software

Sep

2013

Project Email Part 3

You can create a new email account in cPanel in just a few clicks, and once that account is created you can access it either by web mail or with an email client of your choice.

Today in the short video above I show you how to do these two things.

#1 – Create a new email account in cPanel.
#2 – Access one of the standard web mail tools that come with cPanel.

The web mail software I like to use is RoundCube. To begin with it’s not very friendly by default, but with a couple of tweaks I show you in the video, it looks *much* better and is far easier to use.

And… Did you know that with cPanel hosting you can easily access your web mail just by going to:-

yourdomain.dom/webmail

Isn’t that cool? It auto-redirects you to the correct place so you don’t have to remember a complicated URL in order to access your email anywhere that has internet access.

Armed with that first piece of information you can begin to wean yourself of free web based email and begin to use email off your own domain instead.

Coming shortly is how to use a free Windows client to access multiple email accounts and keep everything in one neat place – and still be able to take it with you wherever you go. 😉

-Frank Haywood

http://www.frankhaywood.com/tag/project-email/ <== Click this for a list of all Project Email posts.

Aug

2013

Comment Reward Summer Sale

#1 – It increases the number of REAL comments on your blog.
#2 – It improves your SEO by adding more user driven content.

As you might think from the name, the Comment Reward plugin rewards people for leaving comments on your blog, by sending them an email they will really WANT to receive. 😉

Why would you want to do this?

You know how people only go certain places because other people go there? And the only thing that makes the place popular is because – people go there – it’s a self fulfilling prophesy if you like.

Once the buzz is going, it doesn’t stop.

Just like real locations in the real world, a busy blog means more interest. The more interest you have, then the busier your blog. Makes sense doesn’t it?

I used to be a big fan of certain pubs just because they ran “happy hours” between 6-7 to liven things up a bit. My reward was cheaper beer. (Sadly, happy hours have since been outlawed in the UK…)

Just like real world promotions, if you reward your visitors, then they’re more likely to come back and make your blog look busy to other visitors.

What your visitors won’t find out until they leave a comment of their own is that you’re rewarding them for their comments by using the Comment Reward plugin.

They will get a welcome email from you which could contain some useful information, and could also have a link to a downloadable freebie.

You can create many of these reward emails depending on how many comments your readers leave and even tell them when the next reward will be available to them just to encourage them to leave more comments.

Once people know what’s going on the plugin virtually compells them to come and make comments on your blog. And if other people see your blog is busy because of all the comments, it encourages them to join in too.

More visitors, more comments, busier blog, more comments. People come back.

And so it goes round and round.

The result?

A really busy blog. More returning visitors, raving fans, and subscribers too if your offer is good enough.

Because let’s face it, someone might be okay with leaving a comment to begin with, but they might not want to subscribe to your mailing list.

However, if you reward them for their comment then they’re much more likely to be okay with signing up to your mailing list, especially if you make them a really good offer (more on this another time).

Do you want that?

You can get yourself going in the right direction just by installing the Comment Reward plugin.

The Comment Reward plugin is just $17 until 31st December 2014.

-Frank Haywood

Jul

2013

Google Fonts in WordPress

I’m feeling a bit over-excited at the moment because I can now add any Google font to any page or post on my blog. I just checked and as I write this there are 629 web fonts available in the Google font library.

I have a small sub-set of those installed here on my blog and I’d like to show a selection of those to you here as I feel these are amongst the most useful when writing.

Please note that these are all TEXT and NOT GRAPHICS.

You can swipe across them and copy the content to test it out if you don’t believe me. 😉

Architects Daughter

Bangers

Chewy

Gloria Hallelujah

Henny Penny (Harry Potter I reckon)

Indie Flower

Knewave

Kranky

Love Ya Like A Sister

Permanent Marker

Rock Salt

Slackey (this looks like the SpongeBob font)

Special Elite (a typewriter style font – very nice)

I like to think you’d agree with me when I say this is pretty amazing.

