Category: WordPress

Thrive Leads vs OptinMonster – Which Plugin Is The Best Plugin For Building An Email List?
Thrive Leads vs OptinMonster.

There are many plugins for email list building but nothing comes close to what Thrive Leads and OptinMonster can provide.

Let me share with you a simple fact:

Email has 2.6 billion unique users worldwide. Moreover, that number is expected to exceed 2.9 billion by the end of 2019.

ExactTarget had quoted, “Email is not only alive – it’s the number one direct channel in terms of daily use and consumer preference for both personal and marketing communications.”

Building an email list is no longer an option. It is a necessity for business survival. Regardless it is for affiliate marketing, blogging or business, email marketing is a very powerful tool if you use it right.

The first step in building an email list is to select an email marketing service provider, which I’m sure you already had.

The second and most crucial step is to find a WordPress plugin that will drive your subscription rate off the roof. After all, having the best email marketing service provider isn’t going to give you much assistance if you aren’t converting visitors into subscribers.

To help you on this step, I’ve compared two of the best list building plugins on the market so that you can build your list in the most efficient way possible.

Thrive Leads

Introduction: Thrive Leads is the complete list building plugin for WordPress. It has every type of opt-in form including Sticky Ribbon, Popup Lightbox, Slide-In, Opt-in Widget, and Screen Filler.

Summary: Thrive Leads is a good choice if you want to have complete control on how the plugin works. It allows you to tweak everything under the roof, without any coding skills.

Thrive Leads is one of the most popular list building plugins for bloggers nowadays because there is just so much hype around this plugin. What I love about Thrive Leads are:
- Multiple opt-in forms which can be set to trigger and appear in multiple places
- Perform numerous A/B testing (split test)
- Availability of shortcodes
- One click sign up links
- Sign up subscribers directly to webinar
- Ready made templates and boxes to choose from
What makes Thrive Leads an awesome plugin for list building is the ability to do anything with just one plugin. As for the record, ThriveBoxes is one feature that no other list building plugin had ever integrated and it works like LeadPages’s Leadboxes feature (sorry LeadPages).

For the record, Thrive Leads is included in the Thrive Membership and no separate purchase is required.

1. Configuring Thrive Leads

Love the basic setup? No worries. Here’s the common setup you can choose with Thrive Leads:

There are many ready-made templates you can choose from when you use Thrive Leads. Here are some examples:

Now, that’s really a lot of templates, right?

The guys over at Thrive Leads understand the challenges faced by bloggers and marketers. Not many of us are design-driven and therefore, having different types of ready-made templates and drag and drop builder helps us to create better forms to build an email list.

Disclaimer: My favorite is still ‘Scroll Mat’. Just saying 🙂

2. A/B testing with Thrive Leads

Apart from that, Thrive Leads comes with the awesome A/B testing which is godly. With this feature, you can literally any testing such as:
- Different Form Types: A lightbox popup vs. a slide-in form or a widget vs. a ribbon.
- Different Triggers: Show a popup after 3 seconds, once the visitor scrolls 50% down the page or when the visitor is about to exit your site.
- Different Design & Content: Change the headline, add a new image or switch colors.
- Different Offers: Download a checklist vs. Participate in a webinar
You can start and stop the A/B testing at any time, as well as the ability to select the winner (either manually or automatically).

3. Precise targeting using Thrive Leads

Advancement of technology allows us to do a lot of things and one of them is to show relevant popups to the right type of audience. With Thrive Leads, you can display specific forms with just a few clicks:

4. Powerful features that made Thrive Leads super powerful

Want to know why Thrive Leads is powerful? Here are four things you should know (if you are dead serious in list building using Thrive Leads):
- Exit Trigger: Show your opt-in the moment a visitor is thinking about leaving your website.
- Time Trigger: Choose between showing your opt-in form instantly or after a certain amount of time (in seconds) has passed.
- Scroll Trigger: Choose between showing your opt-in form when a user scrolls to a specific part of the content, after passing a defined percentage of the content, or after reaching the end of your content.
- Click Trigger: Show your opt-in when a user clicks an element (like a button or link) in your content.
5. What didn’t I like about Thrive Leads?

Apart of all the goodies that Thrive Leads can offer, there are still things I wished they could be improved.

Thrive Leads doesn’t play well with CloudFlare: I use CloudFlare to speed up my website and I have specific Page Rules to make my website blazing fast. The problem is Thrive Leads visual builder (WYSIWYG) doesn’t work well when those options are turned on. Of course, there isn’t much Thrive Leads could do but if you want to use Thrive Leads with CloudFlare, make sure you turn off the ‘Rocket Loader‘ on CloudFlare (temporary) while setting up forms using Thrive Leads.

What is Rocket Loader?

