WordPress – Dennis J. Smith

5 Must Have WordPress Plugins for Marketers

April 29, 2018

I’ve been using WordPress for marketing myself, my courses and my businesses for 7+ years. Before that, I would hard code websites which I had done since the 90’s when living in Seattle. WordPress makes it so easy for anyone to run an online business. However, with so many plugins available, it can be hard finding the best plugin for your needs. I’ve put together this list of 5 WordPress Plugins I use for marketing my various WordPress website. Optin Monster Why do you need it? You need a plugin like Optin Monster to capture lead generation information from the visitor of your website. If you don’t you are missing out on converting those visitors into marketing opportunities. Did you know that 70% of those who visit your website will leave and never come back? Make sure you have a strong lead magnet to offer which makes it easier to get subscribers to opt-in to your list. Where can you get it? Optin Monster ThirstyAffiliates Why do you need it? Besides teaching online courses I run 2 websites to promote the courses of other instructors. Both websites Online Course Coupons and Free Course Daily run this plugin. It’s made affiliate marketing easy for me and I’m just running the most basic version. The plugin lets you cloak links which is important as a marketer because of the long links generated by affiliate marketing programs. I want something simple, clean and that looks like a normal URL and that’s what you get with ThirstyAffiliates. There are add-ons available to give this plugin even more functionality. Where can you get it? ThirstyAffiliates Sumo Why do you need it? I have been using the Sumo tools for a few years now on all my WordPress websites and also teach a course that covers the different tools. Sumo has practically every tool a marketer would want to have out of the gate with a new website. The Sumo tools are designed to grow your email list and grow traffic to your site. The folks at Sumo always have tons of great blog post to give you ways to grow your business. Where can you get it? Sumo Ninja Popups Why do you need it? Ninja Popups is another tool created to help you grow your email list by providing beautiful pop-up forms. Plus it’s available on Themeforest, which is one of my favorite sites for WordPress Themes and Plugins. There are tons of themes to pick from and you can drag and drop elements on the form to create the perfect look. Ninja Popups has A/B testing so you can find out which pop up perform the best on your site. It also is smart and knows when someone is intending to click out of your site and pops up to catch the visitors attention. There are a lot of features packed into this affordable plugin so check it out for yourself and see it in action. Where can you get it? CodeCanyon ConvertKit Why do you need it? Email marketing is at the heart of every successful online business. ConvertKit makes it easy to capture more leads and sell more products by easily embedding email capture forms anywhere. This plugin makes it a little bit easier for those of us using WordPress blogs, by automatically appending a lead capture form to any post or page. If you choose a default form on the settings page, that form will be embedded at the bottom of every post or page (in single view only) across your site. If you wish to turn off form embedding or select a different form for an individual post or page, you can do so within the ConvertKit meta box on the editing form. Finally, you can insert the default form into the middle of post or page content by using the [convertkit] shortcode. I’m giving away my highly rate ConvertKit email marketing course FREE so you can learn more about it and you can try ConvertKit for 14-days while you take the course! FREE CONVERTKIT COURSE TRY CONVERTKIT 14-DAY TRIAL I’ve been using ConvertKit for over 2 years now and it has generated thousands of dollars in revenue for me. Now is your chance to see what ConvertKit can do to help you grow your business. I used ConvertKit along with a Facebook Messenger Chatbot to grow my list by 60 subscribers in just 2 days. See how I did it here. Take the course FREE, subscribe to ConvertKit FREE for 14-days, complete the course and if you stick with ConvertKit I’ll give you 20-minutes of my time every 3-months on Skype to help you with you ConvertKit and email marketing questions. Where Can I Get It? CONVERTKIT WORDPRESS PLUGIN FREE CONVERTKIT COURSE TRY CONVERTKIT 14-DAY TRIAL

