, prices increase by 10%.

At the time of writing, they're running a three month 60% discount offer in the USA and a 70% discount in the UK. For example, with the FreshBooks entry-level Lite plan, the USA price drops from $15 to $6 and the UK price drops from £11 to £3.34. After three months, it reverts back to the regular price.

The FreshBooks Plus plan ($25/£19) will be a more practical option for most businesses as it increases the number of billable clients from five to 50.

As I tend to only work with two or three clients at the one time, the cheaper Lite plan should work for me as it works out at an effective rate of around £9 per month and gives me everything I need.

FreshBooks is one of the most popular accounting services online.

2. Xero

Another accounting service which has caught my attention is Xero. I like the look of its minimal styling and its mobile apps for smartphones and tablets look great too.

Xero can be used to accept payments online, display reports, manage assets, manage files, note expenses, produce invoices, pay bills, manage projects, send quotes and more.

The company has a simple pricing strategy with three plan options. In the USA, these are called Early, Growing and Established, and retail at $9 per month, $30 per month and $60 per month, respectively. In the UK, the plans are called Starter, Standard and Premium, and cost £10 per month, £24 per month and £30 per month.

Their cheapest plan limits you to 20 invoices and quotes and five bills. This restriction is lifted if you upgrade to the Growing/Standard plan. Unfortunately, you do need to upgrade to their top plan in order to charge in multiple currencies and gain access to expenses and project management features. This is a stumbling block for me as whilst I do charge clients in US dollars most of the time, there are occasions where I need to charge in Euros or Great British Pounds.

Xero offers a range of bookkeeping and invoicing tools.

3. FreeAgent

FreeAgent is an accounting service that helps you manage invoicing, expenses, time tracking and banking. It also offers a mobile app for checking everything on tablets and smartphones.

They are one of the few companies that do not try and tie customers into long-term contracts. All of their plans give you an unlimited number of users, clients and projects. A 30 day free trial is available and you can then select a monthly plan that can be cancelled at any time. The first six months of service are also charged at half the normal price.

In the USA, there is only one plan available and it is charged at $12 per month for six months and then $24 per month afterwards.

The company is based in Edinburgh, Scotland, so UK customers have a few more pricing options. It starts with their sole trader plan that costs £9.50 per month for six months and then £19 per month afterwards. There are additional plans for partnerships and limited companies that offer extra options for profit sharing, divideds and corporation tax .

FreeAgent is a user-friendly accounting service with a simple pricing scheme.

4. Clear Books

Clear Books is a UK accounting service that supports invoices, bill and receipt tracking, payments, reporting, project management and integration with third-party services.

As you would expect from a company that focuses solely on the UK market, Clear Books tends to have better support than international companies for the UK's Inland Revenue.

A 30 day free trial is available for Clear Books to help you test their service. Afterwards, you can select either their Small plan or their Large plan. A 10% discount is applied if you pay annually and a 20% discount if you pay two years in advance. A 50% discount is also given for the first three months of your account.

The Small plan costs £5 per month for three months and then goes up to its usual price of £10 per month. The Large plan costs £11 per month for three months and then goes to £22 per month. Upgrading to the more expensive Large plan will give you support for multiple currencies, CIS accounting and digital tax reporting.

Clear Books was created specifically for the UK market.

5. Invoicely

Invoicely is an attractive accounting solution that has mobile apps to help you use the service on smartphones and tablets. It lets you manage invoicing, online payments, time tracking, expenses, driving mileage tracking and dynamic reports.

With a name like Invoicely, it should be no surprise that the service helps you generate simple and colourful invoices.

Invoicely is one of the few companies that offer a 100% free plan. Their free plan allows three saved clients, five monthly bills, no additional team members and payments via PayPal. This is going to be restrictive for businesses, however it is perfect for anyone who just sends the odd invoice. Especially as multiple currencies are supported under the free plan.

Their premium plans retail at $9.99 per month, $19.99 per month and $29.99 per month, respectively. These plans expand your branding options, let you track things such as time and give you support for Stripe and other payment services. They also add team members and increase the total number of saved clients and total monthly invoices.

Invoicely's free membership plan is suitable for freelancers and sole traders.

6. Due

Due is a versatile accounting service and payment processor in one that offers unlimited invoices, expense tracking, time tracking, projects and reports.

At the heart of their service is the Due Digital Wallet. The wallet supports PayPal and Stripe and promises to help you get paid quicker. Only 2.8% fees are charged on transactions. That's not as low as the 2.49% fee that PayCafe lets you charge on your website, but Due isn't just a credit card processing company. It handles your bookkeeping too.

A 30 day free trial is available to help you test Due before you select one of three available plans: Basic, Pro or Premium. These plans are charged on a monthly basis at $7.99, $16.99 and $27.99, respectively. If you are happy to pay a year in advance, the effective rate drops to $6.99, $14.99 and $23.99.

Basic includes ten clients and three team members, Pro includes 75 clients and 15 team members and Premium has unlimited clients and 15 team members. All other features are unlimited across all plans.

Due helps you accept payments online and manage invoices, expenses and payments.

7. ZarMoney

ZarMoney is an affordable accounting service that lets you create and send invoices in a few seconds. It can be used to manage bills online, track inventory, accept payments online, send quotes and estimates, process purchase orders and sales orders, automatic sales tax calculations and more.

ZarMoney Insight gives you access to over 40 built-in reports and over 1,000 customisable reports. Several payment processing services are supported together with third-party services such as MailChimp, Zapier and Shopify.

What makes ZarMoney stand out for me is their pricing policy. It's simple and it's fairly priced and if it's only you or just a few staff members who need access to your company accounts, ZarMoney could prove to be your cheapest accounting solution.

All plans gain access to the same features and have unlimited transactions, but the cost depends on the number of users you need. It's $5 per user per month with all subsequent users charged at $7 per month. Therefore, it's $5 for one user, $14 for two users, $21 for three users, and so on.

There's also an Enterprise plan that starts from $350 per month for over 30 years. This is geared towards large companies and comes with priority support and a dedicated account representative.

ZarMoney is a solid solution for invoicing, payments, quotes and estimates.

8. Intuit QuickBooks

Intuit QuickBooks is a popular accounting service that gives you an overview of your company's sales, banking, expenses, time, projects, workers, taxes and reports.

Beautiful invoices can be created quickly in Intuit QuickBooks and if you process payments through them, credit card and debit card transaction fees are reduced considerably.

During my research into accounting services, I noticed that some services that are available throughout the world do not cater their product for each region (beyond supporting local currencies etc). I cannot throw this criticiam at Intuit QuickBooks. If you're based in the USA, you will receive support for USA tax laws and rules. Here in the UK, the service is HMRC recognised due to its great support of UK tax laws.

Intuit QuickBooks is priced fairly, though I'm not sure I fully agree with their promotion to new customers as it's designed to encourage you to pass up a free trial. They offer a one month free trial to those who want to test their service, but if you are willing to forgo that free trial, you will get a 50% discount for three months (six months if you're in the UK).

In the USA, the available plans retail at $15 per month, $25 per month, $70 per month and $150 per month. Here in the UK, the plans are £12 per month, £20 per month and £30 per month. In all regions, payroll functionality is charged separately.

Each plan includes a different set of features and supports a different number of users, so be sure to review all plans so get access to the functionality you need.

Intuit QuickBooks has a fantastic suite of accounting tools.

9. Zoho Invoice

The last accounting service I want to talk about is Zoho Invoice. It boasts a clean user-interface, mobile apps for iOS and Android and great support for third-party products and services. It also has a highly competitive pricing structure.

Using Zoho Invoice, you can create customisable invoice templates, request payments online, send quotes and estimates, track expenses and use time tracking for projects to help you bill clients fairly and accurately.

For the most part, all Zoho Invoice plans include the same set of features. The more expensive plans simply increase the number of customers you can invoice, number of users and total number of automated workflows. Without doubt, I prefer this type of pricing structure as it means you are not forced to upgrade to a higher-tiered plan in order to get the functionality you need.

Like Invoicely, Zoho Invoice kindly offers customers a free plan. The free plan is suitable for one person and allows you to invoice up to five customers. The overall package of the free plan is quite generous as includes all the same features as the premium plans. This includes support for multiple payment currencies, time tracking, expense tracking, timesheets and recurring invoices.

Three premium plans are available: Basic (50 customers), Standard (500 customers) and Professional (unlimited customers). In the USA, they're priced at $9 per month, $19 per month and $29 per month, respectively. In the UK, the monthly cost is £6, £12 and £18. Two months of service is offered on all plans if you choose to pay annually instead of monthly, which effectively reduces the monthly cost of these plans to $7.5/£5, $15.83/£10 and $24.17/£15.

The free plan that is available for Zoho Invoice is quite generous.

So What's the The Best Option for Me?

At the time of writing, I am still reviewing my options to see which service is best for me and what I do online.

In some respects, my requirements at this time are basic, however there are features in comprehensive services such as FreshBooks that are appealing.

I am primarily looking for a way to:

Send a few invoices every month
Track expenses
Track affiliate commissions and other income
Reduce the time I spend doing taxes at the end of the year

From an invoicing point of view, services such as Invoicely, ZarMoney and Zoho Invoice, suit my needs better.

The free plan of Invoicely is attractive as its limitations of five monthly invoices, three clients and PayPal only payments, fit in with what I do most months. I would have to upgrade to their $9.99 per month plan to be able to do anything beyond invoicing though.

The free plan of Zoho Invoice is much more generous, allowing five customers and an unlimited number of invoices. It basically gives you access to their whole service free of charge if you stay under the five customer limit. At only $5 per month, ZarMoney is an attractive option too since no features are restrictred.

When I start to consider that I need to track income and expenditure, my attention turns to more advanced services again, particularly those that have good support for UK tax laws and regulations. This is where FreshBooks and services such as Clear Books and Intuit QuickBooks become more attractive.

I will be sure to let you all know which service I opted for in a future article :)

Final Thoughts

Writing this article pushed me to research accounting and invoicing services and helped me see what was available online. Whilst some of these cloud accounting services do stand out because of features or usability or pricing, there is no clear winner.

To make an informed decision, you need to review exactly what you and your business needs in order to operate efficiently and then see which service fits those requirements. As you can see from what I wrote about my own situation, this is not always easy to do, especially with every company charging different prices for different features.

So I recommend taking advantage of free trials and reviewing each service thoroughly. Using trial and error, you should be able to narrow down your best options.

Here's a quick summary of the services I included in my list:

FreshBooks – A beautiful user-friendly service with many cool features
Xero – A versatile service, however many key features are restricted to their most expensive plan
FreeAgent – A UK based company that offers essential accounting tools and stylish reports
Clear Books – An affordable UK accounting service that has great support for HM Revenue and Customs
Invoicely – Lacks advanced features, but its simplicity and price make it an attractive option
Due – An all-in-one service that offers invoicing, accounting and payment processing
ZarMoney – A great collection of features and a sensible pricing structure
Intuit QuickBooks – One of the most advanced solutions on the market
Zoho Invoice – Easy to use, lots of great features and affordable pricing

I hope you have found this article about online accounting services useful. If so, I encourage you to subscribe to this blog for email updates. Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

Featured Image: Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

The post 9 Online Accounting & Invoicing Services to Manage Your Online Empire was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

9 Website Builders to Help You Create the Perfect Website

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon 9 Website Builders to Help You Create the Perfect Website

Website builders help you create professional websites in minutes. They can be used to create blogs, business websites, resumes, online portfolios, eCommerce stores and more.

All you have to do is select a pre-made website design, move things around using a drag and drop page builder and then add your content. That's all there is to it as the website building service takes care of hosting and all website maintenance. This simple approach to creating a website is why website building services are popular with beginners and experienced website owners alike.

In this article, I would like to share with you what I consider to be the best nine website building services available online.

Enjoy!

1. WordPress.com – FREE / $4+ Per Month

WordPress.com is the hosted version of the world's most popular CMS. Dozens of responsive website designs are available free of charge, however there is also a large market for premium WordPress.com themes for customers.

The service offers a beautiful drag and drop visual editor, built-in stats, support for social media sharing and a host of desktop and mobile apps to help you update and maintain your website whilst on the move.

In many ways, the experience of creating a website using WordPress.com is better than the self-hosted version of the platform as it's less bloated. Plus you don't have to worry about as many website maintenance tasks as WordPress.com takes care of these for you.

The free version of WordPress.com comes with 3GB of storage, however this plan is supported by ads and all websites are hosted at a WordPress.com sub-domain. Their entry-level Personal plan costs an effective rate of $4 per month. Since all WordPress.com plans are charged annually, you will be charged $48 . It removes advertising, adds a free domain name, increases storage to 6GB and gives email support. It also allows you to take payments through your website and offer content and newsletters to paying subscribers.

The $8 per month Premium plan increases storage to 13GB and gives you access to unlimited premium WordPress themes. It also adds support for PayPal, Google Analytics and VideoPress. Business and eCommerce plans are also available at an effective rate of $25 and $45 per month, respectively. These plans increase storage to 200GB and give you access to WordPress plugins, SEO tools and automated backups. The more expensive eCommerce plan helps you sell an unlimited number of products and services around the world.

