Microsoft Announces Office plug-ins for Uber, LinkedIn and DocuSign

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Microsoft has revealed a series of extensions for Office 2016 called “add-ins,” which let third-party developers offer services that work in tandem with the company’s software suite.

The add-ins will work across different platforms. Among the first companies to take advantage are DocuSign, which now integrates its electronic signatures with Word, and SAP, which runs in Excel. Plug-ins for Outlook, from LinkedIn and Salesforce, will offer more information and context about people who have emailed you pulled from their own data.

Microsoft also announced a unified API, which makes it easier for developers to access Office data and build compatible products and services.

In one scenario many of us will appreciate, Microsoft Director of Product Management Robert Lefferts demonstrated an Uber add-in for Outlook. It reminds users — even users on iPhones — about an upcoming appointment, and automatically fills the Uber app’s destination field with the address of the appointment.

Hmm that Uber extension via Outlook reminds me of some of the feature of certain smart calendars, still very cool #Build2015

— Karissa Bell (@karissabe) April 29, 2015

“Outlook knew where I needed to be, and Uber knows where I need to go,” Lefferts added.

On the downside, Outlook users now have even less of an excuse to say they were late to their meetings.

[via]

Microsoft shows off new visual features in Windows 10

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

At its annual Build conference, Microsoft showed off some new features of Windows 10, including a more transparent look and feel.

Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore, corporate vice-president of the operating system group, unveiled updates to Cortana and the company’s new web browser, Microsoft Edge (originally called Project Spartan).

One of the big visual changes to Windows 10 is the re-addition of the transparent Aero Glass look from Windows Vista and Windows 7. “We’re trying to bring back some of that feel,” Belfiore said.

And it’s a good decision, as Aero Glass has aged far better than other UI paradigms. In fact, Apple embraced Aero Glass-ness with its latest desktop operating system, OS X Yosemite.

In addition to its Start menu, Microsoft is bringing back Jump Lists. Windows 10 will also use a new Spotlight feature to show users interesting images on their desktop’s lock screen and various Windows 10 apps. Users can then choose to install an app directly from the lock screen (this feature can be turned off).

Microsoft announced new ways for developers to get apps to its platform and inside the Windows Store.

Until now, developers have had to package their apps as Windows Universal apps for the Windows Store. While that’s fine for new apps written with more modern design language, traditional applications written in Win32 or .NET are unable to be added to the Windows Store.

That changes with Windows 10. Now, Microsoft is allowing developers to package their Win32 and .NET apps to sell in the Windows Store.

To ensure security, those apps will be run sandboxed, so they don’t harm other parts of the system.

This is big news for traditional app makers. Adobe has already said it will be bringing Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements to the Windows Store.

Finally, Microsoft is going to make it easy for developers to bring their iOS and Android code to Windows.

[via]

How to Redirect WooCommerce User to Login Page

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Recently we have developed a WooCommerce private shop for one of our client. If you have a private shop and want only registered user have access to the shop then you might want to keep the shop page private and force user to login. If you are looking for the solution then you have came to right place. Lets see the code snippet.



add_theme_support( 'woocommerce' );

function wpse_131562_redirect()

add_action('template_redirect', 'wpse_131562_redirect');


Add the above code to tour themes functions.php file and you are done.

Easily Redirect WooCommerce User After Login

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

In WooCommerce shop by default user is been redirected to my account page after they login to their account. but you can easily change this by adding a simple function in your theme function. We have done this recently for one of our cients. Lets see the code snippet.

Following code snippet will redirect your customer to shop page after they login. Add this in your themes functions.php


add_filter('woocommerce_login_redirect', 'ras_login_redirect');

function ras_login_redirect( $redirect_to )

$redirect_to = 'http://www.example.com/shop/';

return $redirect_to;



We have added a static URL. If you want dynamic home URL then add code as follows:


add_filter('woocommerce_login_redirect', 'ras_login_redirect');

function ras_login_redirect( $redirect_to )

$redirect_to = home_url()."/shop/";

return $redirect_to;



You can practically redirect to any URL you want. For example you might want them to redirect them to home page then add the following code:


add_filter('woocommerce_login_redirect', 'ras_login_redirect');

function ras_login_redirect( $redirect_to )

$redirect_to = home_url();

return $redirect_to;



Or you can use unique page ID rather than static URL. Get the page ID from admin and use as follows:


add_filter('woocommerce_login_redirect', 'ras_login_redirect');

function ras_login_redirect( $redirect_to )

$redirect_to = get_permalink( 1066 );

return $redirect_to;



If you have a private shop and want only registered user have access to the shop then you might want to keep the shop page private and force them to login. See How to redirect WooCommerce User to Login Page.

Choose Right Authorize.net Version For Your WordPress Store

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

We’re not surprised that we get asked about Authorize.net for WordPress eCommerce frequently, as it provides a lot of flexibility in processing options and integrates easily with many merchant accounts. However, there are several options and we get this question a lot: “Which Authorize.net payment gateway version should I use?”

There are a lot of options (AIM, SIM, CIM, etc) and it’s tough to be sure which one is right for your store. PCI compliance is also a concern for some merchants, though Authorize.net does not require merchants to be PCI compliant (you simply get charged a monthly fee for non-compliance).

Here we’ll discuss what each version does, and we’ve got a chart at the end that shows which versions are available for each WordPress eCommerce plugin.

Which Authorize.net Version is for me?

There are four major versions of Authorize.net payment gateways available for purchase to integrate with your WordPress eCommerce store. So which Authorize.net plugin is right for you? Below is an overview of what each version does, and which are available for each eCommerce platform.Authorize.net also provides a comparison chart for most of these integration methods.

The only integration that is PCI compliant is the DPM version. The SIM implementation can be PCI compliant depending on how it’s implemented – if payments are routed through your servers and an SSL is needed, than it’s not. If payments are routed through Authorize.net and you have no need of an SSL certificate, then the integration you’re using is most likely PCI compliant – always ask the author if you’re not sure.

We’ve covered this a bit when we talked about WooCommerce Payment Gateways, but basically WordPress integrations cannot be totally compliant unless they (1) direct payment through the processor’s servers via a hosted or iframed page, or (2) tokenize information before posting it to your servers (as Braintree and Stripe can).

Authorize.net AIM

The AIM API provides the most common integration for Authorize.net. Typically, if the integration method is not specified, it’s using the AIM API. This version of the integration allows for the most seamless checkout, as it keeps customers on your site and supports mobile checkout, but therefore requires an SSL certificate to be used.

Some AIM implementations also support ARB (Automated recurring billing), which allows you to set up recurring transactions for an additional $10 per month. Customer payment information is saved on Authorize.net’s servers for security and you can manage these recurring payments from your Authorize.net control panel.

Authorize.net SIM

SIM is an older implementation for Authorize.net that typically allows you to accept payments via Authorize.net’s servers. Customers payment information is entered into a hosted form that sends payments through Authorize.net’s servers so that merchants typically do not need an SSL certificate.

SIM integrations also typically allow for Authorize.net emulation. Some payment processors, such as eProcessing network and Chase Paymentech, build systems that mimic how Authorize.net works so that adoption of their service is easier. Using Authorize.net SIM will typically allow you to enter a URL that your processor gives you so that you can use their processing rather than Authorize.net’s.

Note that you should check with the seller to see how the SIM integration works, as there are several ways of implementing it. For example, I know the WooCommerce version of SIM is included in the Authorize.net AIM extension and supports Authorize.net emulation, but does not route payments through Authorize.net’s servers. An SSL certificate is therefore required and it’s not a PCI compliant integration.

Authorize.net CIM

Authorize.net CIM is a $20 per month add-on service for your Authorize.net account that allows you to tokenize and store customer payment information on Authorize.net’s secure servers. This helps you to do a couple of different things. First, CIM helps to process payments for returning customers with saved cards, as cards are saved securely on Authorize.net’s servers for reuse and your store simply uses a ‘token’ tied to that card to process payments. This greatly reduces friction at checkout for your returning customers since they don’t have to continuously enter payment details.