Online Learning Courses WordPress Plugin

Free Udemy Course Marketing WordPress Plugin For Udemy Instructors

October 14, 2016

I’m always looking for new ways to promote my own online courses in places other than Facebook Groups or other social media networks. It’s something that I always stress with other online instructors because a Facebook Group might not always be your ideal target audience. I run a group on Facebook “The Online Course Promotion Group: Featuring Udemy, Skillshare and more!” with over 4,000 members but it is hard to tell how many are instructors and how many are there looking for deals on online courses. This plugin is a must have tool if you are an online instructor with a WordPress website. You can download the free version of the plugin or upgrade to the Pro version which gives you more features including connection to your Udemy affiliate program account. Scroll down for more details. Online Learning Courses WordPress Plugin The Online Learning Courses plugin for WordPress allows you to display your Udemy courses on your WordPress website in several different formats including the format displayed above. It can be used to display courses in a post, a page or used in a widget. I use it on my personal site DennisJSmith.com and on OnlineCourseCoupons.com to display the courses of other instructors with the Udemy affiliate program (Available with Pro version). [convertkit form=4900669] You can download the free version of the plugin or upgrade to the Pro version which gives you more features including connection to your Udemy affiliate program account. Features This plugin allows you to display Udemy™ courses and lead your visitors directly to the course pages Display single courses by ID Search for courses by keyword (API keys required) Select between the following layouts: Standard Boxes, Grids & Lists Select between the following styles: Standard, Clean, Light & Dark Two separate widgets for single courses and searches Configuration page for more options Try out the online demo Regular updates and improvements: Go though the changelog Quickstart Examples Single courses: Keyword search: More features with the PRO version The PRO version extends this plugins exclusively with our affiliate link feature and many more: Affiliate Links Masked Links Click Tracking Custom Templates Details and upgrade can be found here. Credits This plugin is not official made or maintained by Udemy™. All data provided through the official Udemy™ API. Live Demo – DennisJSmith.com Live Dem0 – OnlineCourseCoupons.com

Protect Your Online Business With These 5 WordPress Security Tools

November 23, 2015

If you are an entrepreneurs and small business owners like myself you don’t want to forget the imporantance of protecting your online presence. That for me would be my WordPress website since I use it the most and have more than one website. But it could also mean your Facebook Page, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, MailChimp or anywhere else you have built a following. In this post I’m focusing specifically on tools or plugins for WordPress that will help you protect your investment in case of trouble. Don’t get caught by an attack by a hacker and risk losing it all and having to start again from scratch. WP Limit Login Attempts Plugin This plugin helps protect your WordPress site from a Brute Force Attack, which is a method to gain access to your site through multiple login attempts with username and passwords. By installing the plugin the attackers have just a few attempts and will be locked out of your site if they fail to enter the correct username and password. It will block the IP address for a certain amount of time before they can attempt to login again therefore it is effective blocking these kind of attacks. Get The Plugin BackWPup Free – WordPress Backup Plugin Backing up your WordPress site is critical for the protection of your online business. Most hosting companies plans do not include the type of backup service you need for WordPress sites. That’s because WordPress is different than your average website. WordPress is a system of themes, plugins and the core files that work together to bring you beautiful websites. The best way to protect your site is through regular backups that store a copy of your website on a service like Dropbox or Amazon S3. Keep in mind that those services might cost a little but worth the investment. [convertkit] BackWPup Free does a single backup using a .ZIP file to store all the files needed to restore your site in the event of a problem. There are many options out there both paid and free to help you backup your site. But a plugin like this will do the job for most and you can schedule the plugin to automatically do the backup for you or you can do it manully on your own. Get The Plugin BackWPup Pro Wordfence Security WordFence is what I consider the best WordPress security plugins. I recommend you install it right after installing WordPress before you go any further. It is always checking your site for malware infection which can do damage to your site. If scans all the files of your WordPress core, theme and plugins to keep the code clean. If it finds any kind of infection, it will notify you so you can take action. It claims to make your WordPress website 50 times faster and secure which is an added benefit. The Wordfence Security plugin for WordPress is free, but a few advanced features are available for premium users. If you can afford it I recommend you consider going with premium but this free version works well for most WordPress users. Get The Plugin iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) I’m including iThemes Security because it’s also one of the top plugins for WordPress Security and it’s both free and paid. iThemes Security has over 30 ways to prevent your site from being one of he 30,000 webites that are hacked daily. It too helps prevent Brute Force attacts by preventing those bad login attempts. iThemes Security looks at your site for areas of vunerbility and warns you so you can take action to fix it. I recommend that you look at the Pro version for more feature and support to keep your investment protected. Get The Plugin Keep WordPress Fresh Remember to always make sure that your plugins, themes and WordPress are up-to-date. However you might want to wait a few days after a new update is released to make sure it’s stable. I recommend that you do a backup of your site and then do the updates. Doing this will give you a way to restore your site if something doesn’t go right with the updates and you don’t get hosed. Most hacked sites are those sites that aren’t maintained and thus make it easier for hackers to do harm. Need someone to do this for you? There are services out there that will backup your WordPress site for you for a small montly fee and make sure that the plugins, themes and WordPress itself is kept up-to-date and secure. WordPress Updates and Maintenance Packages Do you have questions? Post a comment below and I’ll be happy to answer your WordPress Security related questions below. Thanks for reading!

