Category: Reviews

Find the best and honest reviews on various tools and products related to blogging, Internet Marketing, social media, SEO, WordPress plugins and themes.

  • ConvertKit vs MailChimp: The Best Email Marketing Solution #60DaysBloggingChallenge Day 4

    ConvertKit vs MailChimp: The Best Email Marketing Solution #60DaysBloggingChallenge Day 4

    ConvertKit vs MailChimp.

    In today’s #60DaysBloggingChallenge, I’m going to compare two powerful email marketing services, ConvertKit and MailChimp.

    Before I start, I would like to highlight that I’ve been using MailChimp (paid account) for over three years before finally moving over to ConvertKit in September 2016.

    So, here’s the layout of this article. I’ll be starting off with a brief introduction of ConvertKit and MailChimp, followed by a summary of their advantages and disadvantages. I certainly hope that you find this comparison, ConvertKit vs MailChimp useful and please share this post around on social media.

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

    BONUS: Like email marketing? Read my latest comparison between MailChimp, ConvertKit, and Drip for 2017! Read more.

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    CONTINUE READING

  • Thrive Themes vs Genesis Theme Framework: Which is the best now?

    Thrive Themes vs Genesis Theme Framework: Which is the best now?

    Being a WordPress user myself for over a decade, choosing the best WordPress theme is always a huge challenge. Thankfully, I stumbled upon Genesis Theme Framework (also known as Genesis Framework by StudioPress). Until today, Genesis Theme Framework is my go-to choice when it comes to awesome design and flexibility. Apart from Genesis, I am also an avid user of Thrive Themes.
    CONTINUE READING

  • TemplateToaster Review – Designing Templates and Themes in Minutes

    TemplateToaster Review – Designing Templates and Themes in Minutes

    You know that I’m a huge fan of WordPress premium themes. When I was reached out to do an honest review on TemplateToaster, I know that I have to jump in and try it out.

    For the record, I heard about TemplateToaster for some time now. Sure, I have been pretty much away for most of the time because I am pretty tied caught up with my freelance writing but this is just too good of a deal to pass through.
    CONTINUE READING

  • CDN77 – Content Delivery Network That Accelerates Website Loading Speed

    CDN77 – Content Delivery Network That Accelerates Website Loading Speed

    Recent years have brought few new players into the content delivery field of business. We decided to have a look at one of the most promising – CDN77. A London based company of 30 people seems to be an interesting disruption amongst the IT giants on the market.

     

    What it promises

    As a content delivery network, CDN77 takes care of the heavy-lifting of your internet traffic. Whether you have few large files or a ton of small support ones like Javascript or CSS, your own server will thank you for unloading the burden to multiple different machines. Not only will you be able to serve as many customers as you would like to, but with nodes all around the world, you will be able to serve them significantly faster than you would with your one-machine webhosting.

    The Techcrunch effect

    Being covered and linked by just one ‘big’ website can generate so much traffic to your own web that it is enough to eventually overload it and take it down. CDNs can usually handle millions of requests per second and therefore make your site effectively immune to this spike-traffic problem.

     

    How it works

    When setting up a CDN for your website, you usually create a subdomain and dedicate it to caching all its content via CDN. For ilustration, if you had a domain of example.com, then you create a new subdomain cdn.example.com and let the CDN service cache everything on it. Then whenever someone comes to cdn.example.com, despite having example.com in the address, he will be served cached data from the content delivery network service and your sever can calmly sleep in the background.

    Without a CDN, your sites is bothered with every request that comes to it – and loading one page by one visitor can produce dozens of these. With caching implemented, though, the page is saved with CDN and your server does not even have to know someone has loaded it – the cache does all the work (except for the very first request where the page is not in the cache yet).

    cdn77 cdn review

     

    What is the improvement

    Some webmasters implement content delivery networks to save money on webhosting services as they only need to use much cheaper plans then. For others, however, the main purpose is to make the site load faster all around the world. Hosting companies will usually grant you a part of a server in one location. If you physically host your site in New York datacenter, for example, requests from your customers in India will have to ‘hop’ many times before being routed to their destination. Each hop adds a little lag and you might end up with a page that is being loaded several long seconds.

    CDN edge servers, on the other way, are spread all around the world. In CDN77’s case, there are 27 datacentres across 5 continents. Even if your own hosting is in New York, requests from users in India will not have to travel that far. They will be routed to the closest location (in this case that would be New Delhi) and local cache will take care of it. Together with a very promising specifications about the cache hardware, this gives a chance to speed up the page loading time rapidly. We decided to test it for ourselves.

    We loaded the page 50 times in the ‘normal’ configuration and 50 times with the CDN implemented. It can be safely expected that with longer distance from the origin server, the measured difference would be even more significant.

    cdn and loading speed

     

    Setup process

    We were quite surprised how easy it was to set up an account. You don’t have to be an engineer to get started and even though we had a little bump on the way, the chat support was helpful and we were up and running in few minutes.