WordPress.com is powerful, but it remains easy to use.

2. Webflow – $12+ Per Month

Webflow is a modern website builder with a gorgeous website designer that utilises HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Most website customisations and administration takes place within their designer. From there you can select website designs and add website interactions, animations, text, colours and more.

A large selection of SEO tools are built into Webflow and you can create an advanced eCommerce store that supports custom delivery options and payments from multiple payment processors. Whilst Webflow is a great option for shop owners, it is not a good choice for bloggers. The whole experience of writing in Webflow is frustrating and you are restricted to publishing 100 pages. Blog posts are categorised with other content as collections, however collection limits are thankfully higher.

Two websites can be created and staged in Webflow free of charge, but you will need to select a premium plan when you want to publish your website. Their Basic plan costs an effective rate of $12 per month if paid annually or $15 if you pay monthly. It supports custom domains and allows 100 pages, 500 form submissions, 25,000 monthly visitors and 50GB of CDN bandwidth.

The CMS plan costs an effective rate of $16 per month if paid annually or $20 if you pay monthly. It increases form submissions to 1,000, traffic to 100,000 monthly visitors and CDN bandwidth to 200GB. This plan also includes 2,000 collection items, three content editors and support for site search, which are features which are sorely missed from the Basic plan.

There's also a Business plan that costs an effective rate of $36 per month if you pay annually or $45 if you pay monthly. This plan increases monthly visitors to 1,000,000 and increases collection and CDN bandwidth allocations too.

Webflow's designer lets you style every aspect of your website.

3. Squarespace – $12+ Per Month

Squarespace is one of the best website building services on the market and one of the oldest website building companies online, being launched in 2004 (a year before WordPress.com).

Their service has a huge collection of beautiful designs and a minimalistic website designer which has many options to help you publish portfolios, blogs and online shops. It supports dozens of content types and supports multiple user access levels, password protection, custom redirects, social media sharing, an image editor and advanced eCommerce support for selling products, services and subscriptions.

Squarespace also integrates with dozens of third-party products and services. This opens the doors to streamlining publication, email marketing, custom retention and more.

There are four plans available for Squarespace and all plans come with a free domain name and unlimited bandwidth and storage. The plans are Personal, Business, Basic Commerce and Advanced Commerce. These retail at $16, $26, $30 and $46, per month, however if you pay annually, the effective monthly price reduces to $12, $18, $26 and $40.

The Personal plan gives you basic metrics and access to third-party extensions. If you move up to the Business plan, you unlock advanced analytics, a host of marketing tools and the option of building an eCommerce website. The Commerce plans reduce transaction fees from 3% to 0% and adds additional eCommerce analytics and features.

Be sure to take advantage of Squarespace's 14 day free trial before selecting a premium plan for your website.

Squarespace is a beautiful website building service that is easy to use.

4. Duda – $14+ Per Month

Most website building companies put a lot of energy into attracting beginners to their service, however Duda was developed specifically for website agencies, SaaS platforms and hosting companies. Using its drag and drop website designer, you can create websites in seconds and scale them for customers.

Duda offers a large collection of website templates and pre-made sections as well as a large content library of images, galleries, icons, widgets and more. White labelling is available too and there's a host of tools for collaborating with team members and managing clients.

Integrations are also available for marketing services, social media platforms and video websites such as YouTube and Vimeo.

A 14 day free trial of Duda is available to help you test their service. After which, you need to select one of three plans: Basic, Team or Agency. The plans retail at an effective monthly rate of $14, $22 and $44 per month, but are billed annually.

Each plan allows a limited number of websites, however additional websites can be added to your account for a fee. Ecommerce functionality is based upon how many products your store sells. It's $7.25 per month for 100 products, $19.25 per month for 2,500 products and $39 per month for unlinted products.

The Basic plan allows one website and one team member. It is not a practical solution for most users as it restricts access to the content library and does not include website comments or website analytics. The Team plan allows one website and four team members and the Agency plan allows four websites and ten members. Both of these plans unlock collaboration and management features, though you will need to opt for the Agency plan to gain access to instant websites, website exporting and a widget builder.

Web design companies will love the client tools that Duda provides.

5. Weebly – FREE / $6 Per Month

Weebly is a flexible website builder that lets you create traditional websites or online stores. It boasts a large collection of responsive website themes and a drag and drop website builder that supports custom fonts, video backgrounds, animation effects and image editing.

It has tools for blogging, SEO, social media, email marketing and website security. Detailed website analytics are provided too and there's a Weebly mobile app that helps you manage your websites on the move.

Weebly offer a free website plan that has 500MB of storage. It stores your website at a mybusiness.com sub-domain and includes search engine optimisation, email lead captures and contact forms. The Personal plan costs an effective rate of $6 per month if paid annually or $9 per month if paid monthly. This plan gives you the same amount of website storage, but allows you to use your own custom domain

Weebly ads are understandably displayed on websites hosted on free plans, but they are also displayed on websites hosted on Personal plans. Although the Personal plan is cheap, it's disappointing to see a premium plan display advertisements. On a positive note, users under the free plan also gain access to a support forum, chat support and email support.

The Professional plan costs an effective rate of $12 per month if paid annually or $16 per month if you pay monthly. This plan removes advertisements and adds website searching, advanced website statistics, shopping cart functionality and telephone support. The Performance plan costs an effective rate of $26 per month if paid annually or $29 per month if you pay monthly. It adds advanced website statistics and unlocks eCommerce functionality.

Annoyingly, Weebly separates their plan structure between regular websites and online stores, despite the fact the performance plan has eCommerce functionality. Even more confusing is the fact that Weebly calls their plans by different names in other regions. For example, in some countries, the Personal plan is called Connect, the Professional plan is called Pro and the Performance plan is called Business.

The top online store plan is called in Business Plus in most countries. Retailing at an effective rate of $38 per month if paid annually or $46 per month if paid monthly, it offers shipping discounts, abandoned cart emails and real-time shipping. Apart from the entry-level Personal (Connect) plan, all plans come packaged with a free domain name and $100 worth of Google Ads credit.

Weebly give chat support and email support to free users.

6. Ghost – $29 Per Month

Boasting a gorgeous editor that makes writing an absolute pleasure, Ghost is rightfully recognised by many as a fantastic platform blogging. I agree with this and would add that from a blogging perspective, Ghost is a better option than Medium as you will at least own your own content.

Ghost is not just for blogs though. It's a true content management system that can be used to develop traditional websites.

It has a minimal user-interface that boasts a powerful editor, built-in content delivery network, email newsletter functionality, SEO tools and integration support for dozens of third-party products and services. As you would expect, users also gain access to a large collection of professional website designs too.

Ghost's membership functionality can be used to sell premium content and build subscription-based membership websites and online courses.

A 14 day free trial is available to help you test Ghost. You will then need to select one of three plans. All plans give you access to the same features, however the top plan gives you a custom SSL certificate and lets you run Ghost on a sub-directory.

The Basic plan costs an effective rate of $29 per month if billed annually or $36 per month if you would prefer to pay monthly. It allows 100,000 monthly views, two staff users and 1,000 members. The Standard plan sells at an effective rate of $79 per month if paid annually or $99 per month if paid monthly. It increases your allocation to 500,000 monthly views, five staff users and 8,000 members.

The most expensive plan is the Business plan. Retailing at an effective rate of $199 per month if paid annually or $249 per month if paid monthly. It allows up to 1,000,000 views per month, 15 staff users and 35,000 members.

Ghost has one of the nicest editors on the market.

7. SITE123 – FREE / $12.80 Per Month

SITE123 is an affordable website building service that has a large collection of mobile-friendly website designs

When you create a new website, Site123 asks what type of website you want to build. 16 categories are available including business, online store, blog, photography, events and music. Once you have named your website, you will see Site123's user-friendly drag and drop page builder. From here, you can add pages, add text, change colours, apply templates and more.

In comparison to other services, Site123's page builder lacks the advanced settings that are found in other website builders, however I have no doubt that beginner's will appreciate its simplicity.

Everyone will love the straightforward and affordable pricing policy that SITE123 have adopted too. There's a free plan and one premium plan available. Given how confusing plan comparisons become with companies such as Weebly, it's refreshing to see a company simplify the upgrade process.

Their free plan has 500MB of storage and 1GB of bandwidth. The main downside is that a SITE123 floating tag will be displayed on your website.

SITE123 Premium costs $12.80 per month and removes the floating tag, gives you a free website domain name for one year and lets you use your own custom domain name if you wish. It also increases your resource allocation to 10GB of storage and 5GB of bandwidth. Premium plan customers also gain access to eCommerce features and functionality.

Despite offering users a free plan, SITE123 still offer a 14 day money back guarantee to those who choose to upgrade to the premium plan.

Site123 is an affordable solution with many great features.

8. Jimdo – FREE / $9+ Per Month

Jimdo is a website building service that helps you create business websites, blogs, portfolios and online stores. It features a modern drag and drop builder that supports layout designs using blocks.

The service offers many unique features for businesses including a GDPR-compliant legal text generator and an option to sync your website business listings on over ten platforms. Social media is supported too and all customers gain access to a large copyright-free image library.

Interestingly, if you build an online store with Jimdo, there are no transaction fees for the products you sell. Many payment options are available for your online stores and you can manage orders straight from your smartphone.

Three website plans are available for Jimdo: Play, Start and Grow. There are also three online store plans: Basic, Business and VIP. All plan prices are displayed on a monthly basis, however these are an effective rate as they are charged annually.

The ad-supported Play plan is free to use. It gives you a website at a jimdosite.com subdomain, 500MB of storage, 2GB of bandwith and five website pages.

The $9 per month Start plan increases storage to 5GB, bandwidth to 10GB and website pages to ten. It also adds website statistics and SEO indexing, removes advertisements and lets you use your own custom domain name. The $15 per month Grow plan upgrades storage to 15GB, bandwidth to 20GB and website pages to 50. Support times are also improved from one to two days to within four hours.

The Basic online store plan costs $15 per month and gives basic shop features, 10GB of storage and ten website pages. The $19 per month Business plan increases storage to 15GB and pages to 50. It also adds additional product layouts.

The most expensive online plan is the $39 per month VIP plan. It offers unlimited storage and pages, support response times of less than an hour and additional features such as business listings.

Business owners will appreciate what Jimdo offers.

9. Zyro – FREE / $1.99+ Per Month

My last recommendation is the affordable website building solution Zyro. The service comes with a large collection of responsive website templates to help you build blogs, business websites, portfolios and online stores.

Once you have selected a website design, you can adjust your layout and change images, text, colours and backgrounds, using the Zyro drag and drop page builder. Zyro offers customers many additional tools too. This includes a logo maker, blog title generator, heatmap and an AI generator that automatically fills your website with content. You will find these tools elsewhere online, but it is good to see them included within the Zyro suite.

Zyro is undoubtedly one of the most affordable eCommerce solutions online, but it still has everything you need to sell products and services. It supports payments from multiple payment processors, is commission-free and supports unlimited products, discounts and gift codes.

It is difficult to pinpoint the usual price of Zyro as they always have sales on that discount prices by between 50% and 85%.

Their ad-supported Free plan allows 500MB of storage and 500MB of bandwidth. This is suitable for testing their platform and getting started, but with their premium plans costing so little, it makes sense to upgrade.

Four premium plans are available for Zyro: Basic, Unleashed, Ecommerce and Ecommerce+. At the time of writing, these plans retail at $1.99 per month, $2.99 per month, $8.99 per month and $13.99 per month, respectively.

All plans share a core set of features. This includes a 30-day money-back guarantee, removal of advertisements, use of a custom domain, ad-removal and access to all website templates. The Basic plan offers 1GB of storage and 3GB of bandwidth, but all other plans have unlimited storage and bandwith and the addition of a free domain.

The Unleashed plan builds upon the Basic plan by adding advanced features such as Google Analytics and social media integration. As the name suggests, the Ecommerce plan allows you to create an online store, but if you move up to the Ecommerce+ plan, you get additional features such as abandoned cart recovery, multiple languages, product filters and dedicated stores for Facebook, Instagram and Amazon.

Zyro is one of the cheapest website builders on the market.

Why Isn't Wix Included?

If you are looked into website builders before, you may be wondering why Wix is not included in my article. The reason is simple: I cannot recommend them.

I dealt with the company as an affiliate many years ago and they were terrible to work with. Their customer service was awful and they have screwed website owers like myself over by not paying us.

Wix sucks!!!!

If you look in the comment section of my video above, you will see many disgruntled Wix users who have had poor experiences with the company. Of course, if you dig deep enough and research any website building company, you will find complaints from current customers and former customers, however Wix are widely recognised as one of the worst website building services to deal with.

Obviously, you are free to choose any website builder you want and if you choose Wix, I hope your experience with them is better than mine, but it is not a service I can recommend.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, the market for website builders is competitive. There's never been a better time to build a website for such little effort, time and money.

