This week, instead of the usual Customer Story, we’d like to feature the story of a regular contributor to the Themify Community. His name is Hogan Chua and he’s an avid YouTube tutorial creator, with his most popular video at over a million views. We’d like to thank him for giving our small but hardworking company a boost, and we hope you enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at how he developed his website and his informative YouTube channel!
A Little About Me
My Name is Hogan Chua, 27, From Melbourne Australia. My parents immigrated from Malaysia but my ethnicity is Chinese.
Themify has basically allowed me to become a full time creator/teacher/entrepreneur and I’m super grateful to Nick, Kurt and their team. My main thing now is creating website tutorials, but I’m looking to expand soon!
I work from home, in a nice bright office in a 2 bed apartment which I love cause of the brick walls (quiet) but I started recording in this little space here at my parent’s house with this tiny Samson Gomic. Below are what my days look like today:
Life of a YouTuber
Normally, I wake up, drink some coffee and have some breakfast. I go to the gym occasionally and play badminton on the weekends.
During the day I answer comments/emails from viewers who have trouble with their site. So far, I think we have answered 95% of all comments and emails with the help of my customer team member, Jennifer. (A really big thanks to her, she is amazing).
Then I think of ideas, research, read, draft out ideas and create step by step instructions for the next tutorial, record and edit it. Nothing fancy, definitely not the working on the laptop on the beach and all that sexy stuff people promote.
I tried to work while travelling last year, it’s completely unproductive and you don’t get to enjoy the moment. Everyday all you think about is where the nearest Laundromat is, where to eat, and you deal with variable Wi-Fi speeds and all.
Being an online entrepreneur I am flexible with my time, but most of the time I’m working anyways. Once you get to around 27 - you realise that all that fun stuff you thought was fun is pretty average. What’s fun to me now, is creating stuff people love to use. The process of learning new things to improve the quality of video/product is satisfying. :)
In Search of a Web Design Platform
After graduating with a degree in Accounting and Finance, I realized a didn’t want a 9 to 5. I began a variety of jobs, even making a nice figure with an SEO business I launched.
I soon became a partner at Smash Repair and Mechanics Workshop and I needed a website. I built it with Weebly and it was okay, but I knew I couldn’t really expand on it, couldn’t really customize anything, and configure the on-page SEO properly. So, I knew I probably had to try WordPress. I also knew I didn’t want to hire anyone else to design it because I wanted to be able to make changes whenever I felt like, optimize the on-page SEO, and do the content myself.
After some time searching around, I googled Drag & Drop WordPress Themes and finally saw Themify. I felt it was exactly what I was looking for. So I went with the free basic theme, with limited options but still had the Drag-and-Drop Builder.
I built the website and it was amazing! Although at the time, it had a few bugs and was a bit slow, I felt that I got 90% of what I was looking for! So I was pretty happy about it, but even more happy when they announced a 2-month free trial of the Ultra Theme (their most popular and best theme by far).
So I switched over, it took some time to make it look nice again - but I’ve never looked back since. Here is the website I created: http://k1motors.com.au/ (I know the design is pretty poor, because I haven’t updated it much since 2015).
Tips For Driving Viewers to Your Site
I know some people worry about Themify not being SEO-friendly or fast enough. I had the same fears before too, but don’t. Try it first. I think a lot of people overthink it before even trying it out.
You can increase the number of visitors to your site by taking action and doing some keyword searches. You can also optimize the on-page SEO, write some quality content, and get links from local directory websites and forums. I also got links from various universities by providing student deals. You can do the same, with a variety of associations! You can offer establishments such as sporting clubs, universities, and business groups with deals for their members and they will be happy link you.
My website gets on average around 40-50 online quotes per month from ranking organically on Google. So it generates an extra $5000 - $10,000+/month for the business since each customer is worth at least a few hundred, and sometimes we get insurance work which is a few grand at least!
Then I discovered WordPress tutorials on YouTube but none featured builders or frameworks as good as Themify. They were all backend builders (at that time), meaning you couldn’t see what you are building until you save and go back to your homepage, which is a pain in the ass!
The Best WordPress Design Platform
I really believe Themify ULTRA is the best option for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Ten Reasons Why Themify Ultra Was The Best Choice:
- WIX was flash and not SEO friendly (at the time).
