Perhaps the best balance of website and blogging power is to combine the best of what WordPress does with the best of what Kartra does to create an incredible marketing machine.
Here are some of the strengths of each platform.
WordPress Strengths
Blogging Power
Easy translation to multiple languages
Automatic structuring
Thousands of themes
Thousands of plugins for all purposes
Easy collaboration for editors and content providers.
Many hosting and support options.
Multiple editing options with various plugins and page builders.
More …
Kartra Strengths
Landing Pages
Sales Funnels
Membership Sites
Video
Email Sequences and Broadcasts
Gorgeous Designs
Helpdesks
Marketing Campaigns
More …
I offer a range a services for Kartra, WordPress, Marketing, and a combination of all to create an incredible marketing machine for your business.
A common question on Facebook Groups related to online courses and marketing is what is the best platform to use?
Also people want ideas about changing from various platforms or WordPress and a combination of plugins.
Platforms include MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, Podia, Kajabi, Teachable, ClickFunnels, and more.
There are always a few people like me suggesting Kartra as an all-in-one business platform.
Based on my experience and the general consensus of recommendations is that Kartra and Kajabi are both solid solutions for a wide range of applications including online courses and memberships, and that ClickFunnels is great if the main focus in sales landing pages.
All worthy platforms.
My choice is Kartra.
Sales Landing Pages
Automated Sales Campaign
Mail lists with Broadcasts and Automated Sequences
Membership Sites and Online Courses
Video Hosting
Affiliate Management
Booking Calendars
Websites
More, …
See the Kartra Site for a detailed description and videos.
Test Drive Offer
If you would like to test drive Kartra, here is my special offer.
We have a video chat to discuss your business and what you want to do with a platform like Kartra.
I will give you an honest assessment of how well Kartra is for what you want to do.
If you want to give Kartra a try, then sign up for the 14 Day Free Trial.
I will help you do the initial setup and get you started on the components for your first projects.
At the end of the 14 days, you can decide if you want to continue with Kartra.
You can also decide if you want to continue on your own or want to retain me to do some or all of the Kartra work. I offer a wide range of paid Kartra and Marketing Concierge Services.
I can also run your projects from my account rather than sign up for your own account, though for most businesses it is better to have your own account.
Contact me at gregdixon@gregdixonwriting.com to set up an appointment to discuss your business and Kartra.
Simply write a post, make sure the SEO is good, select categories, and WordPress makes sure it is easy to find and share.
I am also addicted to GTranslate and put it on all my WordPress sites. I am not sure how many people use it, but I think it is absolutely amazing to have your site instantly translated to one of many languages.
The translations are likely to be imperfect, though I think they are helpful to non-English speakers.
However, I had experiences with my GoDaddy Ultimate hosting package that risked my websites for quite some time.
Running Out of Resources
Even though the sites on my GoDaddy hosting plan, including some near abandoned sites for clients now doing other things, the sites were extremely slow and I was getting reports of resource limitations.
Then JetPack started reporting that the sites were unresponsive because they were so slow to respond.
Then I could not add images or do much of anything with the sites because the file usage exceeded 250,000 files.
That is more than 200,000 more than I could account for with File Explorer.
Numerous calls to Technical Support revealed that they could not account for the number of files either and recommended purging some files on the account.
Here are some of the files I purged.
Email from Spammed Comments
The first area where I found a lot of files was in the mail folders.
Some of the WordPress sites had tens of thousands of comments waiting for approval.
I manually deleted the email messages from the email folders.
Removing the Comments from the Database
WordPress will allow you to delete comments 20 at a time.
That can take ages if you have over 80,000 comments!
A plugin like WP Bulk Delete can help you purge the comments quickly.
Preventing Spam Comments
WordPress defaults to Allow Comments and Allow Pingbacks and Trackbacks.
I recommend turning these off on individual posts and in the general settings.
There are various plugins to block spamming and a security plugin like WordFence can help secure your site.
Remove Unused Themes and Plugins
I resisted the idea that removing themes and plugin could eliminate tens of thousands of files.
Turns out WordPress is a real file pig!
Deleting a single Theme would sometimes eliminate many hundreds of files.
Who knew!
I was eventually able to remove enough files so that I could install a plugin or add a photo.
Backup. Backup. Backup!
An incompatible plugin or a theme update can leave your WordPress website FUBAR (military slang, look it up).
You can’t log in to fix the problem. Your only recourse is the restore the entire site from a backup.
If you have not installed a backup service or done a manual backup, you may find the hosting company can’t help you either.
So when WordPress tells you to backup the site before making certain changes, heed the warning.
Keep WordPress, Plugins, and Themes Current
If you don’t keep the various components up to date, you might find that you can’t update the components at all. Not a good place to be.
Again, backup before updating anything!
Beware the Hosting Plan Upgrade
I was able to restore my account back to being slow and unresponsive.
So I decided to upgrade to a GoDaddy Launch plan, which is a Virtual Private Server.
The GoDaddy rep said that I would lose nothing and and the migration would take up to 48 hours.
After 48 hours of Coming Soon! Messages, only one of my websites would load.
It turns out that the migration did not update the Add-On domains properly.
I few more calls to technical support and another 48 hours, the sites gradually came back online.
So the sites were down for four days.
Your Hosting Company May Not Have Your Back
Before there was WordPress, I created a system for data-driven websites using ColdFusion and MS SQL Server.