There are pros and cons to using each service, therefore I encourage you to test each service yourself to see if their features and functionality match your expectations. This is important to do as most website building companies charge annually for their services, therefore changing to another service could be costly. So be sure to take advantage of free plans and free trials wherever possible.

Creating a website has never been easier!

Every project is unique so you should be prepared to use different services for different projects too. For example, you may use Ghost for a blog, Squarespace for your online store and Jimdo for a client's business website.

Here is a quick summary of all website builders that were featured in this article:

WordPress.com – The hosted version of the most popular CMS on the internet
Webflow – A user-friendly website builder, but bloggers should avoid this one
Squarespace – A refined website building experience with beautiful website templates
Duda – Helps agencies and hosting companies create and scale websites for clients
Weebly – A versatile website building solution
Ghost – Provides an amazing writing experience and lets you sell memberships
SITE123 – A solid website building service with a sensible pricing policy
Jimdo – A good choice for business owners
Zyro – One of the most affordable website builders online

I hope you have enjoyed this look at the best website building services on the market today. If so, I encourage you to subscribe to my blog for email updates or follow me on Twitter :)

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

Featured Image Credit: Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay

The post 9 Website Builders to Help You Create the Perfect Website was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Building an Online Community with WordPress

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 17:05:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Building an Online Community with WordPress

It should be no surprise that WordPress is one of the most popular platforms for online communities.

With a built-in user system, simple publishing options and website design customiser, the core version of WordPress is a great starting point for a community. All you need to do is choose one of the many community WordPress plugins that are available to you.

In this article, I would like to show you the best WordPress community plugins available today. These can be used to create discussion forums, content websites, membership websites, online courses, private communities and more.

Enjoy.

* Plugins are not ranked in any particular order :)

Discussion Forums

Even after all these years, it still impresses me that WordPress can used to power a fully functional discussion forum, but is it the right software for this task?

It depends on the project.

If you are looking to run a large discussion forum, a dedicated solution such as xenForo, vBulletin, phpBB or Invision, makes much more sense. These applications were designed to run discussion forums from the ground up and are better equipped to manage and scale large communities.

WordPress is, however, the smarter choice in many situations.

For example, it works well for small support forums and question and answer rooms, particularly if your main website was created using WordPress.

bbPress – FREE

bbPress has been around nearly as long as WordPress itself, with development starting in 2004 by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. The simplicity of bbPress makes it a good choice for a support forum or a small community that compliments your main website.

The core plugin lacks important forum functionality found in other solutions. Thankfully, plugin extensions are availble that allow you to add additional features. For example, GD bbPress Attachments allows users to upload images, bbp style pack lets you easily style your forums and bbPress Notify helps you control who receives notifications.

There's also a large number of integration plugins available which allow you to integrate bbPress with popular WordPress themes and plugins.

bbPress powers the official WordPress support forums.

wpForo – FREE

wpForo is a modern WordPress forum solution that offers multiple layouts, a mobile-friendly design, advanced member profiles and a user rating system.

There's a number of great moderation tools to help you moderate your forum and you can easily change styles too.

wpForo is free to use, however 10 premium plugin extensions are available that let you add functionality for advertisements, polls, custom fields and more. They retail from between $11 and $35 each.

wpForo is an advanced solution that is free to download.

Asgaros Forum – FREE

Asgaros Forum is a versatile free forum WordPress plugin that features a customisable responsive design, a members list page, profile pages, statistics, polls and widgets.

There are moderator tools for approving, banning and reporting members and posts. A like system is built-in too and there is an integrated advertising system and many free addons that increase functionality.

Asgaros Forum is 100% free to use and has many great features.

WP Discussion Board – FREE / $49+

WP Discussion Board is a WordPress forum plugin that features many anti-spam tools. It can be integrated into an existing WordPress website using shortcodes.

The free version of is quite limiting, restricting you to only one board and removing essential features such as user profiles. Due to this, I believe most people should upgrade to WP Discussion Board Pro instead so that you can add as many rooms as you wish. It retails at $49 per for a single website license and $89 pery ear for an unlimited website license.

The full version allows you to approve registrations and adds forum permissions, child forums, subscriptions, media uploads, user profiles, top posters and more.

If you like the free version of WP Discussion Board, you should consider upgrading to the full version to unlock all features.

Simple:Press – FREE / $99+

Simple:Press is a feature-rich forum solution that offers unlimited forums, forum groups, an advanced user system, rankings, moderation tools and anti-spam options.

The plugin is 100% free to use, however you can extend Simple:Press significantly by purchasing one of the Simple:Press bundle plans. Retailing from $99 per year for a single website license, the bundle plans give you access to over 70 premium add ons and access to premium themes.

Add ons help you add many new features and functionality. This includes advertising, analytics, announcements, questions and answers, featured topics and integration with popular WordPress plugins.

Simple:Press is used to power large discussion forums such as Tripawds.

ForumWP – $99+

Created by the same people behind Ultimate Member, ForumWP is a premium forum WordPress plugin that has a clean lightweight mobile-friendly design. It allows you to style each forum room individually and gives every user an informatitive profile page.

Three basic modules are available which add subscriptions, bookmarking and a like system. Their plus modules add post moderation, private replies, a voting system and an option to mark a topic as solved.

Given the price of other WordPress forum solutions, ForumWP is a hard sell. It retails at $99 per year for a single license and this particular plan does not even include plus modules. You need to upgrade to their three website $149 per year license in order to get the full version.

ForumWP has a nice clean design, but there are cheaper forum alternatives on the market.

Website Toolbox – £420+

Website Toolbox is a hosted forum solution that is targeted to WordPress, Drupal and Joomla users. Rather than integrate with your WordPress website via a plugin, Website Toolbox hosts your forum in the cloud and syncs logins between your forum and your main WordPress website.

The service integrates many useful features such as social media support, styling tools and monetisation options. From a performance point of view, there is a good argument for hosting forums separately from WordPress, however the ridiculous pricing scheme of Website Toolbox makes it difficult to recommend to most website owners.

If paid annually, the cost is £420 per year for 10,000 monthly views, £1,020 per year for 100,000 monthly views and a whopping £3,000 per year for 500,000 monthly views. These prices increase if you pay monthly.

Website Toolbox is ridiculously expensive and the entry level £420 per year entry-level plan does not even unlock all features.

Sabai Discuss – $24

Sabai Discuss is a simple discussion WordPress plugin that is suitable for support rooms and question and answer rooms.

It features a visual form editor and allows you to mark questions as featured. Questions and answers can also be marked as spam and users can upload images to help explain the problems they're facing.

Sabai Discuss sells for $24 on CodeCanyon.

Sabai Discuss can be used to create simple support forums.

Forym – $22

Formerly known as WP Pro Forum system, Forym is a simple WordPress discussion forum plugin that can be used for small support rooms and question and answers areas.

It features a drag and drop file uploader, a light and dark theme, profanity filter and support for @mentions. Interestingly, Forym can take over your WordPress comments.

Forym is available from CodeCanyon for a one-off fee of $22.

Forym is a simple forum solution.

DW Question & Answer Pro – $39

DW Question & Answer Pro is a beautiful question and answer forum WordPress plugin that is a perfect fit for support forums. It integrates perfectly with WordPress and lets you administrate everything from the frontend of your website.

Answers can be selected as the best and questions can be marked as private. Other cool features include voting, instant search, file management, advanced permissions, spam control, social media sharing and templates for email notifications and forum designs.

DW Question & Answer Pro retails at a one-off fee of $39 from CodeCanyon.

A free version of the plugin does exist, but at the time of writing it has not been updated for over a year so it is difficult to recommend. Thankfully, the premium version continues to be updated regularly.

DW Question & Answer Pro boasts a ton of great administration features and looks great too.

QaForum – $29

QaForum is a user-friendly WordPress forum plugin that was designed for support forums and question and answer areas. It has built-in search functionality that allows users to filter content by categories and keywords.

Questions can be marked as the accepted answer and all answers can be voted up or down. Behind the scenes, there are many settings to help you define who can access the forum and what they can and cannot do.

The plugin is available for a one-off fee of $29 from CodeCanyon.

QaForum

WP Answers – $34

Another option for creating a question and answer forum is the WordPress plugin WP Answers. It comes packaged with its own WordPress theme to help you build a community, but this is optional as WP Answers will work with any WordPress website.

It features social media logins, advanced moderation and spam protection options and support for importing questions and answers from StackOverflow. Users can upvote and downvote answers and you can charge users a member fee via PayPal. You can also reward users to encourage participation.

WP Answers retails at a one-off fee of $34.

WP Answers

Enhanced Comments

The comment area is an important part of many successful blogs and a great tool when creating a community around good content.

WordPress natively allows readers to publish comments, but the core functionality is quite basic. There is no support for social media and no way for commenters to subscribe to comment updates.

Thankfully, a number of comment WordPress plugins are available that allow you to enhance the comment area significantly. This will help you encourage readers to comment regularly.

Thrive Comments – $39+

One of the leading products of Thrive Themes, Thrive Comments is a fantastic WordPress plugin that will transform WordPress' native comment system and greatly increase the engagement in your comment area.

It features social media logins and allows commenters to share individual comments. A number of tools are also available to help increase participation. This includes user badges, an integrated comment voting system, featured comments and an option to subscribe to a poster's comments. Blog posts with a large volume of comments can be divided into multiple pages too.

The plugin helps make your comment area look beautiful and lazy-loading helps everything load quickly. The backend also features an advanced moderation system, detailed comment reports, auto-link keyword functionality, comment filtering and more.

Thrive Comments retails at $39 for a one website license, $47 for a five website license and $97 for a 15 website license. All plans offer the same features and come with one year of support and updates and a 30 day money back guarantee.

Thrive Comments is undoubtedly one of the best comment solutions available to WordPress users.

GraphComment – FREE / $7+ Per Month

GraphComment is a versatile WordPress comment plugin that syncs your website comments to webservers across France. All comments are continually synced to your WordPress website, but by hosting the comments on an external server, you can greatly reduce the size of your WordPress database.

It offers social media logins, a unique voting system that is built upon the reputation of users, badges and awards, text formatting, comment widgets and light and dark themes. Several comment widgets are provided together with analytics and a host of moderation tools to help you maintain your community.

Their $7 per month starter plan lets you pin the best discussions, use keyword alerts and customise branding and emails. It also has a live discussion mode. High-traffic websites may want to consider the $74 per month pro plan as it increases the number of data loads from 1.5 million to 5 million.

If you would like to host your comments externally, GraphComment is a great option.

wpDiscuz – FREE

wpDiscuz is a fast AJAX-powered comment solution that enhances the core WordPress comment system. It features social media logins, live notifications, comment ratings, nested comments, comment highlighting, custom fields and subscription via email.

Lazy loading and avatar caching are available to help optimise the performance of your comment area. There's a wealth of moderation, security and anti-spam tools, as well.

18 plugin extensions are available for wpDiscuz that add functionality such as advertising integration, user mentions and media uploading. These retail between $9 and $25 each, however a bundle is available that lets you purchase all extensions for $99.

wpDiscuz is one of the best free WordPress comment plugins on the market.

Jetpack Comments – FREE

If you are looking for a simpler comment solution, you may want to consider Jetpack Comments. It replaces the default WordPress form with a comment form that has social media logins for WordPress.com, Facebook, Twitter and Google.

This Jetpack module also ties in with the Jetpack Subscriptions module to allow readers to subscribe to new comments and posts via email.

Jetpack Comments helps bring the simple comment form into the 21st century.

Disqus – FREE /$9 Per Month

Disqus is a hosted comment service that syncs comments back to your WordPress database. At one point, Disqus was one of the most popular comment solutions for WordPress, however it has fell out of favour a little over the last few years and at the time of writing, the Discus WordPress Plugin has not been updated for two years.

Despite this, Disqus is still a service I can recommend. It looks great, supports many social media services for logins and supports real-time comments. There's some great moderation tools available in Disqus including pre-moderating comments, banned lists and trusted lists, shadow banning and more.

Disqus is free to use as it is supported by advertisements. For $9 per month, you can remove advertising, although you are restricted to three websites and 50,000 views. The $89 per month pro plan increases these limits to 20 websites and 150,000 views and adds advanced analytics, star ratings and custom reactions.

Disqus is still a good fit for many websites.

Subscribe To Comments Reloaded – FREE

If you like the native WordPress comment system, you may want to use Subscribe To Comments Reloaded. The plugin adds a versatile comment subscription service to your website that allows readers to subscribe to comment updates via email.

Commenters can subscribe and unsubscribe from updates via email and through a dedicated subscriptions page which I believe most commenters will prefer over Jetpack. All emails are customisable through the plugin too.

In comparison to other comment solutions I have referenced, Subscribe To Comments Reloaded is a simple solution that only adds one feature to your website, yet it remains one of my favourite WordPress comment plugins as it keeps commenters coming back to your website.

Subscribe To Comments Reloaded encourages commenters to return to the discussion regularly.

Community & User Profiles

Community WordPress plugins can be used to transform your website into a large community with unique user profiles, groups, notifications, private messaging and more.