Rocket Loader improves page load times by:
- Decreasing the number of network requests by bundling JavaScript files, even third party resources, to avoid slowing down page rendering
- Asynchronously loading scripts, including third party scripts, so that they do not block the content of your page from loading immediately
- Caching scripts locally (using LocalStorage, available on most browsers and smart phones) so they aren’t refetched unless necessary
Just too many customizations and made it confusing: Thrive Leads comes with so many customizations which it is really tricky for beginners. Sure, they have videos but let’s be honest. Who views the videos unless you are desperate, right? The options aren’t really direct and idiot-proof if you know what I mean.

6. How much is Thrive Leads?

There are three different pricing structures you can choose from (each comes with one year support):
- 1 Site: $67
- 5 Sites: $97
- 15 Sites: $147
Alternatively, you can choose Thrive Membership which costs $19 per month (with all plugins included for unlimited sites) when you pay annually.

When it comes to pricing, I would say that it is definitely worth the money because of the features that Thrive Leads provide.

7. Is Thrive Leads worth it?

Here’s the biggest question. I’ve been using Thrive Leads since the beta stage and I would say that it is pretty well done. If I would comment, I would say that their finishing isn’t as smooth as OptinMonster but apart from that, they are pretty much awesome to say the very least.

8. My verdict for Thrive Leads

Thrive Leads is best for advanced users who want to double their email list in just a short period of time. Plus, it is also a great tool because you get everything you need under one roof.

With the amount of features that comes packing with Thrive Leads, this is definitely one of the best list building plugins I had used for a long time. Highly recommend anyone to use this!

Click here to try Thrive Leads today!

OptinMonster

Introduction: OptinMonster is not just a WordPress plugin. It’s a complete web-based app that’s available for different platforms including WordPress.

Summary: OptinMonster is very smooth and easy to use. An absolutely beast that helps you build an email list fast, minus all the challenging configuration and hassle.

Just like Thrive Leads, OptinMonster had evolved a lot … from a humble beginning to a massive email list building for WordPress users.

OptinMonster comes packing with a huge list of features which include:
- Lightbox
- Sidebar
- Floating Bar
- After post / In-Line
- Slide-in
- Mobile
- Full Screen
The best part? Each of these forms can be customized according to your liking through drag and drop.

1. Display rules on OptinMonster

Anyone who is serious about email list building knows that display rules feature is critical. For the record, OptinMonster is the first WordPress email list building plugin that offers Exit-Intent feature.

Let me give you a quick example.

If you configure your campaign to load after a 7-second delay and set a 50% scroll value, then your visitors will have to be on your site for 7 seconds AND scroll the page 50% or more to trigger the campaign.

The next step is to choose your intended audience who will see the form.

Note: You can easily setup more display rules to further customize your forms on OptinMonster. This gives you more control on what your forms can and cannot do, thus giving you more precise audience targeting.

2. MonsterLinks

What is MonsterLinks?

MonsterLinks is the name of the 2-Step Opt-in technology from OptinMonster. MonsterLinks can turn any link or image into a 2-step opt-in process. When a user clicks on the link or an image, a popup opens up asking them to subscribe.

Brian Dean from Backlink uses MonsterLinks on the site to boost email subscriptions. Here’s how it looks like in action.

The concept of Content Upgrades is based on a psychology principle known as the Zeigarnik Effect, which states that those who initiate are more likely to finish the process.

3. OptinMonster’s Success Themes

In short, OptinMonster comes with a list of ready-made templates for you to choose from. Wonder why they use the name “success themes?”

Well, these are templates which had been tested out and prove to be extremely effective for your success.

I love OptinMonster’s success themes because I have zero knowledge in design. Yup, no joke.

4. What didn’t I like about OptinMonster?

I often compare both OptinMonster and Thrive Leads (Thrive Leads vs OptinMonster in my mind) and one thing I wished I had more are the ready-made templates.

OptinMonster doesn’t come with that many ready-made templates compared to Thrive Leads.

Another thing I didn’t like about OptinMonster is the campaign setup. Coming from Thrive Leads, OptinMonster seems to be very specific when it comes to campaign creation. While there is nothing wrong with it (generally speaking), it certainly felt like each campaign is dictated by opt-in type. And yes, in some ways that felt very annoying 🙁

5. How much does OptinMonster cost?

The pricing for OptinMoster is slightly different. For starters, each pricing plan comes with very different features.

Basic: $19/month or $108/year (save 25%)
- Unlimited Optin Forms
- A/B Split Testing
- Page Level Targeting
- User-friendly Reporting 1 site
Plus: $29/month or $228/year (save 25%)
- Everything in Basic, and:
- Floating Bar
- Sidebar Forms
- After Post / Inline Forms
- Content Locking
- 3 sites
Pro: $39/month or $348/year (save 25%)
- Everything in Plus, and:
- Exit-Intent Technology
- Referral Detection
- Mobile Specific Forms
- Yes / No Forms
- Slide-in Scroll Trigger Boxes
- Smart Canvas Forms
- Full Screen Takeovers
- Campaign Scheduling
- Unlimited Sites
- Priority Support
6. Is OptinMonster worth it?