Building and Marketing to your audience with WordPress with host Matt and Dennis

November 19, 2015

This is a replay of the live broadcast with Dennis J. Smith, Phil Ebiner, Kristi Lambert, and Matt Bernstein

FREE WordPress Udemy Course: Learn Marketing Your Business With WordPress on Udemy

November 4, 2015

Learn Marketing Your Business With WordPress on Udemy Do you want to learn how to market your business better online? Is your website lacking what is needed to reach out to your customers? Are you staying in touch with your current clients? How are you bringing them back to your website? Is your website connected to your social media? Here is some of what you will learn during this course: What tools to use for creating landing pages. Finding great themes, plugins and widgets for marketing. Selling your products with ecommerce tools. Start your own affordable email marketing list. How to grow your mailing list with webinars or courses like this one. How to promote your self-published Kindle book and getting ready to market your next book. Finding great themes for your brick and morter store, resturant or food truck. How to create forms like the one below so you can sell your product online. BONUS: Get a free PDF copy of my Best Selling Book. [gravityform id=”24″ title=”false” description=”false”]

Blab – WordPress for Marketing Udemy Courses, Kindle Books, Online Services and more!

October 18, 2015

WordPress for Marketing Udemy Courses, Kindle Books, Online Services and more! Join me and learn how to use the power of affordable WordPress to market your business, book, Udemy course and more! Have questions about WordPress? I will answer them live or you can join me in the Blab hot seat and join the discussion! Subscribe here: https://blab.im/dennis-j-smith-wordpress-for-marke… I will be broadcasting live from Boise, Idaho USA on Wednesday 10/21 at 6:35 PM Mountain Time. Please use the link below to find out your local time so you can attend live. I will be sharing a list of some great WordPress Resources that will help you grow your business. Time Zone Converter I used WordPress to sell over 1,000 copies of my first book and I have used it to grow my mailing list to over 2,500 subscribers.

Are you frustrated with Social Media? Email Marketing? WordPress?