- I tried Weebly, which wasn’t very customizable.
- All those online WordPress design platforms were more expensive than me setting it up myself, on my own host. And I never had a good experience.
- I tried hiring a WordPress designer but it became annoying to ask them to change things and its costs extra money every time.
- Themify had a front-end builder, so anyone could build a site, dragging and dropping various elements, while seeing it develop in front of their eyes.
- Themify is expandable, because it’s built on the WordPress Platform.
- With Themify, you could customize any part of the website, without custom CSS (e.g. header, footers, sidebars and fonts of any section).
- I seriously, didn’t want to learn Html, CSS, PHP and things like that.
- Many super popular themes were good for beginners, but if they want to edit more then they would still need to learn CSS! Themify allowed you to tweak and customize every detail without having to write a line of code!
- Many popular themes didn’t offer extra support, paid or unpaid. So if you were stuck, you were by yourself! Themify offered support in two ways – their Support Forum and through email with their Contact Form.
With all these reasons and more, I really felt super passionate about this product and wanted to share it. It was like walking in the desert for years without water and then finally finding a lake!
Using My Passion For Themify To Make An Income
I’ve been following people like Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, Neil Patel, and became familiar with Internet Marketing. I knew there was a big opportunity there. Opportunity to make money from affiliate programs, YouTube, course sales, clients and stuff like that. So it was a win-win-win. I could help Themify reach more people, help like-minded entrepreneurs, and also help myself and my future ice cream business dreams!
So I reached out to Themify and they gave me the go ahead to share their premium Ultra theme for free. I could have done the tutorial on the basic theme, but it wasn’t the best long term option for you guys. So I chose ULTRA.
I put in over 1 month’s time to create my first “Drag & Drop Tutorial”. I tried to make it the best tutorial I possibly could, because I knew that only the best value for the viewer will win. No paid ads, links, promotions would work.
So I released it, and it was successful, but not as successful as I intended AND it didn’t make me the $30,000 I wanted in time to open up an ice cream stall at the night market. So I scrapped that idea for the time being but I continued to work on my video tutorials.
Looking back at my first video in 2015, my voice is cringe-worthy and although it featured the best Builder - it was too long and my teaching wasn’t up to par.
Fast forward to August 30 2016, I released my Parallax WordPress Tutorial and focused on getting the viewer the best results possible. I shortened it, only taught the most important things, gave design tips, improved audio and video quality, and it has now surpassed 1 million views!
A big part of that success was Themify’s continuous dedication to improving the Builder - especially the speed of the Builder, fixing bug errors, and having more features!
In Conclusion
To sum it up, Themify is super easy to use. It’s both amazing for designers to easily create unique designs, as well as the best long term option for small businesses and entrepreneurs. If you want to create a website for a mega corporation like Amazon or eBay, then of course you’d probably need to work with developer who can custom build it for you! But Themify is, in my opinion, the best option for almost everyone.
One of the biggest advantages of Themify is the amount of options (which I love and the reason I chose it) but also that means you need to figure out what all the customizations do.
So to get started with Themify, you can use my latest How to Make a WordPress Website in 2018 Tutorial to learn all the basics. The tutorial is based on the Ultra theme, and will help you to create your first website in just a few hours! I have also included all the tools I use, with design tips and more!
If you have any questions, drop me a comment - I’m always there to reply! And of course, you can use Themify’s Support Forum too!
P.S. I appreciate all my viewers who watch my tutorials, Thank you guys. Also I’m very grateful for Nick, Kurt and the Themify Team for allowing me this opportunity!
Here is a list of some websites people have created following my tutorials!