    If you can change your DNS entries yourself, setting up a CDN is a matter of minutes.

     

    The result

    CDN77 proved to be worth the hype it causes on the market. With a very easy setup and evidently powerful hardware, we can recommend it as a provider of choice for speeding up the website and relieving your potentially stressed hosting server.

     

    Now, it’s over to you!

    If you are looking for a good CDN, CDN77 may just be the best option for you and your website. Have you considered taking it for a trial run? Click here to start your 14 days free trial!

  • Revolutionary and Affordable Content Delivery Network – KeyCDN

    Revolutionary and Affordable Content Delivery Network – KeyCDN

    I can’t bear the thoughts of a slow loading website. Being in the WordPress sphere for some solid years, I’m always looking for better solutions to speed up my website. Down my blogging path, I have written about MaxCDN and content delivery networks which I used so dearly in my daily content marketing life.

    Recently, I came across Jonas Krummenacher, Co-Founder of KeyCDN and it was long for me to take a look at KeyCDN. After all, I consider myself a huge WordPress geek and there is absolutely no risk when it comes to checking out a new toy.

    In this article, you’ll find informations you need to know about KeyCDN and how it could literally speed up your website loading speed.

     

    What is KeyCDN?

    KeyCDN review

    Taken directly from its official website, KeyCDN is a service of Proinity LLC.

    We are a Swiss registered company headquartered in Winterthur, Switzerland. The company is privately funded. We’re a passionate team operating a high-performance content delivery network (CDN). We make content delivery smarter and less expensive.

    KeyCDN practices 4 core values which are professional, passionate, skilled and proactive. Being in the customer service industry for some years, these are definitely 4 important core features any companies would need to get more loyal customers and as well as sales.

     

    Features offered by KeyCDN

    Make no mistake; KeyCDN provides several top features of any other content delivery network providers do such as:

    • Pull and push functionality
    • Video hosting features
    • RTMP streaming features
    • Security
    • Management dashboard
    • Super affordable prices and plans

    The descriptions of the features are as follow below.

    1. Pull and push functionality

    With KeyCDN, you can create as many zones that you require and it would only take a few minutes for the configurations to be activated globally. You can then upload your files directly using FTP, SSH or even integrating with cache plugins like W3 Total Cache and Super Cache.

    2. Video hosting capabilities

    Do you think tools like Wistia is just too pricey and YouTube being too risky? You easily host all your videos using KeyCDN.

    Bloggers, you can even monetize your videos using the KeyCDN ads enabled video player which is really cool!

    3. Easy RTMP streaming

    KeyCDN offers Video on Demand (VOD) and Live Streaming based on RTMP, RTMPT and RTSP. Well, this simply means that you can easily accelerate your streaming across the globe real, real fast.

    KeyCDN supports several file formats for VoD such as:

    • FLV
    • MP4
    • .ismv, .isma
    • MP3

    4. Security features

    In today’s world, security is a huge concern for many (including me). With KeyCDN, you can rest assured security is taken into serious consideration.

    KeyCDN has several features which takes security to the next level such as:

    • Secure token
    • Shared SSL
    • Custom SSL

    SSL certificate can be integrated and configured with just a few clicks, plus for those who require additional support and assistance, access tokens can be created for more advance usages (e.g. management access etc).

    5. Powerful management dashboard

    KeyCDN dashboard

    KeyCDN dashboard provides a detailed overlook on the credit amount, zones available and used storage (to name a few).

    Navigations are pretty easy and no-brainer even for an absolute newbie. The below are some features you can find on the management dashboard:

    • Close to real-time reporting
    • Account usage and statistics
    • Beautiful user interface
    • Accessible via mobile and tablets (huge plus point)
    • Available invoices for viewing
    • API’s

     

    Reginald, what makes KeyCDN really powerful?

    For me, it must be the integration with WordPress. Regardless if you are using W3 Total Cache (W3TC) or Super Cache, integration can be done under one minute.

    KeyCDN users are able to access the knowledge library which has a full list of questions and answers which is really useful. And, trust me — the knowledge library is really well-equipped with information.

    To show the ease of using KeyCDN, this is the only CDN service provider that I had used (and did not require any support assistance). So yes, a huge kudos to the team for that.

    Need another plus point for using KeyCDN? The pricing structure of Pay Per Use if really good for those who have very limited budget.

    The traffic pricing (as seen below) is really affordable even for the lowest budget and personally, I don’t believe there is any other services that can match the features and benefits provided by KeyCDN.

    KeyCDN pricing structure

     

    Getting started with KeyCDN

    Are you looking for a good content delivery network service provider? You should (definitely) give KeyCDN a try and get a free trial using this link: Sign up for a free trial account with KeyCDN

  • How To Make Animations With GoAnimate [Review]

    How To Make Animations With GoAnimate [Review]

    Do you want to make professional animated videos?