Solutions such as BuddyPress can be used to create a community for friends, your local club or for your business.

On a smaller scale, you will also find a host of user profile and registration WordPress plugins. These plugins will drastically improve the website experience for users.

WordPress Multisite – FREE

Originally a separate project called WordPress MU, multisite is now a part of the core version of WordPress. It allows you to create a network of WordPress websites (similar to WordPress.com) with the same core WordPress installation files being shared across all network websites.

To enble multisite functionality, all you have to do is add a small line of code before the end of your wp-config.php file. You can then start adding network websites using sub-domains or sub-directories.

/* Multisite */
define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );

If you are looking to create a large community with many websites, you may want to consider using WordPress multisite, though my recommendation is to test this functionality in your test area first to learn what it can and cannot do.

Setting up WordPress multisite is beyond the scope of this article, but be aware that some WordPress hosting companies are not prepared for hosting a full network so always be sure to speak with your host to see what they offer.

One company that does have great experience in this area is WPMUDev. They have years of experience with WordPress multisite and sell many multisite WordPress plugins to help you maintain your network.

BuddyPress – FREE

With development starting in 2008, BuddyPress is one of the longest running WordPress projects online. The plugin lets you add many useful community features to your website such as custom profiles, groups, friend connections, activity streams and private messaging.

A popular companion for BuddyPress is the forum WordPress plugin bbPress (which should be no surprise given that they're both developed by Automattic), though BuddyPress is well supported throughout the WordPress community. As such, you will find many great BuddyPress WordPress themes and plugins to help you build your community.

Without doubt, BuddyPress is one of the best ways to transform your WordPress website into a fully functioning community.

BuddyPress is used to power the community area of the popular website Which.

Youzer – $49

Youzer is a BuddyPress WordPress plugin that adds hundreds of options to your community. It adds colour schemes, support for advertising on profiles, new membership fields, custom widgets and more.

The plugin also enhances your website security using Captcha fields, password resets and limited login attempts.

It's available from CodeCanyon for $49.

BuddyPress users will appreciate what Youzer adds to their community.

BuddyBoss – $228

It's hard to categorise BuddyBoss as it can do so many things. It can be used to power an online community, sell courses online or create a WordPress membership website. As its name suggests, BuddyBoss was based upon BuddyPress, which means that many BuddyPress plugins work with BuddyBoss.

There are a lot of great community features in BuddyBoss that you will not find elsewhere. It offers member profiles, social groups, forums, Zoom integration, private and group messaging, albums, custom brand emails, private communities, events, jobs and more.

It boasts the ability to sell courses and memberships, but also supports integration with popular membership websites, e-learning applications such as LearnDash and the WordPress gaming application GamiPress.

BuddyBoss retails at $228 for a one website license, $288 for a five website license and $328 for a ten website license. All plans come with one year of support and updates and a 14 day money back guarantee.

BuddyBoss has hundreds of useful community features and settings.

Ultimate Member – FREE / $249+

Ultimate Member is a user-profile WordPress plugin that has a drag and drop page builder for creating stylish front-end registration forms and login forms. Custom form fields are available and you can use conditional logic to change what fields are displayed in different situations.

The free version of Ultimate Member also has many features to help you create a membership website. This includes custom user roles, member directories and content restriction.

23 premium extensions are available which expand functionality siginificantly. These include social media logins, private messaging, user reviews, groups and more. Most extensions cost around $50 for a single website license, however you can gain access to all plugin extensions for $249 per year.

Ultimate Member can be used to add beautiful user profiles and add membership functionality to your website.

WP Symposium Pro – FREE / $79.99

WP Symposium Pro is a community and social media WordPress plugin that offers user profiles, discussion forums, social media integration, groups, galleries and more.

The core version of the plugin features profiles, activities, forums and alerts. To unlock all social networking features, you need to purchase the social network plugin extension.

The core version of WP Symposium Pro is quite basic.

Ultra Community – FREE

Ultra Community is a community WordPress plugin that adds front-end logins and registrations, user profiles, custom user roles, groups and directories of members and groups.

11 plugin extensions are available at $14.99 each for a single website license (Curiously, no bundle deal is available). Extensions include user notifications, user post submissions, social media sharing and bbPress integration.

Ultra Community helps you create your own community website.

ProfileGrid – FREE / $79+

ProfileGrid is a flexible community WordPress plugin that lets you create customisable user profiles for WordPress, WooCommerce and bbPress.

The plugin does much more than add user profiles though. You can activate private messaging, groups, user blogs, friends system and registration forms through RegistrationMagic. Content restriction is available too, which allows you to create a membership website. Seven free plugin extensions help you integrate ProfileGrid with other WordPress plugins, customise user display names and display custom profile URL slugs.

The premium version of ProfileGrid gives you access to 22 premium plugin extensions. These allow you to take payments through your website and adds social media logins, an advanced group manager, additional integration support and more.

ProfileGrid Pro retails at $79 for a one website license with one year of support and updates or $139 for an unlimited website license with lifetime support and updates.

ProfileGrid can do more than just create user profiles.

RegistrationMagic – FREE / $89+

Developed by the same people behind ProfileGrid, RegistrationMagic is a registration WordPress plugin that lets you create professional registration forms and contact forms using a form builder.

For each form, you can specify fields, design settings, reCAPTCHA anti-spam details, automatic email responses and integrations with third-party WordPress plugins and services. Your forms can then be inserted into your website using shortcodes, widgets and more. What's really interesting is all the additional features that are available, such as attachments, custom user roles, bulk emailing and detailed analytics.

The premium version of RegistrationMagic gives you access to 52 plugin extensions. It retails at $89 for a one website license with one year of support and updates and $189 for an unlimited website license with lifetime support and updates.

These plugin extensions add hundreds of new options such as HTML code embeds, PDF submissions, conditional fields and IP banning.

RegistrationMagic is one of the most feature-rich form solutions available for WordPress.

User Registration – FREE / $69+

User Registration is a user-friendly drag and drop registration WordPress plugin that helps you create advanced registration forms. It supports many additional fields such as country, telephone number and password.

A total of 20 premium plugin extensions are available in the full version of User Registration. The entry level $69 per year personal plan includes eight extensions. These include advanced fields, PDF submissions, social media connections and WooCommerce and MailChimp integration.

The $149 plus plan increases your license from one website to five and the $299 professional license allows unlimited website support and updates. Both of these plans include 12 additional plugin extensions for unlocking conditional logic, multi-step forms, a style customiser, payment processing and more.

All premium plans come with a 14 day money back guarantee.

User Registration is one of the best WordPress registration plugins on the market.

UserPro – $39

UserPro is a vertsaile WordPress plugin that offers beautiful user profiles, a detailed member directory, social media integration, content restriction and customisable login forms and registration forms. The plugin also has support for popular email marketing services and integrates well with BuddyPress, WooCommerce, WPML and other WordPress plugins.

Whilst it is primarily marketed as a community plugin, UserPro can be used to create membership websites. All you have to do is restrict content to specific user groups and charge them using PayPal or using WooCommerce's payment system.

UserPro is available for a one-off fee of $39 from CodeCanyon.

UserPro has many great community and membership features.

PeepSo – FREE / $129+

PeepSo is a community WordPress plugin that can be used to create a social network on your website that looks similar to Facebook or LinkedIn.

In the free version of the plugin, your community can be built up using shortcodes. There are shortcodes to help you publish user profiles, members, user activity, registration forms and more. If you upgrade to the full version of Peepso, you gain access to their responsive Gecko WordPress theme.

The basic bundle for PeepSo Pro costs $129 for a one website license and comes with one year of updates and two weeks of support. In addition to the Gecko theme, it comes with plugin extensions to add photos, chat, friends and groups. The starter bundle costs $249 for a one website license and comes with a total of 11 plugin extensions and one year of updates and support. The additional plugins add functionality for videos, polls, user limits and more.

The most expensive option is the ultimate bundle. Retailing at $349 for a one website license, it features a total of 20 plugin extensions. This package allows you to integrate Peepso with many third-party services and WordPress plugins.

Peepso is a great option if you are creating a social network, but it is expensive.

ProfilePress – FREE / $69+

As its name suggests, ProfilePress is a WordPress plugin that helps you control user profiles in the front end and backend of your website. It lets you redirect users from the default WordPress login page and registration page to a custom page instead. Users can also be redirected to other pages after logging in and lopgging out.

The full version of ProfilePress adds support for multi-step forms, AJAX forms, social media logins, anti-spam features and pre-made themes for profile pages, login pages and registration forms.

A personal license retails at $69 and comes with one year of support and updates. The $99 business license increases support and updates to three websites and adds support for MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and Polylang. An unlimited website license is available at $199 per year or a one-off fee of $599.

ProfilePress gives you control over user profile pages, login page and registration page.

WP User Frontend – FREE / $49+

The developers of WP User Frontend call it the “Ultimate Frontend Solution to WordPress”. It boasts a drag and drop form builder which can be used to create forms for a variety of purposes such as guest post submissions, WooCommerce orders and member subscriptions.

A registration form can be added using a shortcode, however if you upgrade to WP User Frontend Pro with the $49 per year personal license, you can create profiles and registration forms using a form builder. Upgrading also adds advanced fields, content restriction, social media logins, recurring payments, condition logic and more.

The $89 per year professional license increases usage to five websites and adds support for Stripe payments, email templates, a user directory, user analytics, BuddyPress integration and support for email marketing services.

At the top end is the $159 per year business license. This plan increases support and updates to 15 websites and adds private messaging, reports, support for Paid Memberships Pro, support for Zapier and more.

The cost of WP User Frontend depends on what features you need.

Profile Builder – FREE / $69

Profile Builder is a useful WordPress plugin that allows you to create advanced profile pages, login forms and registration forms. You can also restrict content based upon a user's login status or user role. The plugin gives you great control over your users. For example, you can specify the minimum length of passwords and which user group they are assigned to upon registration.

Over a dozen free plugin extensions are available for Profile Builder. There are plugins for adding custom login page templates, phone number validation, custom CSS and more.

Profile Builder Pro retails at $69 for a single license and comes with ten plugin extensions. New features include social media logins, custom profile menus and support for WooCommerce and popular email marketing services. The $149 unlimited website license adds integration support for BuddyPress and adds features such as front-end users, multiple registration forms and custom redirects.

Both plans come with one year of support and updates.

Profile Builder can be used to enhance forms and profile pages.

Final User – $39

Retailing at a one-off fee of $39, Final User is a front-end profile WordPress plugin that gives users a detailed front-end dashboard. Profiles can include photos, videos, associated blog posts, WooCommerce customer information, BuddyPress activity and more.

Final User can also be used to create a membership website. You can offer free accounts or charge users a one time payment or recurring payment. You can even offer free and paid trials.

Final User pulls information from many different places and displays them in the user's dashboard.

Memberships

Once you have used a membership WordPress plugin, you understand just how powerful the WordPress platform is.

You can use membership plugins to create large communities, restrict content to specific user groups, sell online courses and even sell individual articles.

Many of the community and user-profile WordPress plugins that I referenced above support content restriction and let you sell memberships too. Generally speaking, however, dedicated membership WordPress plugins give you more control over users, more ways to restrict content and better support for marketing services and payment processors.

WP-Members – FREE / $125

WP-Members is a membership WordPress plugin that lets you restrict blog posts, pages and custom post types. It has shortcodes for custom login forms, registration pages, profile pages and content restriction. Two free plugin extensions are also available which allow you to prevent spam registrations and send test emails.

The WP Members Pro Bundle retails at $125 and comes with one year of support and updates. It adds advanced options, download protection, membership invite codes, security features, a text string editor, user list, user tracking and integration support for PayPal, MailChimp and SalesForce.

All of these pro features are available as individual plugin extensions, but with many of them costing $47 each, it makes more sense to purchase the bundle.

The free version of WP Members is a simple member solution, but the pro version improves things significantly.

Members – FREE

Members is the free version of MemberPress, although it is better to consider them seperate products as they are so different. The plugin offers an advanced user role editor that lets you modify existing user roles and create new ones.

Using Members, you can grant access or deny access to dozens of website permissions. This includes accessible pages, posts, pages, media, plugins and more.

In the add-ons section, you can activate additional features such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads integration support, however Members does not allow you to charge for memberships directly.

You could, however, use Members to create a free membership website and use another plugin to accept payments.

Members is a useful free membership WordPress plugin, but you are limited with what you can do with it.

MemberPress – $149

The full version of MemberPress is significantly more advanced that its free equivalent. It gives you complete control over what users can do and exactly what content they can access on your website. To keep members subscribed, content can also be drip fed to them.

SEO Companies are Getting Guest Posts All Wrong

Thu, 08 Oct 2020 09:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon SEO Companies are Getting Guest Posts All Wrong

If my daily emails are anything to go by, all you need to call yourself an SEO expert these days is a Gmail account and cheap email blasting software to spam the crap out of half the internet.

In an average week, I get around 25 emails from “SEO Experts” who want to contribute an article to this blog. That number is increasing every day.