CIM is also sometimes used for recurring transactions, as the tokenized information can securely be called upon for renewals. For example, WooCommerce Subscriptions integrates with CIM rather than ARB. This provides more flexibility in terms of payment intervals, as you’re not subject to the limits in billing periods and trials set by the ARB implementation (which usually require trials to be set using the same period as renewals – i.e., both in terms of months). Using CIM avoids this nuisance by allowing another plugin to set the transaction schedule.

Authorize.net DPM

The DPM integration of Authorize.net typically uses a hosted pay form that sends payment details directly to Authorize.net rather than routing them through your servers, which means that you don’t have to worry about security. SSL certificates are recommended, but not required, for this integration. The benefit to using this method is that customers appear to remain on your site for checkout, but payment details are not processed by your website’s servers.

Not sure which is available for your platform? Here’s a comparison spreadsheet of which versions are available and links to purchase if you need an integration.

(You can also link directly to this spreadsheet or view the Google Doc if you want to share!)

Credit/Source: www.sellwithwp.com 

Adobe Gives Lightroom A Power Boost Up in Latest Update

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Adobe is making it easier for photographers to edit their photos from within Lightroom. The update to the photo management app comes with performance enhancements and new tools for editing and organizing images.

The latest version of the desktop software includes an option that makes it a cinch to stitch multiple shots together. Meanwhile, the new panorama feature streamlines the process of merging of several images into a customizable high resolution panorama.

An HDR merging feature provides a similar tool for merging RAW images into a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image. HDR is the practice of taking multiple photos of the same scene — taken at different exposures — and combining them into a single image that has a wider range of light levels that is more representative of the the lighting when the photo was taken. In this way, an image with really dark shadows, for example, can be combined with one with overexposed highlights to create a more balanced picture.

Like the Panorama merge feature, Lightroom’s new HDR merge feature simplifies the HDR process by allowing users to quickly combine multiple photos into a single RAW image — a feature that was previously only offered in Photoshop.

Adobe Lightroom’s new HDR merge feature.

Lightroom is also making it easier to organize portraits and photos of people with a new facial recognition feature. The app detects faces within images and allows you to tag individual photos or groups of images with the same person. Adobe says the more you use this feature, the better it will get and it will eventually be able to recognize faces before you tag them.

Finally, the update improved the software’s slideshow capabilities with animations features, the ability to add multiple audio tracks and music syncing, which automatically times slideshows to the beat of your music. The updated version of Lightroom is available now to those with an existing subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud Photography plan, Creative Cloud Complete plan or those with a perpetual license for Lightroom 6.

[via]

WhatsApp voice calling is coming to iPhone

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

WhatsApp users will soon be able to make free calls from within the iOS version of the app.

The messaging service’s iPhone update, which is available now, will eventually bring voice calling features to the Facebook-owned platform in the near future, according to the company.

The app’s calling features will rely on a Wi-Fi or data connection and won’t use carrier minutes. This is particularly significant given the app’s prevalence in Europe, where many users already rely on WhatsApp more than tradition SMS. The addition of free voice calls make the service even more powerful; users can now chat with international acquaintances without extra charges.

Although the update is live in the App Store now, WhatsApp says the calling feature will be “rolling out slowly over the next several weeks.”

Tuesday’s update also makes it easier to share photos and videos through the app. Chats now have a “quick camera” button, which allows you to shoot and send photos and videos from within WhatsApp messages. In addition, you can crop or rotate photos and videos before you send them.

WhatsApp also now comes with its own sharing extension, so you send content — like links, photos and videos — from within other apps directly to WhatsApp. As with other sharing extensions, you can enable it through through the share menu in Safari, Photos or other apps by tapping “more” and selecting Whatsapp.

The iOS update follows a similar update on Android, which officially rolled out voice calling last month.

[via]

Now Google Allows You Save Your Search History

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Google will allow users to download their search history — a handy tool if you’ve ever wanted a closer look at what really makes you tick online.

The details of the functionality are outlined in a Google support document, which breaks down exactly how anyone can save their list of searches.

First, visit history.google.com/history when you’re logged in to your account. Then look for the options icon, and click download.

You’ll be prompted to create an archive, and your history will begin downloading — it’s as simple as that. The archive will be saved to your Google Drive in the form of a zip file that can be saved to your desktop computer.

Of course, you’ll need to have your search history option turned on for the feature to work. If you’ve opted out of keeping a record of your search history, you’ll find nothing available.

One blogger noticed early testing of the feature last year, and pointed out the wider availability over the weekend.

[via]

Twitter now allows you receive direct messages from any user

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Twitter announced on Monday that all users will now have the option to receive direct messages from any other user.

The setting was originally introduced in fall 2013 but only rolled out to a small subset of people. This time around, Twitter will make the option available to all of Twitter’s 288 million monthly active users, with the social network rolling it out to people throughout Monday. Users can eventually check off  “Receive direct messages from anyone” on the “Security and privacy” settings page.

For Twitter users who didn’t have access to the setting until now, direct messaging was more limited: You could only send messages to users who followed you, and you could only receive messages from any user you followed.

While the feature may be trivial, it’s another small tweak in Twitter’s recent attempts to have users just plain message each other more, and in turn, boost engagement — particularly among brands and businesses. Twitter’s going to need them if it wants to reach its bold, “strictly hypothetical” goal of $14 billion in annual revenues within the next decade.

Over the last few months, the social network has rolled out a number of new features and tweaks. In January, for example, it introduced group direct messages, as well as the ability to share and edit video inside Twitter. And earlier in April, it officially revamped its retweet feature, making it easier for users to plug other people’s tweets and add their own comments.

[via]

 

Best WordPress Courses Available To Take Online

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

WordPress is extremely popular today and is used for business websites, all kinds of personal sites, and various types of blogs. The reason is partly because it is so easy to use.

WordPress is a CMS (Content Management System) and you will find it being used all over the internet. In fact, more than 400 million people use or view WordPress blogs and websites every month.

Some of the biggest brand names online, such as The New York Times, TED, TechCrunch, Mashable, and CNN to name a few, rely on WordPress.

It’s become so popular that, according to analysis done on Google Trends, it’s being used as much as Sharepoint, Drupal and Blogger, if not more.

How Can You Benefit From WordPress?

If you would love to use WordPress for your business or just to blog on the subject of your passion, but you have hesitated to do so as you do not know how to use it, then the good news is that anyone can learn WordPress. Learning and using the CMS actually pretty easy.

Below you will find the best WordPress courses online that you can start taking right away. You will find that some of these courses are basic and others are advanced. You can take your pick and find out which one(s) best suit your needs. You may even find that you take additional courses as you delve deeper into the world of WordPress development.

When you take any of these courses, you will learn right from scratch how to set up your WordPress website or blog and how to maintain and run it successfully.

Shawn Hesketh’s WP101

If you want to learn the very basics of setting up a WordPress blog or website, then this course is not for you. On the other hand, this is definitely a good choice for you if:

• You have a working knowledge of WordPress and you want to turn that into an in-depth knowledge.


• You have just started using WordPress and you are not too sure of how to go about things, so you’d like more detailed knowledge.


• If you want to showcase your work using WordPress and you would like to understand how to get things done more professionally.


• If you are a content creator or a blogger and you have been using another platform and you would now love to switch over to WordPress.

Though, this is a paid course, the big plus here is that it comes with free samples. There are videos in this course that will teach you all the fundamentals of WordPress. These videos are medium-paced, so you won’t find yourself at sea while you learn.

Another plus with this course is that there is a plugin that is available and there are also white label options. So if you are a developer, you might want to use the videos for your own clients and you can do so with the help of this plugin.

Another advantage to learning WordPress at this website is that there is an awesome forum. This is a Q&A Forum, so whenever you have any kind of questions, just put them up there and you’ll get answers.

Bob Dunn’s BobWP

If you are the kind of person who just loves the DIY kind of stuff, then Bob Dunn is the man you’re looking for. With this fantastic WordPress course from Bob himself, you will learn how to set up your WordPress blog or website quickly and easily.

