WooCommerce is my go-to plugin for processing orders on almost every membership site I build. It is so flexible that it is hard to beat. I used to use ThriveCart, but ended up eventually finding it too limiting. Plus, the fact that it wasn’t fully integrated into my site proved to be way more trouble than I needed. I’ve worked with a lot of membership site plugins that are themselves capable of making sales. But, most of them aren’t capable enough. WooCommerce is powerful. It is insanely flexible. It integrates beautifully into my tech stack (which includes WP Fusion, FluentCRM, among others ..read more

Did you know that there’s a really good chance that your WordPress database is still cluttered with the ghosts of plugins you no longer use? Not only that, some of those options are automatically loaded up on every page view of your site. Clogging things up. Taking up more memory. All for no reason whatsoever. This can adversely affect the performance of your WordPress site. So, let’s talk about how to find out what is going on with your site and what you can do about it. In This Post… What is the wp_options Table? The Problems With Autoloaded Options How Much Autoloaded Data Is Too Much? H ..read more

In early 2024, I became aware of xCloud due to the announcement that Shahjahan Jewel was investing in it and becoming a partner. Jewel is the CEO of WP Manage Ninja… the company behind some of my favorite plugins like FluentCRM, FluentForms and FluentBooking. I thought this was a pretty interesting move. They’re investing in a hosting company? Then they came out and launched it using a limited-time lifetime offer. That was definitely interesting and got some attention. It is also a pretty classic move for these guys as a launch strategy. On the flip side, xCloud is actually a brand of Starti ..read more

I have set up many membership sites using the BuddyBoss theme and the BuddyBoss platform. After all, in the past I called it perhaps the perfect membership site theme. The full Buddyboss package has the full community platform as well as the theme. Much of the time, these site are running an LMS such as Learndash. Some of the sites I’ve set up even run their CRM in-house using FluentCRM and using WP Fusion to control member permissions. And processing orders through something like WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads. Obviously, this kind of setup needs good, solid web hosting. The question ..read more

In This Post… Marketing Vs Transactional Emails: What’s The Difference? Why You Need To Use An SMTP Plugin Which SMTP Service Should You Use? Domain Authentication: SPF, DKIM and DMARC Sender Policy Framework (SPF) DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) Third-Party Email List Hosts And Email Deliverability Separating Marketing & Transactional Emails Other Important Factors To Email Deliverability Rates Ensure Proper List Management Ensure Good Email List Engagement Frequently Asked Questions Your most important asse ..read more

In This Post… Confession: How I Messed Up by Offering Lifetime Memberships Customer Lifetime Value – And The Downside Of Lifetime Memberships But, Here’s The Good Part… What Should A Lifetime Membership Cost? When Lifetime Memberships Could Work (And When To Be Careful) Lifetime Memberships As A Sales Tactic? Lifetime Memberships So As To Avoid Recurring Billing? So, In Short… Selling a monthly, recurring membership seem a little bit tough? And perhaps you’re thinking about selling lifetime memberships as a way to increase sales? Let’s talk about it. I have made quite a nice chunk of rev ..read more

As of this writing, it has been about a month since I announced that I was changing my web hosting from Cloudways to Rocket.Net. I have been using it for a month now. I have migrated many of my clients to Rocket. So… What do I think? What do you need to know about using Rocket.net hosting? Well, let’s get in to it. In This Post… Why Makes Rocket.Net Unique? Rocket.net Performance In The Real World Working With The Rocket.Net Control Panel My Experiences With Rocket.Net Support Rocket.net Pricing And Is It A Good Deal? Anything I Don’t Like About Rocket.Net? My Final Thoughts For This Review ..read more

In This Post… Before We Dive In… My Problems With Cloudways Acquisition by Digital Ocean And Changes Pricing Makes Sense In Some Cases, Not Others Performance Is A Mixed Bag Control Panel Interface Stupidity Did I Outgrow Cloudways? Why I Chose Rocket What I Like About Rocket Final Words Here… I have been a customer of Cloudways for over 3 years. I’ve also referred numerous people to Cloudways and I actively manage many clients who are hosted with Cloudways. So, it may come as a surprise (to me as well, in fact) that I am now moving on. I am switching to Rocket hosting. Let me spell ou ..read more

In This Post… Should You Even Worry About Protecting Your Lead Magnet? The Usual Way To Protect Lead Magnets Poor Ways To Protect Your Lead Magnets The Clean, Free Way To Protect Your Lead Magnets Any Gotchas To Be Aware Of? And That’s A Wrap How can you protect your lead magnets so that only people who have actually subscribed to your email list can access it? I want to share a simple, free solution for you. This solution… … does not require them to have a user profile. … does not require them to enter any passwords. … will actually confirm that they are on your email list. … will make ..read more

As of this writing, WP Manage Ninja has launched their next major plugin called FluentBooking. And, like they often do during launch, they are making it available for a limited time with a lifetime deal (or LTD). But, an LTD doesn’t automatically make it a good deal. Quite clearly, there were numerous calendar and booking tools available before FluentBooking showed up. There’s a good chance you have already been using one of them. So, why does FluentBooking stand out to me? Existing Calendar Alternatives Clearly, FluentBooking isn’t the first tool that does this. Calendly is perhaps one of t ..read more