Why I Recommend OptimizePress (Pros and Cons)
Continuing on my product reviews, today I want to discuss OptimizePress. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I strongly recommend this theme. But, why?
It is because I use it personally on several different sites. It is because the cost compared to the multiple uses of this theme make it one HELL of a buy.
So, first… the video. Then, I’ll lay it out – pros and cons.
Continuing on my product reviews, today I want to discuss OptimizePress. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I strongly recommend this theme. But, why?
It is because I use it personally on several different sites. It is because the cost compared to the multiple uses of this theme make it one HELL of a buy.
So, first… the video. Then, I’ll lay it out – pros and cons.
You can also check out the Optimizepress versus Premise breakdown. But, realize that that review was written before Premise added in some of their new membership site functionality. Still, my recommendation doesn’t change.
Without repeating the features of OP, here are the pros as I see it:
- It is very flexible, being that it can be used for squeeze pages, sales pages, any landing page, and a full-on member portal.
- It is very nicely designed. I think it is much better looking than Premise.
- You can buy it once and use it on multiple sites, all while being cheaper than Premise.
And the cons:
- The short codes can be annoying to use. They’re powerful, but they’re also annoying. Sometimes you have to reference what a certain shortcode will look like… or keep doing the save/refresh thing until you get it right. Of course, you’ll likely be doing the same thing with Premise, too.
- Being that it is a theme and not a plug-in, this means that you cannot use Optimizepress on the same Wordpress installation as another theme. However, I personally don’t find this to be an issue. All of my uses of OP simply use a new install of Wordpress. No big deal. However, if you wanted to use OP for a single landing page, it can most definitely be annoying to have to set up a new Wordpress install just for that purpose.
Premise 2.0 adds membership site functionality, which seems to make it a better buy than a Optimizepress and Wishlist Member combination. However, from what I’ve seen, it isn’t as robust. It may be enough for you, but the OP+Wishlist combo is far more capable. And it just looks a heck of a lot better.
You certainly won’t go wrong if you go with Premise, but my money is on OptimizePress. I just like the way it works and it looks like professional designers put the thing together. And, appearance matters.
Was looking for pros and cons of optimize press and found this post. I’m looking for a platform where I can give free training in my sales/conversion funnels, and “previews” of the modules in my course. I have contacted the support at the platform I’m using for my courses – but they don’t have a way for me to let people see the list of lessons/modules without adding them as a student. My prospects will already be opted in and captured via a webform – so I don’t want to add them as a student until they have purchased. (Hopefully I’ve explained this well.) Can I do this with Optimize Press – or is there another platform you recommend?
Well, OptimizePress is just the theme. What you’re talking about is more of an issue of a membership site plugin.
For instance, I use MemberMouse. I have the ability to protect anything I want on this site but still display it openly to the public. If they try to access any of it, they get an invitation to join.
Basically, you need a membership platform to do that. You can certainly use OptimizePress at the same time, however.
I’m still sticking with optimizepress despite other products that has similar or more features that optimizepress.
The way I see it optimizepress will be here for long. Not to mention that they are coming up with a new version this spring (as what got from them).
I use OptimizePress and it’s growing on me. I’m not techie and I’m new to the internet (only got internet access June 2011). After a week’s teething problems which were mostly just newbie related, I’ve got the hang of OptimizePress. They’ve got great tutorial videos which are really helpful. They’ve even got tutorials on how to make short videos for your blog. They’ve got helpful support (not 24 hours) but quick to respond, i.e. same day if possible, or next day. They don’t work weekends but I don’t blame them :). I’ve found their service and theme great value for money.
I’m not an affiliate – yet! I will apply as soon as I qualify. David Risley liking it reassures me I’ve made a good choice too. (I’m not a David Risley affiliate either:) ). Just thought I’d add my bit to plugging OptimizePress as I’m not an affiliate, I am a novice and it still works for me, and it’s British – which is always good by me.
What theme are you using for your main website?
No, Ning is a social network platform. You can do paid networks with it, but it is a pretty different animal.
Just to add to that, I’ve just chatted with copyblogger support, they stand firm on showing all navigation pages but protecting the content behind them, I think that is a bad idea, (and a cop-out). I could end up with tons of pages on display that all require the user to login!
Out of interest, do you see an obvious way to offer what I’m asking – the option to sell the courses individually but also as a membership course for full access to all without running multiple instances of wordpress for each course and then another for the membership? If I switch to OP & WLM I’ll use your affiliate links! :0)
Well, I can’t speak to Premise in this regard since I haven’t yet personally used Premise 2.0.
On the OP+WL side of things… the issue is that I’m not *totally* sure I’m understanding what you’re asking. But, it seems to me, what you want to do is certainly possible with Wishlist Member.
First, the content of courses you offer would be nested, so only the “root” of the course would be visible in navigation. And, I actually think CopyBlogger has a point in the potential sales value of having those be visible. But, all the individual “modules” of the courses wouldn’t be in the navigation.
Wishlist has a setting called “Only show content for each membership level:”, which would control whether members-only content which doesn’t apply to the user is displayed or not.
I think that wou take care of this for you.
As for 1-time and recurring in the same install, I think you can do that, too. You’d have different member levels, and for each course, you just select to allow it both for the 1-time level for that course as well as the recurring level.
Hope that makes some kind of sense. 🙂
All makes sense! Thanks for that, lots to think about. I don’t see a way with Premise to nest or just show the root publicly so maybe I’ll play around a bit, if I can’t sort it then wishlist sounds like the way to go. I def see a good reason to show those protected root pages, in Premise it seems you have to show the full navigation though of all the modules which I think is too much. Thanks again David.
Hey Dave, I’m a little annoyed at the mo, I bought the new premise after talking lots with coppyblogger about what it does and doesn’t do, I always liked optimizepress and starting to think I should of gone with my gut which was OP and Wishlist combo. Anyway the problem I have now is that I want to run several courses, sell them individually for a one off fee but also sell them as a monthly membership model for access to all courses etc.. you get the idea.. anyway, the problem I have now found with premise and doing it this way is that there is no way of having a protected navigation area, only the page content. So you are expected to put the whole course on one page!! The advice from coppyblogger was not to protect the navigation, let everyone see it and it will increase sales.. just wondered what your thoughts on that are and if you know of a way to use a single page but have navigation within it? Sorry for the loooooong comment 🙂