True, this is a paid course, but for DIY lovers who are in a hurry to learn how to setup a WordPress blog or website in a jiffy, this course is just what you need.

You’ll be happy to see that Bob Dunn is absolutely calm and very much at ease when he teaches. And his teaching method is slow, enabling you to grasp what he is saying and showing, as well as facilitating you to take whatever notes you might need as you go along.

You will discover that this is not a formalized training module and neither will you see modules or quizzes in sequences. This is actually a very casual way of getting started with learning WordPress by watching videos on specific topics that you need to learn or know, at the spur of the moment.

For instance, if you are using a certain theme and you would like to shift to another theme, you might want to check what would happen before shifting to the new theme. You’d just need to look at the video on this topic and you will get your answer.

Bob Dunn is not just an avid blogger, but he is also a top-notch WordPress expert. As a result of the vast knowledge that he has, he now has his WordPress training site that contains excellently written tutorials and videos on how to learn, set up, and run highly successful WordPress blogs or websites.

It’s important to note here that most of the tutorials and examples covered by Bob deal with Genesis or WooThemes. So, if you have problems setting up a WordPress blog or website using these systems, then you can be sure that the BobWP training will prove beneficial for you.

Automattic’s WordPress.tv

I probably should’ve listed this one first because it’s official and all, but here we go anyway. You won’t have to shell out anything here to learn WordPress as this course is free. On this site, you will get to see all the talks that’ve been posted from the oh-so-fantastic WordCamps.

You might not be able to attend the talks held live at a WordCamp because either they are too far to go to or they overlap one another. So they are available online for your enjoyment instead.

Perhaps the best aspect of Automattic’s WordPress.tv is the fact that even though you might have missed out any live talk, you can see it here, any time you wish to.

Just one downside to this website is that it takes quite a long time for the videos to appear online after the event has been held.

Awesome Motive Inc’s WP Beginner

This is another WordPress course that is free of cost. And as the name says, it is for beginners. In fact it is for absolute beginners. So, if you have little to no knowledge of WordPress at all, then this is the place for you to learn all about it.

This website is a free resource that contains content in various forms, such as guides, videos and extremely well written articles. There is even a very useful glossary.

The website even has its own newsletter through which you will get more content of various types and very useful coupons.

Another good feature about this website is that it is very open to what is being used to run the site and they are made available for you to use, including quite a few well-known plugins.

Perhaps the only slight snag that you might find while trying to access the videos is that you first need to sign-up at the website, using your email. But if you’re willing to pass over your data, you’ll receive quality training in return.

In the members area, you can access extended material as well as the training videos. This includes teaching materials and video transcripts.

If you are a developer and you are in the course of building a WordPress blog or website for your client who has no idea of how to use WordPress, then you can score brownie points for yourself by sharing this website with them. They will understand how to use the WordPress website or blog you built for them in a hurry.

WordPress Courses By Udemy

Udemy offers various WordPress courses, by a choice selection of authors. Udemy is a platform where you can get trained on an assortment of subjects and you will find paid courses as well as free courses, including WordPress.

Udemy provides an interface and the tools for people who want to host WordPress courses. Therefore, you will find that there are many people hosting many different kinds of classes, so you will have to take the time to find out which course you feel is most suitable to your needs.

You’ll also be able to access these WordPress courses from anywhere you choose to via the apps on your smartphone or tablet.

Another big advantage of taking a WordPress course on Udemy, is the user interface is very intuitive, making it easy to navigate. So, it will be very easy for you to take notes, sift through the WordPress course materials, and watch videos, as well as track the progress of the course you’re taking.

There’s a place to discuss the course with other students. It’s worth taking note that these WordPress courses on Udemy are all run on an “Open Platform.” This means independent authors handle the courses.

The downside to this is that there is no quality control. The only way of knowing how good a course is, is by looking at the ratings that have been given to the course by people who have taken it already.

Your best bet to get the best WordPress course on Udemy, would be to try out a few courses, until you find one that is best suited to your needs. And since it’s free, you can take as many as you like!

Learn WordPress In 1 Week At WPMU DEV

At WPMU DEV, you can actually learn WordPress in one week flat and the best part is you won’t have to pay anything.

Each day of the week offers a specific section in which explicit things are taught about WordPress. For example, on Monday you will read about the Codex. Then on Tuesday, you will get to know about WordPress Themes. And in this way, you will learn a new thing each day about WordPress and then finally on the last day of the week, the course will be over and you will have learned a little bit of everything.

In this way you will be covering a special section on WordPress on each day of the week and you will be taught different elements of the CMS. Of course, you can easily read through older blog posts as well and pick it up faster. The tutorials are in-depth and act as excellent resources to refer back to as well. So it’s not really a “course” per say but it’s highly useful.

Some of the information that is present on WPMU DEV is beyond the level of a beginner. For example, there are marketing aspects that are also covered here, such as SEO. Alhough these are very useful, they are not at all absolutely essential for you to start your very own WordPress blog or website.

Get a WordPress Education at Elegant Themes Blog

This blog is actually a pretty handy resource to have on hand as well. Every day we’re dishing up new content and tutorials that walk you through how to do X,Y, or Z in WordPress. Keep reading each day and you’ll be a WordPress guru in no time. And that’s totally not blind hype–it’s the truth.

And I mean, you’re here reading so you must believe me! In all seriousness though, we cover everything about WordPress you’d ever want to know plus plenty of tidbits about marketing and general business operations to keep your knowledge base fresh.

It Is Very Easy To Learn WordPress

As the old adage goes, where there is a will, there is a way. As you can see from above, there are various ways in which you can learn WordPress very easily if you want or need to.

If you think that learning WordPress is something that only people who have a technical mind can do, then this list of courses should prove you wrong. You just need to choose if you have a budget for a course and which way you prefer to learn – video tutorials or written content, timed slots or go at your own pace – you decide.

So get going and join the growing list of big names who blog or have a business or personal website using WordPress as their CMS.

Via: elegantthemes.com/blog

Awesome Place To Find Quality Leads As A Web Designer

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

When you’ve venturing into the world of self-employment as a web designer, the world looks full of a promising prospecting future. Your eyes are wide, your mind is hungry to take on a new design task and your pockets are ready to fill with all that cash you hear is floating around in the wide world of web design.

Then a month goes by, then two…Soon, it’s been longer than you can count and you’re scraping by on creating $5,000 websites for a few hundred bucks and living off of those Top Ramen noodles you hoped to leave behind in college.

Now that world of web designer Nirvana sounds like nothing more than a fallacy you got duped into. Sound a bit familiar?

It’s one of those things that quite a few people run into when deciding to jumping to doing web design. Sure, you may be the Michael Jordan of web designers, but most clients who want your services don’t care if you know PHP or can whip out WordPress Hooks from that digital tackle box of yours.

Therein lies the issue and the bigger question:

How do you drop those cheap clients who undervalue you and find the bigger fish with deeper pockets?

It’s not always easy to to get the answer to that question, but there are some places now available online that can help drop these types of clients in your lap, and a few old tricks that can help you snag quality leads as a web designer.

Where To Find Web Design Clients

People in need of a web designer are everywhere. The problem is that many either don’t want to pay the price you ask or they undervalue what you do.

For as popular as sites like Freelancer or Elance are for people selling services such as web design, most of us can’t compete with the low prices offered by others — and you really shouldn’t.

Therefore, bidding sites like these should be off your list of places to look for clients who will pay well because people on those sites are looking to hire the best designer at the cheapest possible rate which is exactly where you don’t want to wind up.

When looking for quality leads you have to think like the person you are trying to land as a client. Where would they look? Where would they go to find and pay someone for the solutions?

Thinking like that will help you narrow in on where to find the clients you want. There are some great places to start online, but you’d be surprised what you can do with your own site and getting out off your butt and doing a bit of face to face stuff too.

For starters, let’s look at the online places.

Envato Studio

Get Web Design Leads from Envato Studio. The Envato Network is a vast network of popular sites that have recently made a new addition to the family: The Envato Studio

Since many people know about Envato, this is one place where they will go in hopes go finding a great designer for their project. This means that getting your name and portfolio here will put you in front of a large audience of folks who need what you offer.