I paid quite a lot monthly to host a Superb.net because they considered it a Legacy platform.
Superb had been great about fixing problems with MS SQL Server and ColdFusion on the rare occasions when there was a problem. Mostly SQL Server logs building up and ColdFusion stalling.
Then one day MS SQL Server Crashed and they could not fix it.
Turns out they had no backup of the server either.
Then the web server itself was hit by ransomware.
Toast.
Turns out they had no backup of that either.
Backups from a year ago would have helped.
But Nada.
Be Prepared! Avoid Disaster!
The lesson in this is that you need to have backups of all your important sites so that you can recover if needed.
Backup so that you can recover, even if the hosting company goes out of business.
Don’t let your WordPress website be a disaster waiting to happen.
Why Kartra is Different
When you use a hosting account for a website, you are renting space on a server, use of the webserver, and a connection to the internet.
You are responsible for all backup and security.
Kartra runs on Kartra services.
Kartra is completely responsible for the backup and security of your account.
A problem on their servers will cause problems for tens of thousands of accounts.
They protect the servers with all of the backup and security needed to keep all of the Kartra accounts and their business safe.
Why Kartra Won’t Replace WordPress
Although you can create beautiful websites with Kartra, there are a few things missing that WordPress provides.
Search Visitors cannot search the site like they can with WordPress.
Blog Posting Management Blogs are automatically presented newest to oldest with a rich set of categories to help the visitor browse.
Near Endless Configuration No matter what you want to do, there is probably a plugin for it or you can create one.
I prefer Kartra for simple websites with few pages and a landing page and marketing focus.
I prefer WordPress for pumping out a lot of content.
Kartra-WordPress Hybrid Solutions
You can have the best of both worlds with a hybrid solution.
You can embed a Kartra page into WordPress using the Blank Slate plugin.
You can use subdomains to blend the two.
For example, www.YourSite.com could be your main WordPress site.
Can you help people have better lives? Be healthier? Have abundance? Have better relationships? Improve their marketing? Grow their business? Be Happy?
Be Successful?
Are you helping people and businesses right now with your product or service?
Do you have knowledge people need?
Is what you got valuable enough to the right people for them to pay for it?
Many Ways to Help Your Ideal Client
How do you help?
Today it is easier than ever to reach people and share information.
Some of the ways include:
Social Media
Websites
Blog posts
Emails
eBooks
Online Courses
Video
Webinars
Coaching
Speaking
Much much more …
Chances are that you are doing some or all of these things.
Consider a Complete Membership Program Approach
Imagine how many people you can help with a Complete Membership Program.
Send helpful information through email.
Give them access to resources and online courses in a membership portal.
Invite them into your Facebook Group for conversation and Facebook Live events.
Offer eBooks on special topics.
Teach topics live on webinars.
Start small.
Grow with time.
Grow your memberships.
Help more people.
Make more money to allow you to help even more people.
Have an abundant life.
I Can Help You Help More People
It is easy to find people to tell you what to do.
Harder to find out how to do what is needed to implement.
Harder still to find someone to implement with you without a huge expense.
I have skills, experience, and tools to help you implement and market a Complete Membership Program, including some or all of the following:
Marketing Website with Blogging
Social Media Accounts and Campaigns
Sales Landing Pages
Email Marketing
Email Sequences for Members
Online Portals for Courses and Other Resources.
Copywriting
Help assembling, editing, and publishing content.
Marketing Strategies
Online payments of one-time purchases and monthly subscriptions.
Support for affiliate marketing.
Partner With Me
On a fee basis, the whole package is worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Assuming I love your offerings and we think there is a market, I can help build it out for a monthly retainer and a percentage of revenues.
Here is one possibility:
Small monthly retainer for building out the Complete Membership Program.
20% of sales revenues to share in the success.
20% of sales revenues available for affiliates.
As you prosper, I prosper.
You would earn 60% to 80% of the revenues, depending on how many sales are through affiliates.
Want to talk more?
Please send a note to gregdixon@sharedvisions.com to start the conversation.
Want to Do It Yourself?
I am working on a membership program to help people plan, implement, and market membership programs. A membership program program:-)
I will start by sending useful information though our Complete Membership Program Newsletter.
The site does not need to be fancy, but your need at least a basic site.
Here is what a decent website does for a business:
Functions at least as an online brochure for your organization.
Describes you, your products, and services.
Provides ways for people to contact you.
Can sell your products and services online.
Allow you to capture contact information if they sign up for your newsletter or free product.
An easy website address can be communicated through email, in conversation, on business cards, on webinars, on social media, in television and radio ads, and other communication and advertising media.
Post and Announcements provide good enticements for people to visit your site.
Can host your landing pages.
Provide information that would be expensive to provide with people in person or on the phone.
How The Marketing Wheel Works
With the Marketing Wheel Model, all of the marketing efforts direct people to the website in general or to specific landing pages on the website.
Those landing pages then entice the visitor to some sort of action which could be:
Buy something
Join a mailing list
Call for more information
Get into a sales funnel
Recommend you to others
More …
Why A Website Is The Best Hub
While it is possible to treat Facebook Pages and other platforms as a hub, here is why a website is better:
It is yours. You own the website and domain.
You have almost unlimited things you can do with the website.
Other platforms can disappear, change their terms of service, or lock you out.
You will have limited control over appearance, function, and traffic to your page.
Better to use the various other platforms to direct people to your website.
