Headless WordPress by WP Engine and Elementor
by u/DigitalSplendid in WordPress
Hosting your first WordPress site on AWS for free for first 3 months on 5$/10$ per month plan
For hosting progannum.com, I was considering a managed WordPress plan that has a reputation of meeting mission critical needs and yet most cost effective. Out of numerous, I considered WP Engine and Nexcess given my association with them as agency and affiliate partner for my other entities. The third option which I finally opted was AWS. Given my past experience hosting WordPress sites on Amazon Lightsail using Plesk Web Admin edition, I found AWS the most cost effective one. While Plesk Web Admin comes free with a Lightsail instance, more managed features can be activated by pro Plesk subscription. On the downside, there will be limited support from both AWS and Plesk unlike WP Engine and Nexcess where you get 24×7 customer support and true managed WordPress environment with few clicks, easy install of WordPress site.
Reading ratings/reviews on Trustpilot is a great way to leverage experience from past and present customers about a brand. Unlike the likes of G2 and Capterra where paid reviews lead to a bias, Trustpilot appears far more trustworthy.
WPEngine has its one site WordPress managed hosting plan starting from 30$ when paid monthly (keeping aside initial discounts). With Nexcess, it is 19$ per month.
Initially I contemplated applying for AWS Activate Founders Credit.
But as could be seen later in the screenshots, not approved. The reason should be I had already availed AWS Activate Founders Credit for one of my other entities in 2020 being granted 1350$ AWS credit (1,000 USD in AWS credits, valid for two years, and $350 USD in AWS Developer Support credits valid for one year).
Registering for an AWS account
Applying for AWS Activate
Launching WordPress site on Lightsail @5$ per month plan with first 3 months free making use of Plesk Web Admin option (free version)
The free Lighsail instance that is provided for 3 months is apparently for one AWS account, one instance. As could be seen from the screenshots above, I was not allowed to activate 10$ plan and instead asked to get in touch with the AWS Support. As I raised a ticket, I received a phone call over which the AWS Support agent enquired about the no. of instances I am planning to use. He further said that for one user, they allow one free instance and that he will help activate 10$ plan. As I already in the meantime activated 5$ plan, I was told that for this AWS account, it will not be possible now to revert to the free 10$ plan trial of 3 months. If indeed I needed to activate 10$ AWS Lightsail plan (with initial 3 months free), then I might need to register a fresh AWS account. I decided to continue with the 5$ plan.
Interesting to note is that each AWS Lightsail instance launched on Plesk hosting stack (Plesk Web Admin edition) allows 3 WordPress websites. So with a 5$ per month AWS Lightsail plan, you can have 3 WordPress sites up and running. Obviously you will need to upgrade your AWS Lightsail instance from 5$ per month to higher in case memory and resources exhausted.
Once AWS Lighsail instance activated with Plesk Hosting Stack, next process is to move to Plesk dashboard and from there launch WordPress instance.
Here is the process explained in my earlier articles:
- Plesk Hosting Stack on Ubuntu: 3 websites under one instance with plans starting 5$ per month on Amazon Lightsail and a demo of migration with free Migrate Guru plugin
- Managing multiple WordPress websites under one AWS Lightsail hosting plan through Plesk
Also by upgrading your Plesk Web Admin edition, you can get more managed WordPress features and upto 30 domains (websites) instead of 3 domains.
Read our review about AWS Lightsail and Plesk here on TrustRadius: AWS Lightsail: Highly recommended for launching WordPress websites
Although AWS Activate credit was not approved, within few days of opening the AWS account received an email of offer of 300$ AWS credit. This should be more than sufficient to avail AWS Lightsail hosting for free for the WordPress site for more than 12 months of their 5$/10$ per month plan.
Introducing… (Want more work? You got it!)
Source: WPMU Dev newsletter dated 19 Jan 2023
Hi there,
We’re thrilled to kick off 2023 with the launch of our newest initiative, WPMU DEV Agency Partners.
This comprehensive new agency directory allows users to showcase their services or find trusted experts to hire for their projects.
That’s right, as one of our valued customers, you are eligible to promote your business with a featured listing on the WPMU DEV site! (Not yet a member? See what you’re missing.)
Agency Partners offers two key benefits:
1. Get listed as an Agency Partner – Our directory gives you free exposure and directs potential business your way. More clients, more revenue!
2. Find the right business for your project – Looking for assistance outside of our support scope? You now have a range of reliable and trusted agencies to choose from.
And the best part?
Becoming a partner and getting listed in our directory is completely free!
Learn more about our Agency Partners directory and how to become a partner in our new blog post.
Enjoy!
The WPMU DEV Team.
Here is the screenshot of reply received from WPMU Dev after submitting application:
This is unlike WP Engine that offers free directory listing to its agency partners. Here is our WP Engine partner directory listing.
WordPress: Getting access to free perks and privileges with WP Engine Agency Partner Program
For online publishers, web developers, digital agencies, there are many promising affiliate programs/partner programs that help monetize while being focused on the core area.
Affiliate programs are a kind of passive association in which you add affiliate links/banners on your website while promoting the same through activities such as blog posts, sharing on social media, and email marketing. Partner programs are closer association in which you actively use and refer clients the product by the partner while getting special benefits from partner such as referral commission, leads from partner’s online directory, badges authenticating you as an approved partner. Often you are the first to avail free partner’s newly launched product/feature. While affiliate commission is usually one time event, commission from a partner program is recurring.