Not just anyone can land a spot on the site so it does cut out some of the competition in that regard. The downside to this site is that you’ll still be competing with other designers who can afford to offer their services for less than you can.

However, you can offer smaller segments of design for a price that both you and prospective client or WordPress related tasks that can help you build out your portfolio. Many times, if you can be professional, easy to work with, deliver on time and deliver something that amazes your client, then they will come back to you for more and with more money to offer.

Remember — charge what you’re worth and for the value you offer or you’re going to get deeper in that cheap client debacle you’re trying to escape from.

Codeable 

Codeable is a site where people go when they need WordPress solutions it done right and they want it done right now. (No wishy-washy clients.)

The business was built by Tomaz Zaman and Per Esbensen who wanted to create a site that collected only the best WordPress designers and developesr under a single roof and then served them up to people who need their services and are willing to pay for them.

In order to get on this team of WP experts, you have to apply and go through a 4 week testing period before you can stay on with them for consistent work. Therefore, you really need to know your stuff (WordPress, PHP, jQuery, and HTML) and will need to have current portfolio that you can show them to start with.

The great thing is that at the very least, you are making $60 an hour, and most times it is 3 to 4 times that much. If you can get in the door here, then you have a chance of forging relationships with high paying clients who will want to work with you again and again, and you don’t have to scramble to find them because Codeable will have done that part for you.

AwesomeWeb 

If you’re a web designer, then chances are that you’ve heard about 1stWebDesigner and read many of the posts and other content on their site. A few months back, the minds that created the site banded together and launched AwesomeWeb.

This site plays as the happy medium between Envato Studio and Codeable.

Whereas Envato Studio and Codeable will take a cut from whatever project you land, AwesomeWeb is only $17 a month with no added fees in the mix meaning you keep more of the money you make.

Codeable doesn’t require you to pay a fee upfront, however, you really need to know code to land work. AwesomeWeb, on the other hand, opens the doors to more design based work and has many features to it that which makes it easy for clients to come and find you.

Like the other sites above, you have to prove your stuff to land a spot on the site, but it’s a site where potential clients will go to in order to find talented designers and who what to pay for them — no bidding allowed.

In addition to that, you’re not tied down to sticking with AwesomeWeb and can opt out of using them.

Dribbble

I know it seems strange to mention Dribbble here since most people use the site as merely a portfolio, however, it has a feature that allows potential clients to pay a very small yearly fee in order to find designers and contact them for work solely based off their portfolio there on Dribbble.

Therefore, this is one site where it can pay off to create a portfolio for yourself and the design services you offer. The hard thing about Dribbble though is that you can’t just sign up and create a portfolio there. In order to land a spot on this site you have to be invited by a current member on the site.

At the very least, you can get started with a free account there that allows you to comment and connect with current Players on the site. If you can build a report with these people both on and off Dribbble, then you’re one step closer to getting yourself on the site and in front of more leads.

Other Tips for Landing Quality Web Design Clients

When you’re first starting out as a web designer, you should understand that the world of self-employment and web design requires a hustlers mindset with a need for both online and offline marketing chops.

Though it would be great to be able to sit at home and never get off the couch to find work, it’s hardly that easy. And if you want to land higher paying work as a designer than you need to have a portfolio that shows off your talent and skills, but it doesn’t stop there.

Here are some tips for landing high paying clients

Specialize

Being a broad scope designer might be fun for you, but most high paying clients neither want nor need a Jack-of-all-trades designer. As that is the case, you do well to consider niching down in your business.

You can do this a few different ways:

• Pick a framework and learn it inside and out. Divi, Thesis, and the Genesis Framework are largely popular framework type themes with an audience and users who want to use the theme for their site and will pay someone to create something amazing if they use it. If you can pick one that suits you best and then establish yourself as an expert with it, then you’ll start attracting clients with wads of cash ready to pay you for your expertise.


• Become a WooCommerce Ninja. WooCommerce is an insanely popular plugin that is easy to use for the basic stuff, but is difficult for an average user to expand the scope outside of the basic settings. If you can learn how to create stunning e-commcere shops and expand the functions of the plugin, then you’ve just opened the door to a market of high paying and likely big name clients. Of course, just saying you’re an expert isn’t enough. You really should work to establish this for yourself which means showing what you’ve got plus getting your name out there (i.e. outreach and networking)


• Find your niche.  This is kind of bland, but it should still be mentioned. There are quite a few areas of WordPress that you can specialize in, but it will take some research on your end to find the shoe that fits. Find an area that people have problems with and then become the solution. Are you knowledgable about small business and/or local SEO? Do you like designing creative sites for authors, musicians, etc? Jot down some ideas, do your research, and start working towards the goal of becoming a designer in a high paying niche.

Outreach, Networking, and Brand Building

I touched on this briefly above, but it should be mentioned again.

Being successful as a web designer and building a clientele of better paying customers requires a hustlin’ spirit. If you want to get your name out there as a top notch designer, then you need to connect with others who can help that process along.

I’m not talking about spamming people’s emails begging for work. I’m talking about building and forging relationships that are mutually beneficial.

How do you do that? Here are a few ways you can give a go:

• Get on design forums, Facebook or LinkedIn Groups and answer questions relating to your niche


• Follow people you want to connect with on social media and interact with them


• If you can write well, pitch guest post ideas to sites that can get you in front of an audience of folks who need your expertise on WordPress


• Go to WordPress WordCamps or local Meetups and connect with people face to face


• Get on YouTube and create engaging videos that establish your brand, skill set, and expertise

Really, this list could go on and on, but the takeaway from this should be that forging connections and building on them is one of the best things you can do for your business.

Wrapping It Up

There are many people who have found different ways for landing high quality web design clients. Many of you guys here in the Elegant Themes community are some who know how to do just that. What tips do you have to share with aspiring web designers looking to land better leads?

Via: elegantthemes.com/blog

Learn How To Set Up WooCommerce Coupons

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

The WooCommerce Coupons is a great way to give your customers discounts on products and/or services. In this tutorial I will show you wow to create a coupon and demonstrate the flexibility of expiration dates and usage per coupon.

Coupons are a great way to thank existing customers and to acquire new customers. It also allows you to create custom codes that you can easily share online, in newsletters, or personal emails to clients as a thank you.

To add a coupon go to WooCommerce > Coupons

Coupon Date General

1. This is the code that you will be sharing with your customers.

2. Details of your code. This doesn’t appear anywhere but is more for your own records if you want to apply any details here.

3. You have four options for discounts

4. Coupon amount – either the dollar amount of percentage. Do not add any symbols in here.

5. Allow free shipping – note that the free shipping method must be enabled to use this.

6. Apply before tax – will discount the item based on the discounted amount

7. Coupon expiry date – set this for any future date, best to do so you don’t forget it. But do let you customers know that date.

Coupon Data Usage Restriction

1. Minimum spend – you may choose to have a minimum amount that customers add to cart before they can use the coupon

2. Maximum spend – also this is good for large discounts. You may want to limit up to a certain amount.

3. Individual use – restricts the customer to only being able to use this one coupon. Especially good on cart discounts.

4. Exclude sale items – let’s you exclude any products or services you have on sale. Make note with the coupon to your customers that it cannot be applied to sales items so they aren’t surprised or confused.

5. Products – you can choose any product you have created here to allow the discount for.

6. Exclude products – exclude any specific items from the discount. This is good if you have created a cart discount but have some disclaimers on just a few items.

7. Product categories – same as products except you can use a category. You may have created a category just for these instances.

8. Exclude product categories – same as products except you can use a category. You may have created a category just for these instances.

9. Email restrictions – list of emails to check against the customer’s billing email when an order is placed.

Coupon Data Usage Limits

1. Usage limit per coupon – sets a restricted amount that the same coupon can be used over and over with all your customers that use it.

2. Usage limit per user – sets a restricted number of times a single user or customer can use the coupon.

Applied Coupon

Once they enter the coupon in the field and click on apply, then this message appears and the final total reflects the discount.