    I’m not talking about the $5 Fiverr gig or those low quality animation. I’m talking about high quality ones and I’m sure you want that as well.

    When Lilach from CommsAxis reached out to me about GoAnimate, I knew it was something I seriously need to dig into. Trust me, I was so involved with GoAnimate that I have recommended this to a few of my colleagues and clients.

    For starters, GoAnimate made a super, duper bold statement that anyone can make an animation under 5 minutes. Of course, I was like “you must be joking me!”

    A quick check on GoAnimate on Youtube and they have more than 14,500 fans! Obviously, they should be creating some sort of excellent videos to attract the fans.

    In this 2 minutes video, take a look at how GoAnimate can work for you:

    Now, let’s see how GoAnimate works and if it is able to live up to the statement.

     

    GoAnimate – Creating high quality animations videos

    For those who are wondering, GoAnimate is a web based tool to create animations and it was founded by Alvin back in 2007.

    Their mission (which can be found here) is to help businesses, schools, and individuals to make good videos quickly and easily.

    Oh yes, I really love their slide on their About Us page because they feature their colleagues on both fun and working times — Smart move!

    For those do their own videos, you know how hard it is to create one. Without GoAnimate, it takes me over 6 hours just to create a video.

    Yes, it takes a lot of time!

    Personally, GoAnimate is probably the first video making tool I ever use that has the drag and drop feature. Seriously? A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

     

    GoAnimate features

    I got to admit, there are tons of features on GoAnimate and probably I can’t cover them all in this post. So, I’ll give a brief explanation about them.

    According to GoAnimate official website, the tool helps to:

    • Providing flexibility for video making
    • Simple video making process (use any background or choose a pre-made scene, drag and drop other features including voice)
    • Generate spoken words (ideas) into animation
    • Advanced features in video making (moving characters around and adding props for example)

     

    The process of creating GoAnimate animation videos

    The process of making (animation) videos is not that easy if you doesn’t have a creative mindset. Yes, I am not creative and creating a normal video is already challenging for me.

    The workflow should be something like this:

    • Plan a story line
    • Voice recording for your characters
    • Finding the right characters for your videos
    • Adding background music
    • Publishing the animation

    The final results?

    Here are two animations using GoAnimate:

    http://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/d5bt9lhgea?autoPlay=1

    http://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/apwove6grt?autoPlay=1

    Pretty sleek right?

     

    GoAnimate Dashboard

    GoAnimate Dashboard

    The dashboard is very clean and simple.

    Upon login in or sign up (grab a free account here), you’ll be able to:

    • See all your videos (published and drafts)
    • Activity feed
    • Weekly statistics
    • General statistics

    In short, you get everything all the important stats and settings on one page which is a HUGE time saver.

     

    Creating a video

    The process is really easy using GoAnimate.

    1. Click on the ‘Make A Video’ button on the top right.

    How to make a video with GoAnimate

     

    2. Two options to choose from; making a video from scratch or pre-made templates. You can also use the ‘character creator’ to create your own characters.

    Building a video from scratch

     

    3. Finding the right setting (background effects / scenarios)

    Using the pre-made templates, just click left or right to choose the right scenario.

    A few of my favorite scenarios are:

    • Office meeting
    • Interview
    • In the break room

    Choosing a video scene

     

    4. Selecting the appearance of your characters

    You can choose ready made templates (again) for characters which is great and easy.

    If you are feeling adventurous, you can even create your own characters.

    Choosing a character

     

    5.  Recording voice

    With GoAnimate, you can easily select voice for your characters with filters such as:

    • Different languages
    • Different genders
    • Adding emotions

    GoAnimate comes to lip-sync feature and this means that you can see the characters actually taking to look even more realistic.

    Dialog features on GoAnimate

     

    6. Preview before publishing

    The last step is to preview the animation video. Click on the preview button to view (as below).

    GoAnimate review

     

    Creating your own animated videos from scratch using GoAnimate

    For those who want to be different or would love to have an unique animated video, you can use GoAnimate drag and drop feature.

    Simply click on ‘Start From Scratch’ as seen in number 2 above to proceed. Here’s a view of GoAnimate video maker platform.

    Full GoAnimate review

     

    How much does GoAnimate costs?

    GoAnimate comes with several plans you can choose from:

    • Personal plan – $58 per year
    • GoPublish – $39 per month
    • GoPremium – $79 per month
    • GoTeam – $250 per month

    Looking for GoAnimate discount? Sign up for yearly plans and get a huge discount!

    GoAnimate has taken the whole process of creating an animated video as easy as 1, 2 and 3 for me. How about you?

    See GoAnimate in action here.

     

    What do you think about GoAnimate?

    I certainly hope you enjoy this review as much as I do. Tell me what you think in the comment form below.