Bye Udemy, Hello MemberMouse! – Taking My Site to The Next Level!

Posted: 15 Mar 2016 08:15 AM PDT

What the heck has taken me so long to sell products from my own site?

Honestly, it was FEAR — which created massive amounts of indecision, analysis paralysis and procrastination!

The idea of being completely responsible for the orders, payments, etc. really did intimidate the crap out of me, but I’ve chosen a plugin (MemberMouse) that helped eliminate that fear because of the amazing support they offer in that area.

Yes, there are more cost-friendly options out there (even free ones), but support and continued product enhancements were the two most important factors in my decision.

So now that I’m over that fear and extreme indecision, I’m ready to move forward!

This is going to sound cheesy, but I feel like teaching is something I was put here to do. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy helping people learn and making videos. I’m excited to finally sell on a platform that I actually own.

By the way, I’m not an affiliate for MemberMouse yet and I explain why in the podcast. But if you are familiar with my work, you probably already know why.

I’ve Been Recording Like Mad!

I’m working on courses related to blogging, video and just finished my course on Camtasia.

I’m so excited for you to learn it in a quick and non-intimidating way. I’m even going to teach neat tricks such as animation.

Did you notice how I animated my logo at the beginning of my last video? (Play the start of the video below.) That was done in Camtasia!

Camtasia is so much more than just screen recording software. Sometimes I edit talking head videos in the software too.

Let’s Get to The Podcast

Enough about me! Let’s move on to this month’s podcast. (View the transcript or right-click this link and “Save As” to download the audio file.)

I’m going to catch you up on the latest happenings with Udemy.

There are some big, big changes coming down the pike. If you’re thinking of selling on the platform, you can’t miss this!

A lot of people are upset, but overall, it’s going to be best for Udemy and instructors down the road. Nevertheless, I’m glad I’m making the move to go self-hosted with my courses.

In This Episode

Udemy’s new pricing structure and my thoughts
My opinions on who Udemy is best for
Why I chose MemberMouse over more popular and less costly plugins like WishListMember, S2Member, etc.
Why I’m waiting on doing an actual membership site, even though I’m using a membership plugin
Why it may still be beneficial to create courses on Udemy even if you are selling from your own site
The necessary move bloggers & entrepreneurs are making that you should be paying attention to

Show Notes

Udemy
MemberMouse (no affiliation)
Right-click this link and “Save As” to download the audio file
View the transcript

Create Beautiful WordPress Content With This Drag & Drop Tool

Posted: 29 Feb 2016 07:16 AM PST

Whoa…

How did I not know about this plugin for over two years?

I’ve tried many different drag and drop themes and/or visual editors/plugins, but I’ve never featured them here because they were either:

Buggy
Difficult to learn
Design elements weren’t mobile friendly/responsive

Well, I’ve finally found one that’s beginner-friendly and I feel confident recommending it. (Video demo below)

I’ve spent the last week immersed in a plugin called Visual Composer (affiliate link) and I’m so excited about what I’m going to be able to do within my pages and posts.

It’s a drag and drop in-page/post designer for WordPress that is advertised to work with any theme.

It comes pre-loaded with over 50 page layouts for you to use within your posts and pages.

I’m using the plugin to style this post to give you an idea of what you can do.

What I Love Best

For me, the best feature is the ability to add columns, rows, tabbed and accordion-styled content within your existing pages and posts.

You can add/delete columns and rows with ease, and drag elements to different areas of the page/post.

For example, to add the columns below I just added the “Feature Template” to this post.

I am a text block. Use this area to describe the image above.

I am a text block. Use this area to describe the image above.

The above template would be perfect for a homepage design.

So instead of hunting for a theme with thumbnails on the homepage, just set your homepage to a “Page” and style it with one of the Visual Composer layout templates.

You can control how many thumbnails will appear per row, animate them, control the image size, etc.

Create Tabs in a Flash

I don’t know about you, but I would not know how to pull off creating tabbed content without learning some CSS.

But with VC, all you have to do is select “Tabs” from the “Add Element” menu and add your text.

Check out what I created below in about 2 minutes…

Tabbed Content Title

Tab 1

This is text inside tab 1.

Tab 2

This is text inside tab 2.

Tab 3

This is text inside tab 3.

This is a great way to condense content on a page. You can even choose which tab you want to be active when the page loads!

Create a Call to Action Box in an Instant

To create a call to action box, I just chose the Call to Action Element from the list and customized the color, layout, fonts, etc.

This is how it turned out…

This is a Call to Action Box

For this box, I was able to control the styling, width, color scheme, animation and alignment.

Style Your Alerts

You can even create customizable message boxes with left-aligned icons.

I am a success alert box.

I am an information box.

I am an error box.

I am an alert for a shopping site.

There are also a number of icons you can choose from with the message boxes. There’s even a search feature!

Customizations Galore!

For every element you can add to your page (text box, alert box, etc.) you can customize the look and feel. Here are some things you can control (when applicable).

Alignment
Fonts (Includes tons of Google Fonts)
Colors
Image size
Animation
Width
Margins, Padding & Borders
CSS (for advanced users)

Are There Any Cons?

My biggest wish is that the plugin would contain some kind of preview of all the available templates before you use them.

I’ve spent a lot of time adding different ones to my page and previewing them just to see what they look like.

Be prepared to spend at least an hour learning about what this plugin can do because there are a LOT of features. It’s almost overwhelming.

Another con is when you are using the text editor, you have to make one extra click to edit text boxes instead of typing right into the editor like you’re used to doing without the plugin.

For example, I’m typing this text in a box that is just a mini version of the WordPress text editor. I’ll have to save and close it when I’m done typing.

Not a big deal, but I had to get used to clicking “Edit” just to edit the text when I’m already in the editing screen.

It still has all the styling that you’re used to. You can see a screenshot below.

Also, the text editor will sometimes add extra blank lines when I delete lines of text. So after removing them, I’ll have to go back in and delete them after I close the text box editor you saw above.

The other potential con could be loading issues on the front and backend. I say “potential” because it hasn’t been a problem for me.

I have dedicated hosting so things tend to run a lot faster on dedicated servers vs. shared. So for me, it’s hard to know.

That’s why it’s great they offer a free trial so you can test for yourself.

And as far as page loading, you have to use common sense.

If you add a lot of animation to your pages then of course it’s going to hamper the loading times. However, the plugin itself has not affected site speed from what I can tell.

I went a little overboard with animation in this post just to show you what the plugin does. However, I think you should use it sparingly.

And finally, I wish you could use hex values when choosing colors. For example, instead of choosing “red”, I want to be able to select a very specific value like #d22929.

For some elements you can, but for others you cannot.

Check out my hex & color scheme generator.

Will This Work With Any Theme?

The creators say it will, but you won’t know for sure until you use it.

I’ve tested it on 3 different themes (2 StudioPress themes and Twenty Sixteen) and they have all worked.

Make use of the free trial to see how it works.

See VC In Action

I’ve created a video to demonstrate how the plugin works.

Download a free trial of Visual Composer here.

Create Quality websites

16/03/2016