Guest posting has bee taken over be SEO agencies.
Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Despite receiving thousands of guest post submissions and guest post requests over the last ten years, I have yet to receive one good guest post.

Not even one.

I will say that again….in the last ten years, I have not had one good article that has been sent to me!

99.9% of the guest posts that have been submitted are garbage. Of the 0.1% that were accepted, I had to spend hours fixing images and correcting spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. With all of these articles, I would have been better, and quicker, just writing the article from scratch myself.

The reality is that most SEO companies have no clue what they're doing. Their sole strategy is to bombard website owners with requests for publishing cheap content.

Quality Content Should Be Made Priority

The focus of every blog should be to publish high-quality content, regardless of whether you wrote the article yourself or whether it was a guest post or sponsored post.

Good content attracts readers. Poor content drives them away.

Most internet users are aware of this, however marketers have managed to convince website owners that they are doing them a favour by giving them free access to their audience.

Companies are getting content marketing all wrong.
Image by Diggity Marketing from Pixabay

I ran multiple blogs throughout the 2000s.

Back then, guest post submissions came from fellow bloggers and writers who were trying to establish themselves. They would therefore contribute their best articles. Frequently, the articles guest posters submitted to top websites were better than the articles on their own website as they understood that the content was an advertisment of their website and their own writing ability.

Obviously, publishing good content on another website and poor content on your own is a poor marketing strategy, but every guest poster recognised that it was a privilege to be able to use someone else's website as a platform to launch yourself (though I do not believe any writer should be actively offering their services free of charge).

Fast forward to today, guest post submissions are coming from SEO companies and SEO agents, not writers who are looking to establish a reputation. Due to this, the goal of the guest poster has been changed from showcasing writing ability to shoehorning links to client websites into the article.

SEO agencies frustrate the hell out of me.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

As every website owner will tell you, SEO companies are frustrating to deal with. They do not appreciate that publishing content on someone's website is a privilege, arrogantly assuming that website owners should be grateful for “Free Content” (Remember, it's not free if the content is stuffed with links to the company's clients).

Every day, I get an email from an SEO company who is flabbergasted that I have rejected their article or surprised that I thought the articles they published elsewhere were poor quality. They'll lie to you outright and state that the article has not been paid for, despite the fact its full of irrelevant links.

Their whole mindset about search engine optimisation is wrong.

If they contributed high-quality articles to websites, those articles would receive more social media likes and shares. This would lead to clients having links on pages that are ranked better.

Instead, SEO companies focus on quantity over quality, blasting emails out to thousands of website owners using software and working with cheap writers with a poor grasp of English. All of this is done in order to maximise profits and minimise the time they work themselves.

The whole strategy is short-sighted.

I Need to Change My Policy…Again

The vast majority of emails I receive through this blog are from time-wasters who want something for free.

In the past, I tackled this issue by making my advertising area and contact page crystal clear about how much guest posts cost and what would be accepted.

So what happened?

Nothing.

Most spam I receive still comes from SEO companies and they're all time wasters. They simply don't read the information I have published about guest posts and email me directly with their standard cut and paste email template.

I've been too accomodating with this and continued to respond to them. That stops now.

From now on, any guest post emails that do not come through my guest post submission or contact forms will be instantly sent to the spam folder.

In the long-term, however, I will probably have to stop accepting guest posts on this website. It just isn't worth the time I spend administrating them.

Final Thoughts

On paper, guest posts should be mutually beneficial for website owners, advertisers and SEO companies. Website owners receive a good article that readers will enjoy, advertisers improve their search engine presence and SEO agencies get a slice of the pie.

Unfortunately, that is not the case.

The whole strategy of SEO companies is to blast out pre-made impersonal emails to website owners in the hope they will accept poorly written articles that have been stuffed with links.

If SEO companies would invest in better writers, maybe everyone could be a winner in the guest post game.

If they don't, guest posting is dead.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post SEO Companies are Getting Guest Posts All Wrong was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

5 Affiliate Programs That Make Me Money

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 09:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon 5 Affiliate Programs That Make Me Money

To say that 2020 has been a crazy year for everyone would be an understatement. Few of us were prepared for Covid or a world where no one knew how to deal with it.

Like everyone else, I've had many few ups and downs myself this year. I've sadly lost a family member, caught covid and spent months being lethargic from it, got married and then moved up to Edinburgh with my beautiful new wife.

From a work point of view, the last two months have been unproductive as I've had little time to create blog posts or YouTube videos. Moving house and putting your home up for sale is incredibly time-consuming, so I don't recommend throwing a covid-wedding in the middle of it!

As I began to settle into my new home, I have more time to write articles, produce videos and think about what I work on over the next few months. I have many good articles planned for this blog and my hope is that these articles will not only attract new readers, but increase the affiliate income I generate.

In this article, I would like to share the affiliate programs that are generating income for me at the moment.

How I Make Money Online

Whilst I do still make a little money from the books I have published and have dabbled in eCommerce in the past, most of my online income is generated from affiliate marketing. This income is topped up by the occasional writing gigs, product reviews and other advertising options on this blog and other websites I own.

I see many people online calling themselves self-indulgent names like CEOs, experts and entrepreneurs, but I like to think of myself as a content creator.

Everything I do online is built upon me producing good content. Through this blog and my YouTube channels, I publish detailed reviews, tutorials, recommendations and other guides. Affiliate income is built upon this foundation of good content.

The Affiliate Programs That Make Me Money

In this section, I have listed five affiliate programs that have generated the most income for me in 2020.

Please be aware that this list is by no means complete.

The most obvious exclusion from the list is my YouTube revenue earnings from banner ads. Google used to display this revenue through Google AdSense, however they now display YouTube earnings within YouTube itself. My technology YouTube channel generates around $650 per month, though as the YouTube partner program is not an affiliate program, I have not included it in the list.

I have also ommitted dozens of other affiliate programs. Individually, they do not make me a lot of money, but collectively they earn me over a thousand dollars every year.

The quest for cash continues!
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

1. Amazon

I have known many marketers to disregard the Amazon Associate Program because

Commission rates are between 1% and 10%.
There are many affiliates fighting for the same piece of the pie
Amazon is so established now that most customers will go directly to the website

All of this is, of course, true. Amazon's commission rates are low when compared to other affiliate programs and there are thousands of website owners trying to send people to a website that we are all familiar with. Despite this, I have found Amazon to be one of my most profitable affiliate programs online, in part because of Amazon's brand loyalty.

99% of my affiliate income from Amazon is generated from my YouTube channels, not this blog. Publishing product reviews on YouTube and displaying Amazon affiliate links underneath can be extremely profitable if the video ranks well as most viewers are already interested in the product.

The good thing about Amazon's affiliate program is that if a customer visits Amazon through your link, you can generate commissions from the customer buying other items too.

Amazon's Associate Program only pays 1% on products such as video game consoles, but it can still be hugely profitable for niche products.

2. Fiverr

The Fiverr freelancing marketplace exploded onto the scene in February 2010. Freelancing marketplaces had been around for over a decade at this point, but Fiverr did things differently by solely listing small jobs and contracts. It spawned a bizarre community of workers who would do anything for $5 and, no surprise, many competing gig websites sprung up over time.

Despite being known as a place to hire people cheaply, the official Fiverr affiliate program pays well. You can choose to make $10 per lead and a 10% revenue share or a dymanic CPA option that pays up to $150 per customer.

How much you actually earn depends on the category that the customer purchases a service. For example, you will make $30 if they purchase a creative writing gig and $60 if they buy a whiteboard explainer video. Their $150 payment is reserved for when customers purchase Fiverr PRO Services.

I have made a lot of money by promoting Fiverr, but as an affiliate, the company has always been terrible to deal with. As noted in my article “Why I’m Getting a Payment of Over $8,000 By Promoting Fiverr“, their stats were completely unreliable* and their support team was unresponsive (* To clarify, when I say unreliable, I mean their stats showed considerably less traffic than what I was sending them).

Thankfully, Fiverr also host an affiliate program with Awin.

Awin are a reliable affiliate network and you can trust that your clicks and leads will be tracked effectively. Therefore, if you want to make money promoting Fiverr, I recommend doing so through Awin instead.

Fiverr is quite generous with their commission rates.

3. WP Engine

WP Engine are one of the leading managed WordPress hosting services on the market. It's an easy recommendation for WordPress users as they are an established brand with a good reputation. They also sweeten the deal by offering hosting customers the full range of Genesis-powered WordPress themes from StudioPress.

The WP Engine affiliate program is hosted by ShareASale.

ShareASale are my favourite affiliate network at the moment as they always pay on time and have thousands of great companies to choose from. The network was acquired by Awin in 2017, but it continues to be run as a separate brand.

The WP Engine affiliate program is impressive. They pay $200 or 100% of a customer's first month's payment, whatever is greater. Healthy bonuses are paid when your referrals increase too.

They also give you 35% of any StudioPress theme purchases. So if you refer someone to WP Engine and they buy a StudioPress WordPress theme instead of a hosting plan, you will get a commission.

Hosting companies are known for paying good CPA rates to affiliates and WP Engine is no different.

4. Thrive Themes

Thrive Themes are a popular WordPress company that are behind many great WordPress products. This includes the page builder Thrive Architect, the landing page plugin Thrive Leads, the quiz builder Thrive Quiz Builder and the discussion plugin Thrive Comments.

I have tested most of their plugins whilst writing articles for other WordPress websites. All of their plugins are high quality and easy to recommend so I would like to do more reviews to increase my commissions from them. At the moment, I make less than $500 from them every year, but I know I can earn more.

The company pays 35% of all referred purchases and 25% of any recurring revenue you generate. Their minimum payout is only $20 too so you can expect regular commissions from them.

Thrive Themes sell many useful marketing WordPress plugins.

5. Envato

Envato sells hundreds of thousands of digital products through marketplaces such as CodeCanyon and ThemeForest.

I consistently made several hundred dollars a month recommending Envato products for many years. For the traffic I sent them, I should have been making tens of thousands of dollars.

Despite not actively promoting them, I still make a few hundreds bucks with them every year due to existing links on my blog.

Sadly, Envato have always had one of the least generous affiliate programs online, only offering a 30% commission on a customer's first purchase, with no commission if your referral is already a member and no recurring revenue on future purchases either. This is poor, particularly when you consider that low rate affiliate programs such as Amazon will at least pay you a commission for directing existing customers back to their website.

Envato is an established marketplace too, which means that if you send them 100 people, perhaps only four or five will be new members. If one of those members buys something for $5, you will only receive $1.50 in commissions, even if that member goes on to spend thousands of dollars over Envato over the following years.

In other words, you need to send a ton of traffic to Envato in order to make money and even if you do that, you are unlikely to make great money.

Envato also has a digital membership website called Envato Elements that gives members unlimited access to a catalogue of digital products. Their Envato Elements affiliate program pays $60 over three months for monthly customers or $120 if they pay a year in advance, but since it is a membership website, it will be difficult to make great money from the service long-term.

From an affiliate management point of view, Envato have always been terrible too. Their in-house affiliate program had terrible support and they actively allowed others to redirect users and steal commissions.

They now host everything through the Impact Radius affiliate network. It should be no surprise that the transition to Impact Radius was a shambles!

Whilst I do still make a little money with Envato, it's difficult to recommend them to affiliate marketers.

Envato's affiliate program is difficult to recommend.

Final Thoughts

I hope you have enjoyed this look at the five affiliate programs that are currently generating income for me.

Moving forward, my hope is that I greatly increase affiliate income and diversify where affiliate income is being generated. Amazon is a company I will continue to promote as I use them so much and their associates program converts well, but I will not be actively promoting services such as Envato anymore.

Making money from affiliation through content marketing can be hit or miss, particularly as the ranking of blog posts and pages are liable to change, however by publishing more high-quality articles and testing new affiliate programs, I should be able to generate income from different products and services in the future.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

Featured image courtesy of mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

The post 5 Affiliate Programs That Make Me Money was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Case Study: Selling an Old Website at a Huge Loss

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 13:45:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Case Study: Selling an Old Website at a Huge Loss

It is common for those who work online to share their successes with the world.

Whether it be a successful launch of a new product, a new sales record or a new social media milestone, people who work online do like to pay themselves on the back to demonstrate social proof.

I did this earlier this year when I wrote about my technology YouTube channel hitting the 10,000 subscriber milestone. A big yay for me!!!

Publishing your successful milestones can give the world a false impression that you are always hitting home runs.

As you can imagine, that is not the case.

Whether you work online alone or manage a large company, you are going to make many mistakes along the way.

In the interest of transparency, I would like to speak about my sale of MartialArtsVideos.com, a website which I sold at a huge loss.

What Went Wrong with Martial Arts Videos?

Martial Arts Videos was a website I launched in 2012.

The website published top lists of martial arts films and video clips.

It proved to be quite popular at the beginning and was generating good traffic and decent Google Adsense revenue, therefore I made the decision to invest more money in the project.

How Martial Arts Videos looked in 2013.

The website originally launched under the domain name MartialArtsVidz.com, but I soon picked up the domain name MartialArtsVideos.com for $7,100 and MartialArtsVideo.com for $1,000.

