Some Great Apps & Tools For Managing Your WordPress Site On The Go

If you’re like me, you’re almost always on your smartphone or have your device in a close reach. It’s not because I want to look busy all the time, but that there are a lot of things that are happening online from social media posts, website metrics, responses to blog posts, and content creation to name a few.

I came across this post from WPMU Dev that highlights quite a few of the apps and tools I use as well as a bunch more including:

  • Buffer
  • SimpleNote
  • PingDom
  • Google Analytics
  • MailChimp

Top Tools for Managing Your WordPress Site With Your Mobile Phone

by Brenda Barron

New Podcasts Coming Soon!

New Podcasts Coming Soon!

We’re really excited to be working on another media project. This one being audio podcasts. In these podcasts we’ll be talking briefly on business strategy tactic, social media, and web design on a weekly basis. Because there’s so much information out there, we found it to be easier to let our clients and audience digest the things that will matter to them most and in a quick 15min podcast that gives you the points and then ways to take action.

Some of our podcasts will actually be Q&A’s submitted by you. You can ask us questions for things that you’re facing in your business and we’ll talk about them in the show. Chances are you’re not alone in the challenges you’re dealing.

While we’re working to launch you can visit our YouTube page and see some of the How-To videos and other videos we’ve posted.

Inspiring Business Podcasts Worth Subscribing To

Inspiring Business Podcasts Worth Subscribing To

For the past five years or so, I’ve been really into Podcasts. For me they were an alternative medium for consuming media of all types, from entertainment to business. What I enjoyed the most was being able to listen or watch my content wherever I wanted regardless if I was connected to the internet. It took me back to when I got my first walkman. Anyway, below is a list of Podcasts I listen to that I wanted to share for your enjoyment and inspiration.

StartUp

This podcast has setup their series into seasons, much like a television show. I would highly suggest you start listening from the beginning and binge your way to the most current episode. StartUp profiles their own business behind the scenes on a weekly basis from team meetings, proof of concept, investor meetings, and a whole lot of other transparent takes on their “startup” business. The second seasons profiled an online dating startup.

Online Marketing Made Easy

Amy Porterfield has been inspiring I’d say hundreds of thousands of people with her smart and easy to consume marketing tips. She occasionally will interview marketing gurus that we all have heard of and probably follow to pick their brains on current trends, how they got started, hurdles they’ve overcome, and then tips and freebies for listeners.

The EntreLeadership Podcast

This one is brought to you by the folks at studios of the Dave Ramsey show. Each week they provide great business tips mainly from a leader or business owner perspective. Team building, corporate environment, and topics all in between. Occasionally they’ll interview well known industry leaders to talk about their experiences as well. This podcast usually is about 45 or so minutes each week, but is really worth your time, especially in a long commute.

The $100 MBA Show

I really look forward to starting my day with the energy that Omar Zenhom has for his shows. This guy actually produces a 10min podcast for every day of the week. That’s right, 7 days a week he’s got a show for you to listen to. Each day he offers great tips on marketing, small business advice, good habits, and more. Once you’ve listened to a few of his shows, you can see why he has an award winning show, but also a great business behind it due to the wealth of knowledge he puts out in bites for free each day.

Career Tipper

Michele Badie is a friend of mine, and is here in Orlando. She is the author of this weekly “Confidence Conversation” with local movers and shakers of various industries around Central Florida. What I admire about her most is that she interviews people that’s she’s never met. Typically when you hear interviews they’re by people who have a good enough connection to approach the ability to have someone sit down and open up about their history and experiences. Be sure to check out her casual podcast to learn more about some influential local leaders around Orlando, FL.

These podcasts above are really just a few that I listen to. If you have some that you listen to, let me know in the comments below. I’m seeing Podcasting really pick up over the last two years and there are plenty of great content creators out there publishing information that we can all benefit from.

 

WordPress Orlando MeetUp Notes – “WordPress in Business”

This morning at Ideas Orlando, the WordPress Orlando Meetup held a talk and called it “WordPress in Business”. In this talk there were a few talking points that were mentioned that I notated below. I was unable to post all of these on the MeetUp page as the text exceeded the comment limits so I created this post for the notes. Please feel free to share where needed.
Hosting Provider Suggestions
  • Host Gator
  • Digital Ocean (cloud based)
  • SiteCore
  • SiteGround (inexpensive shared hosting for starter users)
  • Pagely (high volume of traffic)
  • GoDaddy (WordPress specific hosting)
Food for Thought:
A good idea to note is that hosting providers do not make changes or updates to your website. When you get to a point of making money with your business/website consider hiring an agency that will monitor and maintain your hosting services for your websites.
Plugin Suggestions
  • Pretty Links
    Shrink, beautify, track, manage and share any URL on or off of your WordPress website. Create links that look how you want using your own domain name!
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/pretty-link/
  • Gravity Forms
    Advanced Forms for WordPress Websites Just Don’t Get Any Easier than Gravity Forms
    http://www.gravityforms.com/
  • Member Mouse
    MemberMouse is an easy to use WordPress membership plugin that allows you to sell products, subscriptions and memberships, setup a password protected member’s area, offer 1-click upsells and downsells, manage customers, automate customer service, track critical retention metrics and more. No matter where you’re starting from, MemberMouse has the power you need to maximize revenue and get your business running like a well-oiled machine.
    http://membermouse.com/
  • WooCommerce
    WooCommerce is a free, powerful WordPress eCommerce plugin. With the extendability of a huge catalog of commercial themes and extensions we have all the tools you might need to get your shop running.
    http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/
  • Shopify
    Online shopping cart software
    http://www.shopify.com/
  • Sharesale
    ShareASale has been in business for 15 years, exclusively as an Affiliate Marketing Network. Our technology receives accolades for speed, efficiency, and accuracy – and our reputation as a fair and honest business is well known within the industry. We encourage you to browse around our website and learn more, but if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
    http://www.shareasale.com/
  • Commission Junction
    Affiliate Marketing
    http://www.cj.com/
  • Click Bank
    Entrepreneurs everywhere use our powerful online and mobile e-commerce platform to build a vibrant business across popular lifestyle categories. We believe in cultivating a new generation of digital entrepreneurs and helping them transform their passion and expertise into top-selling digital products and affiliate marketing programs to achieve financial happiness. Our solutions, combined with top-rated client support, help you grow and maintain every part of your business. Making money online has never been easier.
    http://www.clickbank.com/
Tips and Ideas
  • Amazon has tips and reports about website speed and why it is important to your website conversion rate and more.
  • Look into CDN options like CloudFlare or JetPack. (Content Delivery Network) This will make your website load much faster by utilizing distributed content processing.
  • For video hosting you can use Amazon S3 hosting, YouTube, or Amazon. http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
  • To check your web page load times check http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ or try
  • Google Page Speed Test https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
  • Set up email filters (Gmail)
  • Hire a virtual assistant for your repetitive tasks and saving more time each day to dedicate more to yourself or to the core parts of your business
  • Advertising on Facebook is really the most effective once you start paying for ads. Even at a small daily rate.
Suggested Reads:
Great source for asking questions or finding answers about WordPress:

Top 10 Tips from Best LinkedIn Company Pages of 2012 [via Linked In]

I recently came across this Slideshare post from Linked In and thought it would be great to share it with all of you (our readers).

If you’re like us, trying to keep up with all the latest trends and social media enhancements can be a bit tough. Running a business and keeping clients happy while increasing your bottom line is the common goal, though you can’t ignore your social status and presence. Check out the slide below and I challenge you to see what tips you can take to update your own business Linked In pages in the next few days or week.