User: Overseas Students Australia
Base Theme: Ultra
User: The Soul Laundry
Base Theme: Shoppe
User: My Philippines
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Shoe Wala Store
Base Theme: Shoppe
User: Haitch Convey
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Mundo Rebel
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Creative Chronicles
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Classic Interior
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Celine Lunakim
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Beyond a Blue Eyed Blonde
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Botanic & Fruits
Base Theme: Parallax
User: Pleg Noms
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Imperial Pathways
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Entre Polos
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Cannectis
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Bali Metropolitan
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Design Odyssey
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Zycie Jak Bajka
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Air Fiber Alberta
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Maluku Membangun Negeri
Base Theme: Ultra
User: TNB-IT
Base Theme: Ultra
User: A Speck in Time
Base Theme: Ultra
User: Lynx Translations
Base Theme: Ultra
A Little More About Me: Where It All Started
I grew up in a family restaurant business, my dad would virtually work everyday. When other kids would go away during holidays, I stayed at home and cared for by brother and sister. I wasn’t allowed sleepovers and my friends barely came over. I knew I was different, and I seemed to want different things. People wanted good grades, I wanted to start a business, retire my parents, and have freedom to do what I want, when I want.
In 2011, I finished my Accounting and Finance Degree. I got my “hat” but I seriously don’t know what I learned - it just wasn’t what I wanted to do, so I didn’t apply myself. During that time, I started reading books like think and grow rich and self improvement books.
While I was working at my Dads’ restaurant, in 2012, for around $12/hour I launched my SEO business selling backlinks to clients on a forum, called Warrior forum. Once, I made $250/week I quit to focus on it full time. Eventually I made a nice income of around $1000/week, sometimes more.
Although that worked for a short time, I didn’t believe in it 100% and so, in 2014, I stopped selling SEO services, then focused on my Dad’s and his partners new restaurant. I wanted to really help him systemize and market it, to help him and pay him back. So I helped them train new front of house staff, get the website, menus, POS system up, in order to create the most value for customers.
- Hogan Chua
Share Your Story Now! How have you used Themify for your site? Whether it's for your business site, personal blog or portfolio, we'd love to hear your story and share it with other people! Please contact us.
April 26, 2018 @ 2:46 pm
Congratulations Chua!!!
April 28, 2018 @ 1:15 am
Thank you!
April 26, 2018 @ 2:58 pm
Great story! Thanks for sharing – I’ll check out your videos sometime!
April 28, 2018 @ 1:16 am
No worries, see you soon!
April 26, 2018 @ 3:18 pm
I’ve followed a couple of your tutorials, which are excellent. Clear and concise.
I’m yet to finish my site that I started a while back as I ran into issues with a professional look from Ultra for a eCommerce photography site connecting to WooCommerce – a headache.
April 28, 2018 @ 1:17 am
Perhaps you can try the shoppe theme, it has more customization options for ecommerce. in terms of styling buttons, shop page etc. it’s 90% similiar and easy to activate. Do you have the current membership where you have 1+1 theme? Or you can get the theme from that ecommerce tutorial itself.
April 26, 2018 @ 3:35 pm
Great story, Chua! I used your Parallax WordPress Tutorial in 2016 to build my site: Sue’s Audio Books (audiobooks.oliveandseagreen.com). I had never had a web site before, but I knew “the look” that I wanted. I searched on YouTube for some tutorials and saw yours. After downloading Ultra, I put your tutorial up on my lap top and built the web site step by step on my desk top, following your tutorial. If it weren’t for that tutorial, I would never have chosen Themify.
Good luck in your endeavors!
April 28, 2018 @ 1:19 am
Hi Sue, haha thanks for your kind message! Appreciate it! Can’t seem to reach your URL though?
April 26, 2018 @ 5:46 pm
Congratulations on your success Hogan! I am so grateful to have found your tutorials (and your 2015 one wasn’t that bad!).
Thanks to you I was able to create a professional looking site for my business saving thousands of dollars.
It’s due for a freshen up though so I’ll be checking out your 2018 tutorial very soon 😊
April 28, 2018 @ 1:19 am
Thank you Sonia! Glad you liked it!
April 27, 2018 @ 3:32 pm
Hi Hogan, Thanks for sharing your story. Congrats on your success.
April 27, 2018 @ 4:52 pm
The instructions in YouTube Tuturials from Hogan are very clear, accurate. 1 Year ago I was a beginner and Hogan instructed me how to make www page. Acccording his tuturials and using Themify Ultra (It is perfect) I make 3 different pages for my own bussiness. The last one is https://www.primopredaja.si/ and it is in Slovenian Language.