That's over $8,100 for the domain names alone and a few hundred dollars more if you add eight additional years of domain renewal years.

Another $12,000 was invested in Facebook Ads and I paid writers to write articles for the website for a year or so too.

So in total, I suspect my total costs for the website were over $22,000 and I only brought in a few thousand dollars back in ad revenue.

Martial Arts Videos made over £1,000 in Google Adsense revenue in just a few months.

The amount I invested in Facebook sounds a little crazy today, but this strategy was actually working well initially as after the initial investment, the page started growing organically on its own quickly.

I had over 65,000 Facebook followers at one point and frequent post updates on Facebook helped send lots of traffic to the website.

Unfortunately, I had all my eggs in the Facebook basket and in one fell swoop, my traffic was decimated by a major change in Facebook's page publishing policy.

Facebook previously delivered post updates to 100% of the people who subscribed to a page, but they then made the decision to reduce this to less than 5%. Sometimes it was as low as 1%.

Previously, when I had 50,000 followers, an update about a new article was previously shown on the home page feed of all 50,000 followers.

After the change, an update was only shown to 1,000 to 2,000 people at most.

Before Facebook had implemented this change, I was on track to break even with my investment in three to six months due to the growth of the Facebook page, but that completely fell apart when Facebook decided to only deliver updates to a small number of followers.

The website was incredibly popular at one point.

Despite this, the website still had a huge amount of potential.

It has one of the best domain names available for that niche, the Google Adsense page RPM was relatively high and the website was easy to update.

That is why I spent time relaunching the website in 2013, which I documented in my case study “The Relaunch of Martial Arts Videos“.

I encourage you to read the article to get a better understanding of how I was trying to make the website profitable again.

Selling Martial Arts Videos on Flippa

Six months ago, I made the decision to sell MartialArtsVideos.com.

I had =listed it for sale on Flippa a few years ago, however I had not received a bid I was happy with.

This time, I set the reserve at $3,000, with the expectation that I would get at least $5,000 for it.

In the end, I accepted $4,500 for it, which worked out at $4,255 after Flippa and Escrow fees.

Martial Arts Videos would have sold for much more several years ago.

I am one of the oldest members of Flippa.

Flippa states that my account is 19 years old, but I had been selling websites on SitePoint's marketplace since 2000, before the marketplace was transformed into the Flippa marketplace we all know today.

The overall experience of selling on Flippa can be frustrating due to the large number of time-wasters who participate in website trading.

I got dozens of messages from people asking about Martial Arts Videos.

Many would ask questions that were already answered in the sales thread
Many would ask for access to Google Analytics, despite the fact they had zero trades (i.e. a large percentage were just nosy)
Many would ask question after question, then say their budget is only $250

Before a serious bid came in, I was leaning towards pulling the sale of the website as responding to messages was taking up so much of my time.

Thankfully, the person who bought the website was professional, placing a bid shortly after I answered a couple of questions.

Less than a few months later, the buyer abandoned the website and redirected it to another martial arts website they owned. This sounds bizarre, however it is more common than you think. Even websites I sold for tens of thousands of dollars were quickly dropped or redirected to another website.

It's testament to the fact that a lot of website traders have money to invest in websites, but do not know how to maintain them or develop them further.

Understanding the Mistakes You Make

I still strongly believe that MartialArtsVideos.com had great potential.

Eight years later after I launched the website, I was still receiving dozens of messages from martial artists who wanted to publish their videos there, which is testament to the fact there is a market for that type of website.

So why was it not a success?

I could give you many valid reasons, and many excuses, as to why Martial Arts Videos was not successful, however the biggest reason was time.

There is only so many hours that you can spend working every week. I was dividing my time between this blog, YouTube and several other website projects.

I was always reluctant to commit the time that the project needed as it was not making good money. Additionally, at the back of my mind, I was always concerned that I was throwing money away as there were safer projects I could have invested in.

Managing time effectively is an essential ingredient of working online.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

It is easy to underestimate the time and energy that is required to not only develop a website, but maintain it. This is especially true if your time is divided between many different projects.

You can, of course, bring people in to help you. This is easy to justify when a website makes money, but difficult when it has been running at a loss for years.

In over 20 years of working online, one of the mistakes I have repeatedly made is to not sell a website when I had no time to take it forward.

Instead of selling MartialArtsVideos, I did nothing. Slowly, but surely, the website became stagnant and traffic reduced over time.

Selling a website that has not met its potential means you have to accept selling it at a lower price. It can be difficult to accept this initially, however if you have no plans to develop the website further, you need to sell it.

Moving forward, I plan on addressing this problem and selling several older projects that I have.

Doing this means accepting that I will not get a great price for those websites, but it also means that I will be losing dead weight and freeing up more time to work on projects that matter.

Final Thoughts

I hope you have enjoyed this look at my sale of MartialArtsVideos.com. The website is one of many websites that I hope to sell over the next year so that I can focus 100% on active projects.

I am confident of increasing my income significantly over the next few years, but make no qualms about it, I will still make mistakes along the way.

That is the price you pay for taking risks.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post Case Study: Selling an Old Website at a Huge Loss was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Taking My Tech YouTube Channel in a Different Direction

Fri, 21 Aug 2020 09:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Taking My Tech YouTube Channel in a Different Direction

I do not enjoy sitting analysing statistics all day long, but from time to time it is important to review things. When I began to analyse traffic stats for my technology channel recently, it quickly became apparent that I need to change things moving forward.

The channel continues to grow every week, however I am not growing fast enough. Certainly not for the time I am investing into the channel.

Without doubt, I am at a crossroads.

Covering Too Many Topics

When I initially launched my tech channel, I mainly focused on travel, business related issues and WordPress. It made sense at the time as I was backpacking through South America and was still updating this blog regularly.

Once I got back to the UK, I started focusing on technology topics instead. The channel covers a wide number of tech topics including cameras, smartphones, tablets, laptops, computers, graphics cards, hard drives, gaming and more.

A recent copyright claim forced me to re-record part of a video and upload it again.

I have always enjoyed covering a wide range of topics on the channel as it keeps things interesting for me, however this decision has undoubtedly cost me many subscribers.

It is much easier to grow a YouTube channel that focuses on one topic as you do not alienate subscribers. Subscribers who enjoy my videos about smartphones, may not care about cameras. Likewise, though who enjoyed my laptop reviews, may not be interested in gaming.

Therefore, when people subscribe to your channel for different reasons, you risk alienating a large percentage of your subscribers every time you upload a video.

Moving forward, I may have to start being more selective about the topics I cover. If not, subscriber growth will continue to stagnate.

Following the Latest Trends On YouTube

Covering too many topics is one reason why my channel is not growing at the rate I want, but a bigger reason is the “Type of Products” that I have been covering.

A quick look at my stats shows that news videos perform really well on YouTube. From my end, these videos take considerably less time to produce too.

Product reviews and tutorials do well too, but it is clear that only newer products are generating thousands of views. If I review a product that was not released within the last few months, I sometimes struggle to get 100 views. That is abysmal, especially when you consider these videos sometimes take a day to produce.

You may be thinking “Why not just post news videos all the time?”.

Whilst there are YouTube channels who do just that, it is not something I ever wanted. Ideally, I would like my channel to focus mostly on reviews and tutorials with occasional news videos on stories that interest me.

The exception to this rule is live streams. I am a huge fan of doing live streams and talking discussing the latest tech news with subscribers. Unfortunately, it is not something that would grow my channel. It does help me connect with subscribers, but as live streams are long, their recordings generate few views afterwards.

Here's a summary of my review problem.

Companies offer products to me to review every day of the week, however the products that are offered rarely generate views
These reviews still take a lot of time to research, record, edit and upload
My YouTube channel is not popular enough to receive review offers from companies that manufacturer new and popular products
Whilst these new products would generate more views, I would need to spend thousands on them
The cost of buying new products can be mitigated by selling them after the reviews have been completed
Selling products is time-consuming and you sometimes lose 30% of the cost when you sell the product on

With an unlimited budget, I could continually buy new products to generate views. Obviously, I don't have that an unlimited budget, however I do not want to get caught in the review rat race with other YouTubers anyways.

I believe I need to take a stand back and rethink how I approach my technology YouTube channel so that I am more productive with my time.

I should spend more time updating this blog in order to increase income
Additional income can be put towards reviewing better products
Product quality should be improved – Less is more!

There is no doubt that I need to shake things up and switch the direction of my channel, but there are positives to be taken from my YouTube journey over the last two years too. For example, the quality of my videos has generally improved during this time and my channel continues to grow.

Final Thoughts

It does not matter if you are developing a blog, a YouTube channel or an online store. Like every project, there is a risk of reaching a place of comfort and running on auto-pilot.

I have been guilty of this. Every week I have been churning out content without really thinking about the direction I was taking my channel.

Whilst I am acutely aware of the mistakes I have made, I am positive about the future. I have learned a lot over the last few years and I believe the experience I have gained will serve me well.

Moving forward, I need to think more about how I advance this channel. Traffic is always easier to come by if you publish content about trending topics, however my long-term goal is a loyal subscriber base. Therefore, I do have to give strong consideration to talking about less topics.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post Taking My Tech YouTube Channel in a Different Direction was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

YouTube Changes Mid-Roll Ad Break Policy

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 09:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon YouTube Changes Mid-Roll Ad Break Policy

YouTube refers to any advertisements during a video as a “Mid-Roll Ad Break”. On 27 July 2020, YouTube introduced some changes to mid-roll ad breaks that change the number of advertisements that are shown during YouTube videos.

Since most of my videos are longer than eight minutes, these changes effect most of my videos, but is this a good step by YouTube?

I discuss this issue in the video below.

An overview of YouTube Mid-Roll Ads after a few weeks.

Keep reading on to learn more about these changes.

Mid-Roll Advertisements

YouTube gives content creators various ways to insert advertisements into their videos.

The first thing they ask you is what types of ads you want to display. There are five options: Display Ads, Overlay Ads, Sponsored Cards, Skippable video ads and Non-skippable video ads. By default, all five ad types are selected, however, you can deselect any ad types you do not want to use.

YouTube also allows you to select the location of ads. You can choose to display ads before, during and after videos.

Throughout my YouTube journey, I have just displayed advertisements before a video starts and never during or after a video. As you can see from the screenshot below, YouTube are now automatically inserting mid-roll ads into my videos too.

YouTube has now enabled mid-roll ads by default.

In the video below, Google explains how mid-roll ads work.

Until YouTube implemented these new changes, I had never inserted a mid-roll ad into any of my videos, however other YouTubers have been using them for years to increase income on their website.

YouTube can insert these ads automatically or, if you prefer, you can select exactly when mid-roll advertisements are shown.

You can insert mid-roll ads throughout your videos.

I think mid-roll ads are a great idea for long-form content such as live stream playbacks, podcast style interviews and other long videos. I do think, however, that many YouTubers are abusing the feature and inserting too many advertisements into their videos.

The Mid-Roll Ad Break Changes

Let's talk about the exact changes YouTube has introduced.

In “Manage mid-roll ad breaks in long videos“, YouTube notes that:

The eligibility threshold for videos to have mid-roll ads has been reduced from 10 to 8 minutes
Mid-roll ads have been turned on by default for all eligible existing videos and set as the default for future video uploads

So you can now introduce mid-roll videos at eight minutes instead of ten, but the big change here is that mid-roll advertisements have been automatically enabled for all existing videos that are eligible.

I have reviewed many of my videos to see exactly what has changed.

As I noted earlier, I had previously enabled pre-roll ads so that the only advertisement was displayed at the start of the video. On some of my videos, the pre-roll advertisement at the start as been replaced with a mid-roll advertisement instead. In others, they have enabled an advertisement at the beginning and end of the video, but no mid-roll ads are displayed.

My initial concern about this new change was that I would overwhelm viewers with advertisements, however it appears that they are simply refining when advertisements are displayed.

And the Results Are In…

I was not initially convinced by this new change to mid-roll ads. My first thought was to disable mid-roll ads altogether, but I wanted to test it out a few weeks to see how it affected views and income.

Surprisingly, this change to mid-roll advertisements does not appear to have changed anything. I haven't seen any dramatic change to page views or to income. On the plus side, this means the new changes are not scaring viewers away. On the down side, income is not increasing.

Whilst I make a point of not overwhelming viewers with ads, others will insert as many advertisements as possible. I do believe that it is up to every YouTuber to decide how many advertisements they insert into their videos, however I also recognise that the actions of others affect my channel too.

If YouTubers increase the number of advertisements being displayed, we may see more users use ad blocking scripts and browsers. This would lead to a decrease in revenue for everyone, not just those that are blasting users with ads.

Final Thoughts

Whilst the introduction of automatic mid-roll advertisements will not please everyone, I am pleased by the fact that YouTube are experimenting with ads as I believe there is room for improvement.