Need more options?

If you are looking for a more dynamic use of coupons, including gift certificates, etc, there are several extensions to meet specific needs at WooThemes.

Via: bobwp.com

How To Find New Clients Using Craigslist Marketing

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Craigslist has been around since 1996. It’s one of the most long lived and consistently used websites in the world. But just how popular is it?

The kind of popular that consistently gets 20 billion monthly page views. Yes, that’s billion with a “b”. That number of page views represents over 70 countries around the world and around 700 local Craigslist sub domains. That’s a whole lot of eyeballs that could be looking at your listing and visiting your website, calling your office, or interacting with your brand as a result.

But isn’t Craigslist mostly just adult ads, creepy personals, and crummy job listings? Well, to be fair, yes those things do exist on the site in abundance. However, that doesn’t mean using the site in a smart way can’t generate some positive results.

How to Know if Craigslist is a Good Marketing Option for You

The core idea behind Craigslist is that it provides an online alternative to local listings. It’s important to keep that in mind when deciding whether or not marketing on Craigslist will be good for your business. Some enterprises are just not best suited for that environment. But a lot are!

If you’re wondering whether or not your business could benefit from marketing on Craigslist, you can start by asking yourself, “Would I benefit from a listing in my local newspaper?” (back when those were a much bigger deal) If the answer is yes, great! Proceed to the best practices below. If the answer is no, consider another question, “Would I want the ability to put a local listing in any any newspaper in any country in the world?”

Chances are you’ll find more value in the second proposition that the first. After all, thanks to the internet, many of us work from home and our customers are not necessarily concentrated in our physical location. But everyone has local interests and if they can come across your posting while they’re searching for a relevant listing in their area, then that works just as well!

You can use Craigslist to market in-person or virtual training/tutoring, workshops, consulting, affiliate marketing, and more. You can test different cities or regions to gauge where there is the most interest for your type of product.

To do that effectively, follow the Craigslist marketing best practices below.

Craigslist Marketing Best Practices

Whether you’re selling products/services for a local market or digital products/services for nowhere in particular, there are a few best practices you can follow to get the most out of Craigslist.

Write a Great Headline

Write great copy in general. This site is so heavily weighted towards text that you cannot ignore the importance of precise, even beautiful, language. Granted, you don’t come across those things too often on Craigslist but when you do it really stands out.

I’d recommend checking out this post series from Copyblogger. It’s geared towards writing great blog post headlines but the principles are the same.

Include Keywords in Body Text

The search functionality on Craigslist is first and foremost about recency and then filtered by keywords. That means your title and body text should both be keyword rich. We’ll focus on keeping thing recent in the tips below.

Use High Quality Photos

Adding a photo to your posts, of even average quality, will increase its effectiveness. But using high quality photos will set you above even the other ads who bothered to add a photo at all.

You don’t need to have a great camera to get high quality photos. Most recent smartphones have relatively great cameras. Focusing on simple lighting and composition will go a very long way.

Provide Contact Information

This might sound like a no-brainer but some people just will not respond to the default Craigslist reply email address. So try to also offer a separate email address or even a phone number. If you don’t want to give out your own phone number (or even that of your business) in that environment, then try using a VOIP service to set up a digital voicemail.

Link Out (But Not to a Paywall or Product Page)

Be sure to link out to your website or relevant social channel. Try not to go overboard on the links though, as the less options you have the more likely you are to get just the conversions you want. Also, don’t link directly to a sales page or product page as this may get you flagged as spam.

Pay Attention to Your Post’s Writing Style & Formatting

Any time you are writing for the web–whether it’s a blog post, status update, or Craigslist ad–you should be aware of your text formatting and writing style. Write in short, clear sentences. Keep paragraphs to around three sentences. And keep the insider jargon to an absolute minimum.

Post Often (But Within the Regulations)

A great way to get flagged on Craigslist is to post the same ad in the same place within 48 hours of the original posting. Instead, create a posting schedule for yourself using a spreadsheet or your calendar and create a new ad at the earliest time slots possible within Craigslist’s guidelines.

Clean Up After Yourself

This best practices goes hand in hand with the one last one above. If you want to look like a spammer, then a good way to do that is by leaving all of your old postings up on Craigslist. This will result in anyone who is searching through a category archive to come across the exact same ad over and over again.

Instead, clean up after yourself. Leave day or two’s worth of ads up but delete everything older. This will make your postings seem more urgent (as they’re more recent) and increase the likelihood of getting the response you’re after.

Mix It Up

Don’t write-up just one ad. Come up with a handful of variations on your original idea. This will do a few things for you. First, your copy will get better the more times you write it. The first few ads will probably be pretty bad, but somewhere along the way you will probably hit a good flow and turn out something nice.

Secondly, this will allow you to post more often across different categories without immediately standing out as a heavy poster. Users will be more likely to read your ads and take them seriously this way.

And finally, mixing it up with variant ads allows you to use our final best practice more advantageously.

Track, Measure, Test, & Repeat

Last, but certainly not least, we have our assessment stage. The important thing about this best practice is that it turns everything you did above into a rough draft. A first try.

A lot of times people will experiment with a new marketing strategy and if it doesn’t do great right away they give up and quit using it. To me, that’s like quitting track because you can’t run a fast mile your first try. It’s a process! And processes need refining.

So come up with a way of measuring your success, take notes on which variant ads perform best, and make the necessary changes needed in order to achieve incremental improvement.

In Conclusion

Craigslist, believe it or not, is actually a lot more than the internet’s playground for weirdos, broke college kids, and those with too many pieces of old furniture. When used correctly it can yield traffic, leads, and clients across a wide range of interests and professions. Following the best practices above, will take you a long way towards success in terms of Craigslist marketing.

Do you use Craigslist to market your business? If so, we’d love to hear about the tips and tricks you’ve learned along the way. Please take a moment to share them with the whole community in the comment’s section below.

Additionally, feel free to share what you love or hate about Craigslist postings and cite examples of the kinds of ads you would respond to.

Via: elegantthemes.com/blog

Cool Tips For More Effective Email Marketing Campaigns

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Email marketing is a fantastic way for you to keep in touch with your customers, learn about them, and create a loyal relationship between the two of you. It can be planned so that your customers receive your message at a specific time and that message is delivered right into their personal space: their inboxes.

Not many other marketing activities are such good all-rounders. With social media, it’s based on luck whether your message is seen or lost into the abyss that is a homepage feed. Direct mail sent via post is very personal, but it’s hard to measure the results. And your website could be top dollar when it comes to content, but it’s the decision of your customer whether to visit it or not.

So how do you make sure you’re using this fantastic marketing tool to its full potential? I’ve written five tips below that I’ve found to be essential when it comes to effective email marketing campaigns.

1. The Objective Of Email Marketing: Relationship Building Not Spam

If you’ve just discovered the magic of email marketing, don’t get overly excited and blast a message to all of your customers. Email marketing has garnered a bad reputation from spammers: those who send irrelevant emails, or possibly even phishing emails to get your bank details, and those who send multiple emails a day – usually without having sought permission from you to send you information.

Don’t be a spammer. You can segment your customers into lists, which we’ll get into later. This allows you to tailor the content of your email to certain customers, rather than sending all of your customers every single thing you want to say or item you want to promote.

Also make sure the language of your emails comes across as professional but friendly. You want your customers to trust what you’re saying as well as generate a warm feeling toward your brand. The objective is to build a relationship with your customer and you won’t get this if your language is all about sales promotions and how great your company is. Focus instead on how your customer can benefit from buying from you.

2. The Power Of Data

A huge positive for email marketing is the ability to collect data and then use what you know about your customer to build a relationship with them. You only get this chance through direct marketing and email is a great tool since it’s quick and easy to use.

Initially, your customers give you their email address for you to send them information. This first step in the relationship is actually a huge leap, as it signifies that the customer wants to hear more from you. You can obtain a few more bits of information on sign up too, such as their age and gender. You can then use this to send them more relevant communications.