I know, you are not pretty much undecided if OptinMonster is worth it. Here’s what I think.

OptinMonster is good and very intuitive. It is prior in the market and what makes it really good is that it is co-founded by Syed Balkhi, founder of WP Beginner. Now, this means that plugins created by him and his team are always very good and able to integrate to any WordPress themes without issue.

7. My personal verdict on OptinMonster

I love beautiful things (and plugins). Personally, I would say that OptinMonster is well created and deserve all the credits in the email list building industry. Being an active OptinMonster user, I would say that there is no doubt in my mind that OptinMonster is good and worth the money.

See OptinMonster demo here!

OptinMonster vs Thrive Leads

The real comparison for OptinMonster vs Thrive Leads is probably the pricing factor.
- $348 – OptinMonster (Pro’s package with all features included)
- $228 – Thrive Themes (10 themes and 6 plugins including Thrive leads)
Both OptinMonster and Thrive Leads are available as subscription-based service, which means that you’ll always have to pay either a monthly or annual fee to use them.

Comparing OptinMonster vs Thrive Leads on the smallest plan, here’s how it looks like:
- $108 – OptinMonster (single site with selected features)
- $67 – Thrive Leads (single site with all features)
Now, as you can see, it is actually more worth it (and you get more savings too) when you opt for Thrive Leads. Even when using Thrive Leads with the smallest plan of $67, you save $41 per year and on top of that, you are not limited to the features as of what OptinMonster offers for its smallest plan.

Overall, it is important to understand that while both offers very similar features, Thrive Leads is seen to be the best option since it doesn’t limit you for any of its features.

When it comes to email list building, you certainly wouldn’t want to be bolted down with restrictions, right?

I hope you like this OptinMonster vs Thrive Leads comparison. Which is your favorite email list building plugin?
March 20, 2024
4 Things I’ll Do If I’m Starting Affiliate Marketing All Over Again
Most affiliate marketers are often using the bootstrapping method. You know, spending minimum money and getting the biggest results.

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

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

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

What the hell just went wrong?

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

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

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

Heres a list what I found out.

1. Going for shared hosting instead of premium web hosting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Cheap vs Premium WordPress themes

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

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

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

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

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

I often hear bloggers telling me this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Lead generation is dope, but expensive

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

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

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

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

My answer: WTF?!

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Should I be using premium plugins?

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

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

Yup, you got it. That’s BS!

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

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

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

Here are several ways you can solve this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop targeting keywords

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

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

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

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

Want to know why? Continue reading below.

Becoming an authority within the industry/niche

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

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

Sounds familiar? I bet it does!

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

How to become an authority within the industry or niche?

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

Click here to get the right strategy.

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

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

Here are the top 5 plugins for affiliate marketers 2017.

1. Yoast SEO

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

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

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

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

2. Thirsty Affiliates

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

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

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

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

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

>>> Try Thirsty Affiliates here. <<<

3. Pretty Link Lite/Pro

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

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

>> Try Pretty Link Lite here. <<<

4. OIO Publisher

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

>>> Try OIO Publisher here. <<<

5. EasyAzon

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

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

But wait!

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

>>> Try EasyAzon here. <<<

The best plugins for affiliate marketers

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

DID YOU KNOW?

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

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

My answer is simple: Sunlight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is managed cloud hosting?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction to Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform

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

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

Here are some reviews on Cloudways:

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

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

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

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

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

Cloudways managed cloud hosting review for the year 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Noticed the ease of upgrading and downgrading on Cloudways?

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

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

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

USD 99 x 4.46 = RM 441.54

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

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

USD 32 x 4.46 = RM 142.72

That’s approximately 67% saving every month!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s a screenshot of my dashboard:

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

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

Cloudways allows you to:

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- Create managed cloud servers quickly
- Manage servers easily
- Scale up or down the server
- Turn on and off Varnish
- Reboot the server
- Purge the cache
- Clone the server
- Install SSL certificate under 5 minutes
- Change PHP settings
- And much more
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The above can be done on all Cloudways managed cloud hosting servers without any coding. You can either turn on or off specific services with just a few clicks.

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

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

Yes, Cloudways managed cloud hosting is seriously that good!

How to migrate to Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform?

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

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

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

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

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

Advantages of using Cloudways managed cloud hosting

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

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

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

Disadvantages using Cloudways managed cloud hosting

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

Allow me to explain.

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

Take a look at Digital Ocean pricing structure:

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

Do you see the differences?

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

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

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

Summary: Cloudways managed cloud hosting review 2017

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

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

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

Click here to try Cloudways for free and judge Cloudways by yourself!
March 5, 2024