Advertisement integration will evolve over time as users viewing habits change. YouTube are keen to push users to YouTube Premium, but adoption has been slow so far. I am planning on signing up to YouTube Premium myself so that I do not see any ads when I use YouTube. Perhaps other users will do the same. We shall see.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post YouTube Changes Mid-Roll Ad Break Policy was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Can You Have Too Many WordPress Plugins?

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 14:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Can You Have Too Many WordPress Plugins?

Ever since WordPress launched, many people have been advising others not to install many WordPress plugins. The thinking behind this is that when more WordPress plugins are installed on your website, your website will be slower and less secure.

Is this actually true?

In my experience, no. The number of WordPress plugins you have installed on your website is not indicative of the speed and security of your website.

Check out my video above where I explore the idea of many WordPress plugins bloating your website.

The “Too Many Plugins” Argument

The idea that too many WordPress plugins is detrimental to your website has been circulating for years. There are countless discussions about it on WordPress.org and on thousands of blogs.

For example, in the article “WordPress Plugins: How Many is Too Many?“, Brad Smith says :

Too many plugins can lead to security breaches on your site, site crashes, bad performance, slow loading speeds, and more. A good rule of thumb is to never exceed 20 plugins. If your site is hosted on shared or budget cloud hosting, try not to use more than 5 plugins.
Brad Smith – TorqueMag

Brad's article does have have good tips such as removing inactive WordPress plugins and only installing plugins that were developed by reputable companies, but the idea that you should never exceed 20 plugins is ridiculous. It just isn't true that more WordPress plugins equates to more problems.

At the time of writing, this blog has 38 installed WordPress plugins and is secure. I have no idea how many WordPress plugins TorgueMag has activated at this time, but their website is slow, taking over six seconds to load their home page using 137 requests. In comparison, my home page loads in one second using only 8 requests.

This blog loads quickly, despite having 38 activated WordPress plugins.

I am not pointing this out to be critical of TorqueMag, but to illustrate that having many WordPress plugins does not mean that your website is slow to load. It just isn't true. Websites that have many active WordPress plugins can be optimised in the same way as websites with just a few.

What about website security?

The idea that if you have many WordPress plugins active on your website, you are more likely to have security holes and vulnerabilities. This way of thinking is too simplistic as it as assumes that all WordPress plugins are equal. They are not.

In my opinion, you will not make your WordPress less secure by activating more plugins if you ensure:

All plugins are developed by good companies and individuals
All plugins are regularly updated
You only activate necessary plugins
Inactive plugins are deleted
You use one or more WordPress security plugins

Security plugins are sometimes left out of the “Too Many Plugins” discussion, but they should not be.

What would you rather have:

A WordPress website with 100 activated plugins that used security plugins to protect brute force logins, remove common threats and scan for vulnerabilities
or
A WordPress website with five activated plugins, but no active security plugin

Going back to Brad Smith's article, he notes that the problem with too many plugins is that it causes security vulnerabilities, yet the examples of hacking he gives had nothing to do with how many WordPress plugins were installed and everything to do with those plugins being outdated and insecure.

Brad also suggests that more WordPress plugins increases the chance of your website crashing. This is simply not true if you use secure reliable WordPress plugins. If you actively maintain your WordPress website, it doesn't matter if you have five WordPress plugins activated or 50.

Please also remember that every WordPress plugins are different. Some plugins insert a couple of lines of code into your website, whilst others add dozens of database tables and are constantly running cron jobs to operate.

Final Thoughts

The whole idea that you should limit your WordPress website to a predefined number of WordPress plugins is misleading as it does not take into account more important WordPress maintenance issues such as updates, website optimisation and website security.

It does not take into account how much functionality each WordPress plugin is adding to your website either and how many resources they use as certain WordPress plugins require more resources.

For example, if you install security WordPress plugins, related posts plugins, forum plugins etc, your server will require more CPU and memory to operate efficiently. Due to this, you may have to upgrade to a more powerful website hosting package and use content delivery networks to ensure your page loading times do not increase.

Thank you for reading.

Kevin

The post Can You Have Too Many WordPress Plugins? was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

How to Get Free Products

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 09:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon How to Get Free Products

Would you like to get valuable products sent to you every week free of charge? It is easier than you think. All you have to do is review products online and build up an audience. That's it.

Every week, I get hundreds of dollars worth of products sent to me free of charge. Some companies contact me through this website, some companies see my profile on Amazon, others find me via my technology YouTube channel.

The concept is simple. Companies send me these products free of charge in exchange for me reviewing them. It's that simple.

Check out my video below to learn more about how it all works.

Keep reading for a more detailed explanation of how it all works.

Getting “Free” Products is Easy

Getting free stuff on the internet is easy. A quick search on a search engine or social media platform like Facebook or Twitter will bring up competitions, online surveys, rewards for sign ups, free trials, product samples and more. Websites such as Swagbucks offer a combination of all of these.

Of course, no matter how companies market it, nothing on the internet is technically “Free”.

It takes time to participate in competitions and surveys, so you always have to weigh up whether the hoops that a company wants you to jump through are worthwhile. Companies frequently offer freebies as they want your personal information, which is why it is best to create an email address specifically for these campaigns as it prevents spam being sent to an email address you use.

Companies such as Swagbucks will pay you in gift cards for participating in online surveys.

Unfortunately, most of the “Free” products that are offered by companies are cheap and worth less than ten bucks. In my opinion, it just isn't worth your time taking part in these campaigns as the reward is so low (though I do appreciate others prefer these campaigns as they are quicker to enter).

If you want to be sent good products that have value, you need to give companies exposure. You can do this by reviewing their products on websites and YouTube channels. Companies may also approach you if you are active on Amazon too (though this goes against Amazon's terms and conditions, so be careful).

Yes, it does take longer to write a good review than it does to just enter your name and email address, but wouldn't you prefer to have something valuable than something you will throw away?

Building an Audience

No company or seller is going to send you products for review if you don't have an audience.

I could write a dozen articles on building an audience on a website or social media platform, but I truly believe the best way to build your profile as a good reviewer is to just start reviewing products you own or have just purchased.

You can do this by:

Creating video reviews for your YouTube channel
Publishing detailed image and video reviews on Amazon
Writing detailed reviews for your website (this is a great way to generate affiliate commissions too!)

Please bear in mind that it will take time to build up your reviewer profile. It will not happen overnight.

You need to take the time to write high-quality reviews that give an honest opinion of the product. It can be tempting to rush out short reviews in order to increase the number of reviews you have published, however I strongly believe that one high-quality review will raise your profile more than 20 short reviews will.

Reaching Out to Advertisers

If you publish good reviews on a regular basis, advertisers will approach you to review their products.

In the beginning, you may want to accept all review requests as it will allow you to publish more reviews and raise your profile further, but once you have established yourself as a good reviewer, you can be more selective.

Every day I get approached to review products on my website and YouTube channels, but I am at the point now where I turn down most requests. Most requests are turned out because the products are not relevant to what I do online or because the items are cheap.

I recommend approaching companies and asking to review products too. Whether you get a positive response or not depends on many factors, however in my experience, the vast majority of companies do not even reply to emails and those that do often want guarantees of exposure.

Other companies simply refuse to deal with reviewers that do not have a massive audience.

For example, a few years ago I invested a few thousand pounds in microphones and other audio equipment. It was a big investment, so I reached out to a dozen or so companies and asked whether they would give a discount in exchange for giving them a mention in my reviews. I only got one email reply and the company said that whilst they appreciated the offer, they only dealt with YouTubers with over 50,000 subscribers.

Please bear in mind, however, that the products I was purchasing were expensive. As you would expect, you will get a better response from companies when products costs less than $100.

So what is the best way to get more products sent to you for review?

If you want to maximise the number of quality products you review, I recommend publishing detailed reviews as this will increase the number of advertisers and sellers that approach you. You can expand this further by contacting suitable companies directly.

Final Thoughts

I hope you now have a better understanding as to how reviewers like myself are sent products every week for review.

Please remember, however, that these products aren't really free. Companies will frequently approach you with “Free Products” as if they are doing you a favour, but you should always remember that you are giving them cheap exposure and it will take you time to test products and produce good reviews.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post How to Get Free Products was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Stop Looking for Shortcuts to Success

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 09:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Stop Looking for Shortcuts to Success

The internet is awash with pyramid schemes, get rich quick schemes and courses that promise that you can make a living from only two hours of work per day.

You may be tempted to purchase a course or book that promotes a “Killer Technique” for making money online, but do not believe the hype. The majority of people who push these products are inexperienced and their sole source of income is their “Making Money” eBook or course.

Unfortunately, most people who want to make money online look for shortcuts. I would hazard a guess that less than 1% of people who look to make a living from the internet actually do so.

If you want to be successful, work hard, don't take shortcuts and think long-term about what you are trying to achieve.

Instead of looking for shortcuts to make a quick buck, I recommend spending your time learning new skills. You should learn how to code, read books about launching a business and examine how other businesses actually generate income.

My YouTube Crossroads

Several years ago, I was at a crossroads after selling my WordPress tutorial website WPMods. I explored a number of avenues such as publishing books, podcasting and discussion forums. I made a little money from books and discussion forums, however I quickly discovered that I enjoyed YouTube the most.

The problem is that I was a complete novice. I knew nothing about editing, nothing about recording good video and audio and no idea of the direction I had to take my channel.

If you want to see how bad I was, check out this video:

I told you I knew nothing!!!

What I lacked in knowledge, I made up with enthusiasm. I started looking at why my videos were so bad and hung out in audio and video recording communities to learn more about the technical problems I was facing.

To say I made many mistakes along the way would be an understatement, but I never looked for shortcuts. I was always looking to learn and I spent thousands of hours recording videos.

I'm nowhere near where I want to be, but I am at a point where my YouTube channels make money and I have a good understanding of how to produce videos. I would never have learned these skills if I had taken shortcuts.

People Want Success Without Doing the Work

In the early 2000s, I launched a few webmaster and marketing related discussion forums. A few years later, I launched a forum about blogging and in the early 2010s, I launched Rise Forums. Through these forums, I have had questions from tens of thousands from website owners and would-be entrepreneurs who were looking for advice.

The most frustrating aspect of helping others is that most people who asked for help did not actually want the advice you gave, they just wanted you to do it for them.

For example, someone would ask a technical question about WordPress and I would give a general explanation of the issue they were having and link to a couple of good tutorials that walked them through resolving it. Nine times out of ten, they would come back and say “Can't you just do it for me”.

When I got a response like that, I just wished them good luck and did not waste any more time helping them. The reality is that you cannot help people who do not want to help themselves.

Final Thoughts

If you are just starting out, you may gravitate towards webmaster and marketing communities which explain how you can make money easily on the internet. Be cautious of any products that are being pushed to you there and have your “Bullshit Radar” ready as they are full of people who are projecting themselves as something they are not.

The reality is that in order to build a successful website, YouTube channel, online store or podcast, you have to put in the time.

Good luck.

Kevin

The post Stop Looking for Shortcuts to Success was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Five Great Free Business WordPress Themes

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 13:22:08 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Five Great Free Business WordPress Themes

There are thousands of free business themes available in the WordPress repository that cater to all kinds of businesses, however the vast number of choices can be overwhelming.

In this article, I would like to show you five of the best free WordPress business themes that are mobile-friendly and optimized for performance.

1. Go

Go is a simple WordPress theme that was designed by GoDaddy. It works well with GoDaddy's CoBlocks block WordPress plugin and is well-suited for small businesses, blogs and portfolio websites.

Within the WordPress theme customiser, you will see options for changing your header, footer and social media icons. There is also a selection of pre-made colour schemes that can transform the look of your website.

Go has many useful items within the WordPress theme customiser.

Download Go from WordPress.org

2. Futurio

Futurio is a fast lightweight multipurpose WordPress theme that is suitable for businesses, portfolios, landing pages, photography websites and eCommerce stores.

Over a dozen pre-made high-quality designs are included with Futurio that allow you to transform your website design in seconds and the theme is designed to work with page builders such as Beaver Builder and Elementor. It is also compatible with popular WordPress plugins such as JetPack, Yoast SEO and Contact Form 7.

Futurio PRO is available from only $39. It gives you access to many more high-quality designs and unlocks additional features such as Google fonts, sticky sidebar, custom content width and more.

Futurio comes packaged with many free designs.

Download Futurio from WordPress.org

3. Hestia

Hestia is a one-page business WordPress theme that has native support for the WordPress theme customiser and support for WooCommerce and popular WordPress page builders. Mega menus are available too.

A companion WordPress plugin called Orbit Fox is available that adds social media sharing buttons, Google Analytics integration, landing page templates and widgets for page builders. Starter Site templates can be unlocked if you upgrade to Hestia Pro.

Hestia is a stunning business WordPress theme.

Download Hestia from WordPress.org

4. Colibri WP

Colibri WP is a clean, elegant and attractive WordPress theme that can be used for many types of websites including online magazines, business websites, educational resources, blogs, portfolios and more.

It is a highly customisable theme that includes sections for displaying images, videos, slideshows, footers, contact forms and testimonials. Over 40 drag and drop components are available too.