October 12, 2014

Are you needing some help with your social media marketing? Is WordPress giving you problems and you don’t know who to turn to? Set up a free 30-minute call with me and I’ll answer your questions to help solve your issues. I’ve set up a page on my website to show you what days and times are available. Just my your selection and tell me how you would like me to reach you. I’ll contact you at the date/time you select. There’s no catch! It’s my way of saying thank you for visiting my website. I have limited time slots next week so get your space reserved today. If you aren’t able to get a space this week I will open up more space for next week so keep checking. Book Your Free 30-Minute Call: https://dennisjsmith.com/schedule-free-30-min-call/ P.S. I started a new course called “Marketing Your Business With WordPress“. These are the tools I used to sell almost 1,000 copies of my book. Learn how you can use affordable WordPress to market your business online. It’s on the popular learning website Udemy.com for $57, has 10 5-star reviews and has over 20 different lectures to show you how to market your product or business using WordPress. I’m giving you $40 off so you can take the course until the end of the month for just $17. Don’t wait and miss out on this special savings! Register: https://www.udemy.com/marketing-your-business-with-wordpress/?couponCode=17BUCKDEAL

How I hit my first $100 month on Udemy.com

September 25, 2014

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]September 2016 Update: Since I wrote this post I have been busy on Udemy and just launched my 9th course on “ConvertKit” which is a powerful tool I use for email marketing. I also published my 2nd book “Udemy Life” which is how others like myself earn 100’s and 1000’s each month teaching on Udemy. I hope you check them both out and read the post below on how I got to my first $100. I am now approaching $30,000 from everything I do revolving around Udemy including OnlineCourseCoupons.com. Read my latest blog post “On The Road To $30K In Udemy Revenue“. Dennis CONTINUED BELOW…[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] Save On My Udemy Courses [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][convertkit form=4900669][/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]My “Udemy Life” Book Now Available on Kindle! Discover how Udemy Instructors are making 100’s and 1000’s each month by teaching skills on Udemy! Buy On Amazon Today [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][divider][/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading source=”post_title” google_fonts=”font_family:Oswald%3A300%2Cregular%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text]I have been working hard the last few months to grow my income through laptop lifestyle. Hoping that I can make enough money to live on my own again and not have to work for corporate America. My dream is to travel around the United States and the world while run my business on my laptop and a Wi-Fi connected. My courses on Udemy.com are just my latest stream of income. I recently posted about my latest accomplish of hitting $100 in revenue this month in the Udemy Studio group on Facebook. I’m always impressed by the praise and support of others in the group and by those like Alun Hill, (How I Make $4,000 A Week From Udemy Courses – And No Filming) and Benjamin Wilson (Double Your Udemy Course Sales (In Just 2 Hours!) Guaranteed) who share how they have been successful with others in the group through courses they created. Several people in the group asked me how I am marketing my courses and I thought this would be a great way to share that since blogging is one way that I promote my courses. Watch The Google+ Hangout I Did With Udemy’s Top Instructors – Including One Who Did $35,000 in November I launched my first Udemy course “Marketing Your Business With WordPress” (Course Coupon Offer) back in the middle of July 2013. Being that it was a new platform for me I didn’t know what to expect. I had a launch party and created a Facebook event and invited friends and followers to show up at 8 am to grab a coupon code to take the course for free. I am admitting this now but I overslept that morning and was late to my own launch. But I was able to recover and had over 13 take advantage of the launch coupon. Lesson learned. I also promoted the course on several of my Facebook Fan Pages, my personal Facebook profile, sent several tweets on Twitter and pinned it on my Pinterest Pinboard so I have my courses in front of several hundred followers. This is what I call “Be Everywhere” on social media on getting your product in front of those who want to learn. I had 4 other students redeem coupons that month and after Udemy’s cut I ended up earning $14.80 for July which I received payment for the first week of September. Not much but it gave me encouragement to keep going. Update: I ended the month of September at $109.41 and just received my payment of $40.85 for the month of August. The month of October is already starting off well for me and I am getting ready to do another cross promotion with other Udemy instructors.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] Save On My Udemy Courses [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][divider][/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] Would you like to experience a course on Udemy.com and learn something new? Take my 5-star “WordPress Marketing: Profits With Powerful WordPress Plugins” FREE by entering your first name and email address in the form below. Save $20! In August I added a 2nd course “MailChimp: MailChimp’s Forever Free Email Marketing Plan” to the mix. That month I saw 9 purchases mostly my “Marketing Your Business With WordPress” course and mostly from “Udemy Organic”. Which according to Udemy is “Purchases of your course driven by either organic traffic on Udemy’s site (typically at full price), or by Udemy email marketing campaigns to existing Udemy users (often at a discount).” August was also the first month that I distributed “Free” coupons in the Facebook Udemy Studio group which has almost 19,400 active users. You can learn a lot about Udemy course creation and marketing by actively participating group and the Facebook Udemy Facility Lounge once you are an active instructor on Udemy. I ended up with over 2,259 new students which gave me social proof and several 5-star reviews for the course. My book “Promote Your Business or Cause Using Social Media – A Beginner’s Handbook” has over 25 reviews with an average of 4.5—stars. I have sold almost 1,000 copies of the book since its launch 2 years ago so I know the importance of good reviews. It gets those who are on the fence on board with buying your book or taking your course. I also had a free webinar “Building Your Online Audience” in August and have a link to my Udemy course that displays in the replay of the webinar. Webinars are a affordable way to build your email marketing list and get your Udemy course out in front of fresh eyes. I use RunClick which is a premium plugin that works with WordPress. I finished up the month of August with $40.85 and should be receiving that the first week of October. Most likely I will reinvest it and try promoting my courses with Facebook Ads.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][divider][/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] Right now I am in my 2nd full month of having my courses on Udemy and I continue to promote my courses on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and my website. I also came across the courses I mentioned in the beginning of this post by Alun Hill and Benjamin Wilson. I’m starting to try their suggestions and toying…
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5 Udemy Courses For Learning WordPress