You can also use this data to personalize your emails. The most obvious way to do this would be to add the customer’s name into the subject line or introduction to catch their attention. But be careful about too much personalization, especially early on in the relationship. Customers are wary of spammers or of having their data shared across the internet. So sending a special offer for the customer’s birthday is perfectly fine, but displaying their age might just freak them out a little.

3. The Design And Message: It’s More Than Just A Pretty Template

Looks do count, but you need to put some thought into what you want your email to do. Go back to point one above and think about the objective of your email and then build this into the message. What action do you want your customers to take? Tell them!

You’ll need a good design and engaging copy to get their attention – this includes the subject line to get past the first hurdle of opening the email and the headline or “above the fold,” which is the space you first see upon opening the email without scrolling. But you also need to make sure the main body of the message tells them what to do next. You can even do this visually with a call-to-action button.

This could be a link to a page containing your sales products, a landing page explaining further details about your service, or a blog post updating customers on the latest news. Just make sure that your customers know that you’ve sent them this email to encourage them to visit the page and that the page is relevant to your email. Overall, it needs to be a tailored piece of communication, rather than just throwing out some information in the hope that your customers will visit your website.

A couple of other design points include adding your social media links so that your customers can share your message, which is great for reaching more prospects. It also gives your customers the chance to build your relationship further if they choose to on another platform.

Also, make sure your email includes a message to add the “from” email address to their safe senders list to avoid it jumping into the spam box. And of course, you’ll need an unsubscribe option. This is legal but it also makes it clear to your customers that they’re in this relationship through their own choosing.

4. Learn From Your Results

Seeing the results of your email marketing campaign is the exciting part. There are the basics of how many people received, opened, and clicked through your emails – data which you should record and compare against each campaign to track its performance.

Email service providers like MailChimp and Aweber will go into more detail. You can often see visually where people have clicked, which can inform you how to layout your email and what type of content you should be including on your emails.

You can also drill down into the data for individuals so that you can build up a picture of their behaviors and preferences. Let’s say you’re an outdoor clothing retailer and your emails contain a variety of products on offer. If someone is only interested in biking gear, which you can see from the links that they’ve clicked, then there’s no point in sending them an email specifically about skiing clothes and equipment. You’ll get a much larger response rate and return on investment if you lump your biking enthusiasts into one pot and send them bike-specific content.

This level of detail in the data requires some work by a person with a technical mind and data analytics skill-set, but it’s well worth the investment. Once you know your customers, you can simply segment them into different mailing lists and select which message they are going to receive. It works for price sensitivity, lifecycle stage, and demographics too.

5. Test Away!

Of course you need to test your email on different devices and browsers before you blast it out to thousands of customers, but that’s not what I’m getting at in this point. Just like with your results, I’m talking about creating tests and learning from them.

For instance, if you have a new offer that you’d like to test, you can’t send this offer AND have a different background image on your test email to your original email, otherwise you won’t know if it’s your offer or image that’s created the difference. Similarly, if you want to change your email design, you’ll need to keep the original design and test just one new design at a time to make the test against the old design fair.

Testing also allows you to find out what works best for your brand. Search the internet for “best time to send a marketing email” and your search results will come back with many conflicting answers. The problem is that those times work best for the author or the sample that a study was completed on, but that’s not necessarily best for you.

So set up a test by sending the same email to different sets of data with a similar profile at various points throughout the day or week and this will give you a good indication of your most effective time.

Wrapping Up

There’s an animation doing the rounds at the moment comparing the 80s to the present, where in the 80s we were sick of receiving paper letters through the door but loved seeing an email pop up in our inboxes. Now, it’s the exact opposite.

As we’ve moved to these digital times, it is trickier to get your email and message seen above everyone else’s. This is especially so when you throw in the advertising and social media messages that your customers see online on a day-to-day basis.

But if you do it right, it’s incredibly an incredibly value tool for not only promoting your message and delivering it right underneath your customer’s nose, but for learning about your offer, brand, and most importantly; your customers. Build that relationship with your customers and they’ll keep coming back for more.

Via: elegantthemes.com/blog

Everything About Squeeze Page and How to Create One With WordPress

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Have you ever landed on a web page, started reading the content only to be interrupted by a pop up or distracted by a link to a landing page advertising a free product if you enter your email address? That’s a squeeze page.

It’s called “squeeze” as the customer is intentionally squeezed through a sales funnel to this landing page. Or alternatively, it’s a way of squeezing customer’s email addresses out of them!

Initially the interruption from what you originally went to the site to read can be annoying. But then you see what is being offered to you and it turns out to be totally worth it. All you need to do is give away your email address – usually with the acceptance that you’ll be marketed to – and you’ll get a free eBook, an email series of useful information, or “subscriber exclusive” video content, for instance.

And for the marketer, it’s a really valuable tool. Setting up the free product will take a little bit of time and investment to make sure it’s a worthwhile product to send out. But then the data you get as a return is like gold. Once you have prospects’ email addresses, you can build a relationship with them through your email marketing, leading to the ultimate goal of a sale.

The Squeeze Page Offer

The free product that’s offered on a squeeze page needs to be something that can be sent via email. The whole idea of the offer is that it is an exchange of information and therefore an email address is required to be able to view the product.

A link to a video that’s freely available on YouTube wouldn’t work, since your readers will be savvy and know that they can simply search for it online themselves. They may question why you’re collecting email addresses when it appears you don’t need to use them. Also, sending something via email rather than to a location where anybody can access it gives the product a feeling of exclusivity. This is a great start to a customer-supplier relationship.

Good examples of squeeze page products are an eBook on a topic related to the product or service you sell online; a white paper that gives insights into the industry that your customer is interested in; a report with industry research statistics; a discount; or a series of informative emails that make up a course.

When so much information is free online these days – from written to video content – it’s important to communicate why this product is different and why it’s worth signing up for.

One of the best ways to do this is to go down the series email route. This allows you to send many emails, which will build your relationship as your reader gets used to receiving information from you. Since the content will be sent out over a series, it makes digesting that content easier than if it were all to be sent in one go. This makes email series more beneficial than white papers (however, bear in mind that certain audiences, like businesses, appreciate the hefty amount of information that’s supplied in a white paper).

The Elements Of A Good Squeeze Page

The design of the page needs to focus your reader’s attention on the offer and the offer only. Distracting pieces of content should be avoided. This includes links to other websites or even other pages within your site. You don’t want to navigate your readers away and risk losing them and their sought-after email address.

Instead, the page should make it clear what you want your customers to do. A squeeze page isn’t about tricking your readers; the exchange of information is a transparent transaction. So the content should almost suggest that the reader take the offer or leave it and move to another page. A time limit to the offer can help with this.

However there are some good ways of adding content that will assist in encouraging sign ups. Adding a widget to social media sites is a great way to show who of the reader’s friends are fans of the site, or statistics that show how many people have already benefitted from your product. Both encourage the reader to join too. You can also add a well-executed video explaining the benefits of signing up, rather than letting the copy do the talking.

Keep the sign up form simple and ask for the bare minimum. Asking for too much too soon is a sure fire way to scare readers off. Instead, lead them to a thank you page that asks for more details and let them add this once you’ve safely got their email address. But do try to get the information as the more you know about your customer, the better relationship you can build by sending them more tailored marketing emails.

Squeeze Page Formats

One example of doing this well is through a pop up squeeze page. The reader is forced to click on the X to remove it from the page they were originally reading, thereby giving them the take it or leave it offer.

Just make sure that it is easy to remove with a large and clear X, otherwise the interruption could lead to a negative user experience. This is especially so if your website isn’t responsive (which, by the way, it should be in this digital age), as it’s hard to move the page to where it needs to be to click on the X.

The alternative is to set your homepage as the squeeze page, also known as a splash page, so that users who first come to your site are greeted with your offer. Make sure you make it clear that the splash page isn’t your “real” home page by using a link to go to the home page in case those who aren’t interested in the offer simply navigate away from your site completely.

It’s also a good idea to add a cookie so that regular readers don’t get to your site via the splash page every time.

However you decide to deliver your squeeze page, make sure the reader receives their free product as soon as possible. It’s an unfair relationship if they give and then don’t get something back until later. This is where an autoresponder tool comes in handy, which you can use with many email service providers or plugins.