Three pre-made template designs are available in the free version of Colibri WP, however you can gain access to over 60 beautiful designs if you upgrade to Colibri WP Pro.

The pro version of Colibri WP has over 60 beautiful pre-made website designs.

Download Colibri WP from WordPress.org

5. Sinatra

Sinatra is a clean and beautiful multipurpose WordPress theme that is suitable for business websites, blogs, e-commerce stors and more.

Within the WordPress theme customiser, you can adjust the header, hero section, footer, blog, widths, colours and typography. The position of your sidebars can also be changed and there are four widget boxes in the footer.

Sinatra has a ton of website design customisation options.

Download Sinatra from WordPress.org

Final Thoughts

I hope you have found this list of free business WordPress themes useful. Be sure to test each theme thoroughly to see if it meets your needs.

The post Five Great Free Business WordPress Themes was written by Chirag Naiknavare and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Spotlight – The Instagram Engagement WordPress Plugin

Mon, 13 Jul 2020 09:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Spotlight – The Instagram Engagement WordPress Plugin

Spotlight is a new social media plugin for WordPress that integrates Instagram into your website.

Using Spotlight, you can automatically display your latest photographs and videos. This can increase engagement with your followers, attract new followers and expand your reach.

The plugin allows you to connect multiple Instagram accounts and display an unlimited number of Instagram feeds. This is useful in a number of situations. For example, if you wish, you could display the Instagram feeds of all of your website's writing staff.

As you would expect from a modern WordPress plugin, Spotlight uses responsive layouts so that your Instagram looks great on any device.

Spotlight was created to help you increase your social media presence online.

Spotlight was developed by RebelCode, the same company behind the popular WordPress blog WP Mayor and WordPress plugins such as WP RSS Aggregator and Bookings for Easy Digital Downloads.

They have released the core version of Spotlight free of charge, however Mark Zahra from RebelCode got in touch with me recently and gave me access to the pro version of Spotlight. I would therefore like to show you both versions in this article.

Full Disclosure Alert!! :)

Please be aware that I am not an active Instagram user. Far from it.

It's a platform that many of my friends use every single day, but years ago I adopted Twitter as my main social media platform as I just do not have the time to regularly update Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and other services.

Getting Started With the Free Version of Spotlight

The free version of Spotlight can be downloaded from WordPress.org or from the plugin page of your WordPress admin area.

Spotlight is free to download.

In order to distribute their WordPress plugin, RebelCode have used the Freemius service. The Freemius service helps WordPress developers by simplifying the deployment, maintenance and marketing of plugins and themes. Advanced tools such as cart abandonment and integrated affiliate programs are also provided.

Whilst I fully understand why developers use Freemius, as a WordPress user, I am not fan of this new trend of developers of displaying opt-in forms immediately after activating a plugin or theme.

It is one of many reasons why the WordPress platform is so bloated today.

Freemius always ask users to opt into their marketing campaigns.

Freemius also asks you for feedback when you deactivate Spotlight.

Again, I do understand why developers want this information, but it is another feature which is greatly slowing down WordPress and making it more bloated.

I have nearly 40 WordPress plugins installed on this website and a large number of the plugins I am using are hijacking the WordPress admin area.

Deactivating the plugin

Now that I have my complaints out the way, let's look at Spotlight :)

In the main feeds page, you will be asked to connect to your Instagram account.

A message displaying an offer of 7-day free trial of Spotlight Pro is displayed too. No credit card is necessary to take advantage of this.

My recommendation is to sign up for the trial on the Spotlight website as a 14-day free trial is being offered there.

Connecting to Instagram.

When you select to connect to Instagram, you will be asked whether you want to connect to a personal Instagram account or an Instagram business account.

A pop-up box will appear to allow you to connect to your Instagram account.

Unfortunately, Instagram does not provide the profile photo and bio test for personal accoounts. If you wish, you can add this manually in Spotlight.

The message that is displayed when you connect to a personal Instagram account.

One you have authorised Instagram, you will be taken to the design page where you can preview how your feed will look in desktops, tablets and mobile devices.

I did notice right away that posts that you have archived in Instagram are displayed on this page. These posts are only displayed to you and will not be displayed to others (though for the purpose of this review, the inclusion or archived posts means that I had to stealthily remove a photo of my ex-girlfriend from the screenshot below!).

The design page.

The design pages has settings spanned across nine different sections. Settings for layout, popup box, captions and likes and comments, are not available in the free version of Spotlight, however there's still many options for those who choose to use the core version.

You can change the number of posts being displayed, widths and padding, whether bio information is displayed, colours and more.

Dozens of design options are available.

Once you have finished designing your output, you just need to copy the provided shortode and embed it into a post or page.

You can also integrate the feed via a WordPress widget, but at the moment there is no option within the WordPress editor to insert feeds using a button or block.

The Instagram feed.

That's all there is to setting up Spotlight and displaying your Instagram feed on your WordPress website. The whole process only takes a few minutes.

The Settings Area

One major limitation of many social media WordPress plugins is that you can only connect to one social media account. Spotlight has no such limitation.

From the main plugin settings area, you can manage all of your connected accounts.

The accounts page.

When I first connected to Spotlight, I initially selected “No, maybe later” when I was prompted to upload my profile image manually.

Thankfully, you can go back at any time and add this information in the main Spotlight settings area by simply clicking on your connected accounts.

It's straightforward to add your profile and bio.

In the configuration page, you can define how often Spotlight checks for new posts and whether unseen posts are deleted after a set number of days.

Optimisation can be run hourly, bi-daily, daily or weekly.

On the tools page, you can clear the plugin cache.

Clearing the cache is recommended if you have changed many settings.

There really aren't that many options in the plugin settings area, but it is important to remember that Spotlight is brand new. Over time, I suspect we will see more options being added.

On a personal note, I would like to see an option to remove all data once Spotlight has been deactivated.

Spotlight Pro

I believe RebelCode have been incredibly generous with the features they have included in the free version of Spotlight, however there are many reasons to upgrade to Spotlight Pro.

Upgrading allows you to embed stories, use hashtags to display content from all of Instagram, filter tags and captions and customise colours, layouts and more.

There are two premium plans available and both versions give you access to the full version of Spotlight. The yearly license costs $59 and a lifetime license costs $199.

Unfortunately, both licenses only provide support and updates for one website. I would like to see the developers increase the number of supported websites as the plugin could could prove costly to anyone who wants to use Spotlight on a few websites.

On the plus side, a 14-day free trial of Spotlight Pro is available to help you test out features and all purchases come with a 14-day money back guarantee too.

Spotlight Pro is available from only $59.

Once you have activated Spotlight Pro, you will be asked to enter your license key in order to use the plugin.

You need to enter your license information in order to use Spotlight Pro.

When you go into the design page, you will see a number of new options.

In addition to the grid layout, you can now select a new highlight layout and a masonry layout. All of the pro features which were previously restricted are now unlocked too. This includes displaying the media count, follower count, Instagram stories and more.

Spotlight Pro adds two new layout options.

Spotlight Pro aslo adds settings for pop-up boxes, captions, likes and comments. It's a useful feature for hiding certain types of content.

Spotlight Pro expands the number of design options that are available.

Spotlight Pro allows you to only show or hide posts that match specific words, phrases or hashtags.

Instagram Filters

Filters can also be added in the main plugin settings page. Any filters that are added on this page will be applied to all connected Instagram accounts.

Global Filters

Another cool feature in Spotlight Pro is the ability to show or hide specific images and videos. This is useful if you have private content on your Instagram account that you do not want to display on your website.

Simply select the content you want to show or hide.

Just like in the free version, you can embed your Instagram feed by embedding the provided shortcode into a post or page.

Final Thoughts

I hope you have enjoyed this look at Spotlight.

Whilst the plugin is not in beta, it is important to remember that I have written this review just days after it has been released. Despite this, I did not come across any bugs or errors during my tests and I have no doubt that we will see more features and settings added to the plugin over the next year.

If you're an Instagram user, it is easy to recommend the free version of Spotlight. It only takes a few minutes to connect to your account and start displaying your images and videos using the plugin and there are a number of great layout customisation options available too.

Spotlight Pro introduces two new additional layouts, filters and many more design options, however I would love to see the developers expand the pro version further by introducing pre-made layouts. This would be a great help to non-designers like myself who have no imagination.

Is the pro version of Spotlight worth it?

If you are looking to display Instagram stories and have more control over what is displayed, I believe it's worthwhile upgrading. $59 is not a lot of money to spend if you are using Instagram to raise your profile or promote your business.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I would like the developers to be a little more generous with usage and increase the number of supported websites that their plans support.

Please visit the official website of Spotlight to learn more about what the WordPress plugin can do.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post Spotlight – The Instagram Engagement WordPress Plugin was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Do Not Use Brave Browser

Thu, 11 Jun 2020 13:05:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Do Not Use Brave Browser

Brave markets its browser as improving speed, security and privacy.

Their browser incorporates ad-blocking functionality to prevent disable advertisements and trackers.

Whilst I do support security and privacy, I cannot recommend anyone to use their browser.

Unfair to Website Owners

The marketing team from Brave approached me a year or so ago and asked me to check out their service.

I advised them immediately that I did not agree with what they were doing, but they were polite throughout our correspondence, so I created an account to see how their rewards system actually worked.

Brave promote themselves as helping publishers. They're not.

I fundamentally disagree with the whole premise of Brave's reward system.

They have the balls to tell the world that they are helping content creators, but let's take a step back and think about what they are actually doing.

They are removing advertisements from your website
They are replacing them with their own advertisements
You then need to sign up and claim money in the form of a shitty cryptocurrency token

Yes, you're reading that right.

Brave browser is decreasing revenue from website owners and then asking for them to claim it back in the form of a cryptocurrency token.

Would you be happy with a platform reducing your income by hundreds or thousands of dollars per month and then rewarding you with a few dollars in return?

I do believe every internet user has the right to use ad-blocking scripts and services, however browsers have no right to replace the advertisements for websites. That's theft.

And here's the sticking point.

Brave is a privacy browser, but if you want to actually claim your tokens, you need to provide sensitive information such as your name and address.

A company that truly cared about privacy would not request this.

They Do Not Care About Privacy or Security

Last week, YouTuber Seth Estrada brought it to my attention that they were hijacking websites and inserting their own affiliate links.

Brave Browser Caught Forcing It’s Own Affiliate Links #privacy #privacytech pic.twitter.com/qTyXeTPMk6
— MineYourrrrrrrr.Biz (@SethEstrada) June 6, 2020

Yes, you read that correctly.

Brave has been caught redirecting website addresses so that they can insert their own affiliate code.

“So when you are using the @brave browser and type in “binance[.]us” you end up getting redirected to “binance[.]us/en?ref=35089877”
Source: Cryptonator1337

You gotta hand it to them.

Promoting yourself as a security company whilst hijacking your user's browser is some scam.

Not the First Time, Not the Last Time

I truly believe that actions speak louder than words.

Brave's actions over the last few years have highlighted that they cannot be trusted.

In 2019, for example, the company was found to be fundraising on behalf of others, without any consent.

Even their rewards system does not sit right with me. If they truly respected website owners, they would simply have given users the ability to allow website ads to be displayed on legitimate websites.

Mark my words, this company will screw over users again in the future.

All they are interested in is profiting from their users. They do not care about your security or your privacy.

What's the Alternative?

If you are an existing Brave user, I recommend using something else.

David Gerard recommends Chromium with the uBlock Origin ad blocker extension.

He also recommends Firefox with uBlock Origin.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post Do Not Use Brave Browser was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.

Online Ventures – The New Name for My Business YouTube Channel

Wed, 03 Jun 2020 09:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muldoon Online Ventures – The New Name for My Business YouTube Channel

One month ago, I spoke about changing the direction of my cryptocurrency YouTube channel.

The focus of the channel will now be more in line with the topics I cover on this blog. So I will be sharing my experiences with being a YouTuber, speak about making money online, review products and services I use and more.

Since the channel will no longer focus on cryptocurrency exclusively, I have to rebrand it.

Brainstorming a New Name

It can be difficult to select a name for a new YouTube channel as you want something that is brandable, but also something that explains what your channel covers.

I wanted a name that did not limit me to one or two topics. Something which summarised the overall goal of the channel.

To help me brainstorm a new name, I asked subscribers for feedback.

I received many suggestions for the channel on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

The one I liked the best came from the YouTube user Captain Happy

Captain Happy's suggestion struck a chord with me.

Online Ventures is a simple name that is easy to remember, but it also explains everything that I am covering on the channel.

Subscribe to Online Ventures

Whilst technically a rebrand of my existing YouTube channel, Online Ventures feels like a completely new project to me. That is ignited a passion for the channel that was sadly fading away before.

We are nearly half way through 2020 already, however I am excited about where I can take the channel before the end of the year.

If you have not already done so, I encourage you to subscribe to Online Ventures.

I will be incorporating many of the videos into my articles on KevinMuldoon.com, so if you prefer, you can watch them on this blog.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

The post Online Ventures – The New Name for My Business YouTube Channel was written by Kevin Muldoon and appeared first on Kevin Muldoon.