In this blog post, I take a look at WP Engine Agency Partner Program as per our experience at Splendid Digital Solutions /Techcosec Limited. It is to be noted that one cannot be both registered as affiliate and partner of WP Engine. The affiliate program of WP Engine is managed by ShareASale.
Interested in providing web development services to your clients centered around WordPress? Consider getting approved as WP Engine Agency Partner.
Once approved, you get access to WP Engine’s partner portal.
A. Partner Portal
Agency directory listing for generating leads.
For a free WP Engine agency directory listing, you need at least one tracked referral within the last 12 months (this condition imposed beginning June 30, 2022).
B. Developer Account
The perks include access to one free live site.
Genesis Pro and eCommerce Solutions need upgradation.
Be the first to access newly launched features such as headless WordPress with Atlas and Flywheel Growth Suite.
WP Engine Agency Partner Program
Content creation, web development & internet marketing: Do-by-yourself
1. Domain Name
We recommend NameCheap due to its competitive pricing, 24×7 customer support over chat, and free email forwarding feature.
2. Web Hosting
Despite a large number of great options from open source and proprietary technologies, we narrow down to open source, easy -to-use WordPress for a starter website. In WordPress, we suggest to go with a managed WordPress plan, making things user friendly for you as an end user.
Once again, there are so many great web hosting service providers. Our recommendation here in no way challenges them. Based on our usage and experience, we suggest NameCheap for those with a limited budget.
Recently, 10Web has attracted a lot of popularity for its AI-induced way to launch a website built with WordPress. Although website builders have been long there, 10Web has integrated AI with WordPress in a novel way. All you need to do is to fill few prompts like you do using ChatGPT and within minutes you have a complete, unique WordPress site matching your niche. Their starter yearly pricing is 120$ or 10$ per month when paid yearly and 20$ when paid monthly.
For those looking for mission critical sites, we recommend Nexcess and WP Engine.
For your e-commerce shop, WooCommerce plugin can be activated for free with any WordPress plan. Keeping in mind specific needs for an e-commerce store, most managed WordPress hosting service providers now have a special package for e-store and Nexcess and WP Engine no exception.
While cloud computing service providers like AWS and Google Cloud provide high-end web hosting, this post is not targeted for developers and trained web professionals.
3. Content Creation
Content is at the heart of perhaps any type of online business. While for a publishing/blogging niche, content is their core specialization, even for a software company focused on developing a software product, there is a need for documentation for which technical writing skills come into play. For an online store, product description forms an important component that in addition to generate interest about the product also helps bring audience to the site through search engines based on keywords used as part of product descriptions.
Relevant article by Interact: How to find SEO keywords you can actually rank for
In addition to text-based content (such as articles, blog posts, product descriptions, whitepapers), images, podcasts (audio files), and videos also qualify as content. Images are mostly used as part of text-based content and videos.
It is recommended to take help of AI writing tools like ChatGPT and Tailwind Ghostwriter to generate initial copies based on prompts/feeds provided. Since such AI tools generate content based on prompts provided, the choice exercised by a trained content writer filling prompts can differentiate the output. The copies generated by AI writing tools these days are accurate in terms of spelling, grammar, and punctuation. The content writer will more function as an editor reading the content generated by AI tools and depending on the use case revise before pressing the publish button.
Online forms are used to collect data from users. Online forms are not just used to gather user data for say completing a sales transaction but can be leveraged to be more interactive with your website audience like by creating quizzes (using a software like Interact).
Branding as part of content strategy
When it comes to logo, you can spend a ton of money hiring a sophisticated logo design professional. On the contrary, you can have a logo at a reasonable price designed by yourself using software like Canva and Looka. We recommend Canva if you are in tight budget (even free plan by Canva can do, pro plan starting from 499 INR/per month). Check Canva pricing here. Beyond one-time logo, with a monthly Canva subscription, you can take care of all your image/banner/video creation needs.
Looka with a slightly higher budget can help come out with a great logo in an automated way by just filling fields like name and tagline of your business, preferred colors.
4. Email Marketing
Once you have your website live, your focus shifts on building subscriber lists and engage with your subscribers.
While we use Moosend, we recommend Omnisend for e-stores given their expertise in e-commerce and additional SMS feature.
5. Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
The first place to explore once your business starts is stand out on Google with a free business profile.
For Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook marketing, Tailwind helps automate the process by coming out with fresh designs that align with your brand (Tailwind Create) to scheduling and sharing from one dashboard. We are talking organic social media optimization; that is, opportunity available for free to Pinterest/Instagram/Facebook account holders.
RelateSocial is a newly-introduced social media manager tool by NameCheap that supports more social media platforms in its Pro plan (including Twitter, Linkedin, Google Business profile, not supported on Tailwind) but seems lacking design capabilities of Tailwind Create.
6. Paid Ad Campaigns
Given the dominance of Google Search, consider starting a Google Ad campaign choosing your targeted keyword, location that you wish to target, and daily budget. Similarly to make your business visible on social media, there are paid campaigns on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin.
Another paid/inorganic way to speedup your marketing activities is to subscribe to B2B database services like the ones by Apollo.io and ZoomInfo.
- Relevant article by Interact: Organic Ads vs. Paid Ads: How to Use Both in Your Business
- List of software (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.) and other offerings with free developer tiers.
Quotation Form
For the above tasks, you can also hire us to get your work done in a professional way.