How To Create Your Own Squeeze Page With WordPress

SqueezeMe

One option is to use a specific theme for squeeze pages. SqueezeMe is the only one available on the WordPress theme section. It is a one-page site that’s very simple but has full WordPress functionality, so you can add a blog and other bits to the site. However, the example provided isn’t the best example of a squeeze page as it looks rather “salesy” with a dubious product.

Current

Another theme that includes the ability to add squeeze pages is Current. This is a well-designed theme for any website, however it has the extra benefit of featuring a Page Builder integration. This makes building pages incredibly easy with the drag and drop feature, meaning a squeeze page is an easy addition to your site.

The theme was built with app and software products in mind, but it is equally good for simple websites and blogs. It’s selling point is the large header space, which you can use to showcase a product to customers immediately upon opening your site.

Estate

Also check out Estate for similar features. Created by Site Origin, it’s the epitome of their extreme simplicity style – it’s essentially a blank canvas on which to build your website. The options available to customize your site means it’s simple, but powerful. Use the widgets to add videos, images, and price tables, for example.

WP Lead Plus Free Squeeze Page Creator

If you’d prefer to stick to your current theme, you can simply opt for a plugin. As with all plugins, this allows you to build your site as you’d like it by having a base design through your chosen theme and picking and choosing what extra bits you’d like through the plugins.

WP Lead Plus Free Squeeze Page Creator is a really good option as it makes creating and editing a squeeze page a breeze. It has a one-page autoresponder feature, so you just need to plugin the code and you don’t need to worry about sending the communications. You’re able to add your logo or choose a background, plus choose one of the 20 stunning template options. You can integrate with Facebook to allow your readers to leave comments. You’re able to check your conversion results through the analysis feature.

The performance of the squeeze page itself is fantastic. You have multiple choices of where to place your pop up across different pages of your website. The pop up can be unblockable and the opt in can be a two-step process, increasing your conversion. Choose to allow the pop up to appear on exit intention or after a specific amount of time.

Bueno Gato Free Popup Creator

A similar plugin for the pop up option is Bueno Gato Free Popup Creator. The creator promises to provide pop ups that won’t annoy people, which can be used to build your email list and offer your newsletter. You can set where the pop up will appear on the screen really easily – you edit the pop up as you see it. The pop up won’t get caught by ad filters as it’s unblockable, plus it’s responsive to any screen size.

MiniMax – Page Layout Builder

Other plugins that have been designed for easily building landing pages and are suitable for squeeze pages include MiniMax – Page Layout Builder. It allows you to track the success of the page, create AB tests, and design pages without coding knowledge that work with your existing theme. It’s particularly great for beginners as it has a drag and drop feature. You can add sliders, galleries, drop-down menus, testimonials, and many more options without any coding or html knowledge.

WordPress Landing Pages

WordPress Landing Pages is very similar but has the added benefit of allowing you to pre-populate forms. The creators are offering a growing number of third-party add ons to enhance your experience even further. If you have some design or developer knowledge, you’ll be happy to know it’s extendable with a number of actions, filters, and hooks available to use. It’s plugin agnostic, so you can choose whichever form plugin you’d like.

 

WP Easy Columns

Finally, if you want to build your own landing page, using the plugin WP Easy Columns with an existing theme means you can create a grid layout or magazine style website with a huge number of columns. For squeeze pages, this means you can add a newsletter sign up in the column of existing pages.

Wrapping Up

For whatever page option you choose, squeeze pages are a great addition to your site if you want to build your email list. Email addresses are so valuable and collecting them should be part of your marketing strategy if you want to build a relationship with your existing readers and customers, and for promoting your product or service to new ones.

Encouraging your readers to part with their email address can be tough. They need to choose to do so, and offering a free product in exchange is good start to your relationship. As discussed, this could be a one-off or a series of information – the important thing to remember is that it has to be useful, otherwise the exchange won’t feel equal.

The other key part of this strategy is to make sure your readers see that this exchange is an offer. There’s no use in spending your resources setting up the product and autoresponder if no one sees it! Whether you choose a separate landing page and use a plugin to build the different features of this page, or a pop up from a plugin, make sure it’s appropriate for your audience. You’ll know if it works by the sign up rate, which you’ll be able to see from the statistics in the plugin.

WordPress has so many options for customizing your site, including plugins, so use this freedom to add a squeeze page and see the start of many new customer relationships.

Now I want to hear from you. Do you use squeeze pages on your site? How have you implemented them? I want the details!

Via: elegantthemes.com/blog

Apple's ResearchKit is Now Available to App Developers and Medical Researchers

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Apple is opening its ResearchKit platform to developers and researchers who can use the tool to learn more about patient diseases and conditions, like Parkinson’s and diabetes.

The company announced ResearchKit in March, which collects data from patients via the iPhone. People with certain conditions can opt in to participate in various clinical studies and surveys (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) that can be evaluated and analyzed by medical researchers. The goal is to ultimately improve patients’ health and the ability to care for them.

Image: Apple

While ResearchKit has already seen success with the first batch of apps that use the tool — more than 60,000 iPhone users have enrolled in the first few weeks of its launch, according to the company — Apple is now opening up the framework to anyone that wants to integrate ResearchKit into their own apps and studies. To do so, developers will add a specific Apple code into the back end of an app.

The move will allow medical researchers worldwide to collect more data about diseases on a larger scale. For those interested in participating in research, the app will ask for permission to access iPhone sensors like the accelerometer, gyroscope and other tools as a way to monitor activity. Participants can also opt in to share details about weight, blood pressure and glucose levels, so researchers can more closely examine how those relate to conditions and overall health.

The opening up of ResearchKit comes just as Apple set the date for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (June 8-12), which — for $1,599 — grants developers access to five days of sessions, labs and special events centered on building software for iOS and the Mac. While selfie sticks are banned from its premises this year, the event will likely serve as ample breeding ground for mobile innovation.

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Reddit Going To Launch Its First Email Newsletter, Called Upvoted Weekly

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Reddit, the internet’s portal into virality, needs a table of contents — and it’s getting one, with the site’s first curated email newsletter.

The new email newsletter will go out to users every Sunday and will be curated by staffers to help surface stories that might otherwise get lost in one of the thousands of communities, which are called subreddits. The social news site announced the launch on Tuesday.

The newsletter, called Upvoted Weekly, comes three months after Reddit debuted its first podcast, also called Upvoted, which follows up with the people behind the big stories popping on Reddit.

The move may help Reddit to take more ownership of the viral content that users post, which ranges from the inspiring to cute cats to gross fast food stories. It also helps fend off curatorial competitors like Tumblr, which is competing for Reddit’s “front page of the Internet” status.

“Content surfaced and created by redditors sets the global agenda every day,” Alexis Ohanian, cofounder and executive chairman of Reddit, told Mashable. “This new approach is another example of getting in front of new audiences while re-engaging existing ones via new channels.”

The subtext to that statement: Reddit is often a go-to source for media outlets (including this one) to discover viral Internet stories and occasional news, but some of those publications arguably end up profiting more from content that first surfaced on Reddit than Reddit itself does.

Part of the reason for Reddit getting cut out of the viral publishing game as a middleman is that the site is more chaotic and difficult for new and even some existing users to navigate, leaving an opening for other publications fill the void.

Ohanian hinted at this problem in an interview with Mashable late last year: “We need to do a better job with things like mod tools and discovery… It’s a failure of UX that so many people don’t even understand how reddit works.”

Ohanian rejoined Reddit full-time as executive chairman in November after CEO Yishan Wong abruptly resigned following a dispute over office space.

Since then, Ohanian has used the credibility that comes from being cofounder of Reddit to crack down on nude images, work toward building safer communities and push for better discovery — all of which could make Reddit just a little more approachable as it vies for the mainstream.

Via: mashable.com

Facebook Launches Standalone Messaging App for The Web

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

Facebook rolled out a web browser version of its standalone Messenger app on Wednesday.