Most important though is it’s incredibly easy to use and to add new fonts.

If you want to be able to do this too, then you need this:-

http://www.frankhaywood.com/wso-10ssp/

-Frank

Jun

2013

Page Templates PTP101-PTP110

Update: The sale at $17.00 for the Page Template plugin plus 10 BRAND NEW page templates is now live. Included in this sale only is a client flipper licence.

***

Today at 6.00pm GMT I’m releasing 10 brand new never-before-released page templates for the Page Template Plugin.

These are all very clean and attractive designs and come with the latest version of the Page Template Plugin (v1.0.5) which has had a minor bugfix.

(Start the video and then switch to 720p and full screen.)

If you’ve never heard of or seen the Page Template Plugin, then in a nutshell it’s a very elegant solution to adding pre-designed sales and squeeze pages to your WordPress driven sites.

Because it’s a plugin, then in 99% of cases it will work with your favourite theme and digital delivery solution.

This means you can build sites using a theme you like, plus a digital delivery or membership solution that you’re happy with, and set up independent sale and squeeze pages that don’t look like the theme.

In my view this is a better solution than using an all-in-one theme to create sales pages on your site.

Using the Plugin after Installation

Because these pages are all pre-designed for you, then you don’t even need any design skills. 😉

I’ve uploaded the templates and created some demo pages for you to see each of the templates here:-

http://60secondsalespages.com/ptp101/
http://60secondsalespages.com/ptp102/
http://60secondsalespages.com/ptp103/
http://60secondsalespages.com/ptp104/
http://60secondsalespages.com/ptp105/
http://60secondsalespages.com/ptp106/
http://60secondsalespages.com/ptp107/
http://60secondsalespages.com/ptp108/
http://60secondsalespages.com/ptp109/
http://60secondsalespages.com/ptp110/

Given that it can cost you an average price of around 47-67 dollars for a custom design that won’t even work with WordPress, I’m sure you can see this is a fantastic bargain and not one to be missed. After the sale is over, each of these designs will be available for $5 apiece so if you want the best price, now is the time to get them.

Just $17. 🙂

-Frank Haywood

Jun

2013

Magic Optin Plugin

Update: The sale at $17.00 for the easy to use Magic Optin plugin is LIVE. The price will rise to ~~$27~~ when the sale is over.

***

Magic Optin Overview Video

In response to some questions about it, here’s a short 2-minute video on how to add the form code manually if it doesn’t get parsed correctly the first time round.

Many people will tell you that the size of your business is directly related to the size of your mailing list. While I know for a fact that’s not strictly true, more subscribers is always going to be better than less.

The Magic Optin plugin assists you in designing and placing optin boxes on your blogs, and gives you some pre-set designs you can mix and match and almost unlimited options for the colour schemes.

This means you can spend just a little time and come up with an optin design to suit your blog theme that will blend in really nicely and look like it was created by a professional designer and not you. 😉

Better still is that it’s VERY easy to use and includes a *custom widget* for your sidebar, AND a *short code* if you want to insert your new optin form into a post or page.

Here’s an idea.

Create your optin form, and then every time you add a new page or post to your blog, then add the optin short code so that your form appears within your content.

That way there’s a reminder on every single page and post for visitors to subscribe to your mailing list in order to find out when new posts are made and about any special offers (like a weekend sale) you may be running.

Here’s a few screen shots of the output of the plugin as an example.

The first shot is of an example of the optin form in the sidebar. The shots following that were generated using the short code tag and inserted into a post. All styles were changed just by using colour pickers and drop-down selectors.

The sale price for this cool new plugin starts at $10 for the first 50 copies and then starts to rise. When the sale is over the full price of this plugin will be ~~$27~~.

In this launch sale ONLY, also included are full developer (client/flipper) licences at no extra charge because I know that’s the way you like it. After the sale these will be an optional purchase.

These are good incentives to get the plugin today. 🙂

-Frank Haywood