September 8, 2014

5 Udemy Courses For Learning WordPress I love WordPress because it has been around for just over 10 years now. That means there are tons of great resources out there to learn WordPress, find support, locate a great theme or to connect with other WordPress enthusiast. I have written post on great podcasts that talk about what is going on with WordPress or my Ultimate List of WordPress resources. In this post we are going to talk about 5 great Udemy courses for learning more about WordPress including one that I teach. Talking With Clients – Creating a WordPress Website – Free Course This course will teach you about the conversations you should be having with clients when designing their WordPress website. If you are building WordPress sites for others or plan to start your own WordPress business you should take this course. Rob also has several books on Amazon.com and I have read a few and came away with great business ideas. If you are interested in passive income check out his book “Build a Brand, Create Products and Earn Passive Income”. How to Install WordPress From Scratch – Free Course WordPress is famous for it’s 5 minute install which is offered pretty much by all hosting providers. However it isn’t the most secure way to install WordPress and could put your site at risk. This course teaches you how to install WordPress by scratch to insure you start out with a secure site. Learn how to create a MySQL database and other essentials for success from the start. WordPress SEO Rocket LITE – Free Course Learn better SEO for your WordPress site with this “WordPress SEO Rocket LITE” course. This course provides you with the basics for optimizing your site for better results with Google and Bing. Learn WordPress – A Quick and Easy Guide – $19 Course Learn how to install WordPress step-by-step and get the settings changed so you are ready to blog or build a website for your small business. This course has over 30 lectures including some advanced information at the end. Marketing Your Business With WordPress – Sell More Online – FREE(Save $147) I have been using WordPress for about 5 years now for all of my websites including the one you are reading this post on. I teach local workshops and this is my first Udemy course which now has almost 3,000 students taking the course. Learn over 20 different ways you can market your business or promote your self-published book online. These are the same tools I used to sell over 1,000 copies of my best selling web marketing book. You get a free copy at the end of the course so make sure you signup today. So there are 5 courses you can take on Udemy.com to learn some great information about WordPress from creating your site to marketing your product. If you take the courses come back here and leave your thoughts or course reviews in the comments below. *Please note that free courses were free at the time of publication and pricing is subject to change. Updated: Friday December 4th, 2015 [divider]

Category: WordPress