Like the Messenger mobile app, the web platform — which can be found at messenger.com— is completely separate from the rest of the site and has the same barebones look. But unlike the mobile app, the social network claims it will not force the new service on its users.

Image: Courtesy of Facebook

Facebook caught a lot of flak when it first split its messaging function off into a separate app last fall. Users complained then that the company was strong-arming them into downloading the new app.

“Asking folks to install another app is a short term painful thing, but if we wanted to focus on serving this well, we had to build a dedicated and focused experience,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained in his defense during a Q&A last fall.

But the company says it has no plans to cleave the core Facebook web platform in two, meaning that users will still have the option of messaging with Facebook’s standard chat option or with the stripped down new service. A Facebook spokesperson said web Messenger is meant only as an additional option that’s free of the distractions of the rest of the Facebook site.

The new platform is part of a series of features and updates aimed at transforming Messenger into a communications hub where users can do much more than just chat with friends. Last month, Facebook rolled out a peer-to-peer payment service and opened it up for third-party developers to build content and services.

Via: mashable.com

The Apple Watch isn't Really A Luxury Watch, but It Might Make You Want One

Via:MyTutorialGuru.com

I was never a watch guy. The moment I bought my first cellphone, 15 years ago, I ditched my wristwatch, and I’ve never worn one since. I just couldn’t see the point — I could tell the time by looking at my cellphone, which was always with me. And soon enough, every decent phone had an alarm, a stopwatch, and everything else your average wristwatch could have, only better.

How come, then, the cellphone failed to kill the wristwatch? The reasons are many — the wristwatch can be a status symbol, a training partner, a diving computer. Above all, it’s a highly desirable, collectible gadget. As I’ve come to learn by reading extensively about the world of horology during the past few weeks, the Apple Watch and smartwatches in general are not about to threaten most — if any — of those niches.

Can a smartwatch afford to be expensive?

My interest was piqued when I read a bold report, in February, that Apple plans to manufacture 1 million units of the most expensive variant of the Apple Watch, the solid-gold Apple Watch Edition, per month. For comparison, all Swiss watchmakers exported 2.2 million units combined in February, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.

The report is unconfirmed (and cites Apple’s booming market in China as justification for the figure), but as a thought exercise, let’s assume it’s true for a moment. Is Apple being realistic? I could understand the logic behind the cheaper models — a smartphone companion on your wrist which sets you back a couple hundred dollars might not be my thing, but I could see people buying it. But Apple Watch Edition — the gold variant with exactly the same software and innards, starting at $10,000? Save for those buying it purely as bling, how big can the market for a gold Apple Watch be?

So I started reading up on luxury watches — some of these are priced in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I wanted to know what drives someone to buy a gadget like that. Initially, it was frustrating, as none of it made sense. An automatic watch, which is less precise than a battery-powered, quartz one, typically costs much more. And all the extra functions — complications, as they call them in the world of horology — can be easily, and cheaply replicated on a digital watch.

To put it short, a $350 Suunto sports watch puts a $250,000 Patek Philippe to shame in terms of features.

Even worse, luxury watches in general aren’t good investments (though the aforementioned Patek Phillippe might be an exception there). Buy a $5,000 watch and it will lose value as soon as you exit the store — like a car — and it will just keep on losing value as time goes on, unless you’re a celebrity.

Realizing this, I thought I was in some sort of weird, inverse-logic land. My instincts told me that luxury watches really are, as they’re sometimes categorized, jewelry — pointless trinkets that serve only to show how rich you are.

A whole different ball game

But then, trudging through the immense swamp of watch-related blogs and forums, I started to realize that luxury watches today are a different breed of gadget than smartphones, tablets and even smartwatches like the Apple Watch. What makes them desirable is equal parts craftsmanship, design, precision, history, imagination and artistry. It’s not about what they can do: It’s about the effort, experience and knowledge required to make one.

Take this watch, for example — the Omega Speedmaster Dark Side of the Moon. It has a chronograph (a stopwatch), a tachymeter (a scale that lets you calculate speed, though you have to do the math yourself) and yeah, it tells time. Its retail price is more than $10,000, depending on the variant. It can’t connect to your smartphone, you can’t change its face, it doesn’t have apps and it’s not upgradeable. And though parts of it are golden, it doesn’t have a gold case, like the Apple Watch Edition, which comes at a comparable price.

Omega Speedmaster ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ timepiece. Image: Omega

The devil, however, is in the details. This particular watch by Switzerland-based Omega is a new take on the original Omega Moonwatch, worn by Buzz Aldrin during his stroll on the moon in 1969. It’s powered by the Omega Co-Axial calibre 9300 movement — an advanced mechanical timekeeping mechanism created by Omega’s watchmaking masters that can’t be easily replicated or mass-produced on the cheap. Its hour, minute and chronograph hands are painted with Super-LumiNova, a strontium aluminate–based paint that shines brightly and beautifully in the dark.

You know how Apple puts special effort into the design of its products? Well, it doesn’t come close to the level of precision and the attention to detail needed to create this watch. Add to that its glorious history, and you got a very desirable collector’s item.

Apple Watch’s drawer

Does the Apple Watch really compete with the Omega or similarly priced luxury watches? In some areas, yes. A slab of gold on your wrist sends a message, and so does a luxury watch. It also connects you to a brand — Apple — which is what many luxury watchmakers do with certain models, like this Hublot.

But in all other areas, it’s not even the same type of device. In fact, in many ways the Apple Watch is the opposite of the most coveted luxury watches — it’s mass-produced, it doesn’t have history, it’s digital, it’s not hand-made by some expert watchmaker and, most importantly, millions of people will soon have one on their wrist. In the world of horology, being unique or a part of a very small group is desirable. Seeing everyone around you carrying the exact same hardware — gold case or no gold case — on your wrist is not.

More than one winner

So, budget permitting, which one would you buy — the Omega or the Apple Watch Edition? Regardless of your preference, the only proper answer for watch aficionados is: both. Watches are different than smartphones: You don’t just wear one until the next model arrives. You weigh your options, you do the research, you calculate your budget, you obsess about a timepiece, and then after you purchase it, your hunger is only satiated for a little while, until the next beautiful time-teller catches your eye.

Ever wonder why instead of the usual one or two options, Apple is offering dozens of different combinations with the Apple Watch? That’s why.

 

Image: Mashable

Apple is offering a multitude of options for its Apple Watch, including different sizes, materials and wristbands. Save for the almost certain initial boom (courtesy of Apple’s reality-distortion bubble), I can’t predict how well the Apple Watch will sell. Some reports indicate Apple expects to sell a huge quantity of Edition watches; others claim the cheap models are likely to get the most customers. But based on what I’ve learned about the world of watches, even if the Apple Watch absolutely kills it in the market, it will not make other watches obsolete. At best, it might become the preferable day wear timepiece of many; but I sincerely doubt watch lovers’ Rolexes, Zeniths and Hublots will be collecting dust.

The ultimate synergy?

Most watch enthusiasts already know all this. They already have an opinion about the Apple Watch, and they are very well aware at how different it really is from the haute horlogerie pieces they own or lust for.

But Apple covers a vastly larger demographic, and I bet even many gadget geeks don’t know much about what makes a luxury watch tick. Now — just as I did in the last few weeks — with the Apple Watch knocking on the door, many of them may learn about why it’s desirable to wear a watch, and those with the budget will also look into luxury watches.

The latest World Watch Report, a yearly publication by the Digital Luxury Group (DLG), sees increased interest in luxury timepieces in 2014. Contrary to the report mentioned earlier, DLG thinks 80% of Apple Watch sales will consist of cheaper units, priced below $700, meaning it shouldn’t hurt Swiss watchmakers too much.

With Apple’s enormous reach, it’s folly to think the Apple Watch will not affect the timepiece industry. It wouldn’t be too surprising if Apple sold more watches in 2016 than all the Swiss watchmakers combined. But the way Apple Watch compares with the luxury timepieces, I’m inclined to think it’s not going to hurt the industry; in fact, it’s likely we’ll all just be talking about watches a lot more in the years to come.

Via: mashable.com