Thanks Hogan Chua and Themify :-)
By
Zlatko
April 28, 2018 @ 1:15 am
Thank you guys for the feature :) If you guys have any questions – you can drop it in the comments on Youtube, and I’ll try to get to them :)
April 28, 2018 @ 3:54 am
Hey Hogan, i’ve followed a few of your tutorials after I’d been with Themify for about a year. Your tutorials are awesome, clear and I love how you explain the ‘design’ aspect to it. Which i believe accounts for at least 50% of a good site.
Well done.
April 28, 2018 @ 4:20 am
Also, I think on of my most helpful tutorials was the How to Make a WordPress Blog – Step by Step For Beginners! Even though almost 2 hours, those little details helped immensely. I think where I (and a lot of others) run into issues are some of the basic or simple settings. And those longer tutorials walk you through the entire process. Especially for someone would doesn’t know HTML or CSS. (i haven’t seen your 2018 video yet) The blog tutorial really helped my few sites; AlchemicEmpowerment.com, MasteringFulfillment.com and GreentecSystems.com, all of which are on Ultra.
Oh, and I loved the plugin tutorials you did as well. Love to see more of those. Also curious if you are using the new contact builder add-on. I’ve been using CF7 but its not always stable.
April 30, 2018 @ 10:46 pm
Thank you Scott, Yes – Alot of people have wordpress installed from following shorter videos but stuck to actually build anything :) Glad I could help! I haven’t full tested yet the addon.
April 29, 2018 @ 9:13 am
Thanks Hogan, I also used your tutorial to create http://www.herbalpharmal.com.
Thanks bro.
April 30, 2018 @ 10:44 pm
Wow thats awesome!
May 1, 2018 @ 6:38 am
Thanks Hogan!
Very inspiring and honest story. I also found you on YouTube and from my point of view you have a great way of teaching. It’s too the point and so one can really get the website done – which is super motivating – and can continue from there to improve.
Keep up the good work!
Greetings form Switzerland
Chris
May 12, 2018 @ 6:27 am
Wow its amazing information and very mush useful for seo developers, thanks for sharing your story.
December 29, 2018 @ 10:39 am
Hi Hogan, thanks a lot for your tutorials. Around this time last year I had some training in web design but never heard of themify. But a friend introduced me to themify ultra & then searching for tutorials that would extend my scope of things, I came across yours and since then I created a stunning blog for myself and a website for a client.
Although, because of work couldn’t pay much attention to it this year but next year I plan to give it some time but I have a question though.
The themify ultra I have is of a lower version, I had some challenges with it, so I decided I want to get the latest. On the website, I saw the master club which gives an all-access. My question is that I still need more clarity on the benefits of the master club as against the standard and developer? I wanted to hear from you cos I know you’re experienced in this line of business.
Thanks.
January 24, 2019 @ 1:35 pm
Hi hogan,I watched a video you made in 2016 how to create an ecommerce website I understood it but my question is how is the payment for baby plan made as in how do they collect their payment….. Pls upload more video soon.thanks love from Nigeria
January 24, 2019 @ 1:41 pm
Thanks hogan, your video really helped me even if am just getting started for the baby plan how do they collect their payment pleas shed more light on it….thanks once again and I don’t really understand the themify ultra very well but am trying
November 30, 2019 @ 8:14 pm
Hi Hogan.
Just wanted to say thank you for the Themify eCommerce/Ultra tutorial. At the age of 72 I wasn’t able to absorb it all first time through, partly because I’m trying to build quite a complicated site for fellow artist and friend Bijan Djamalzadeh – famous world-wide as the artist, “Sara Moon” particularly during the 70s & 80s – your mom probably knows the name as he was really big in Australia.
He’s retired now and wants nothing to do with todays technology, but, understands that many thousands of his fans want to enjoy his works, so he lets me ‘get on with it’ for him and for them.
The current site (http://www.sara-moon.com) I built in Dreamweaver (nightmare!) years ago and is quite embarrassing by todays standards BUT, with your help and the amazing Themify platform, both he and his fans will be very pleased with the new site I hope to launch early in the new year with galleries, shop, and info pages.
When I’m done with your eCommerce tutorial I’ll be delving into your other Themify tutorials too. I’ve just signed up for the Themify ‘Lifetime Club’ and hope to get good enough to build simple sites for local businesses and the like.
So pleased to have found your excellent work – well done and thank you once more!
John.
July 23, 2021 @ 5:46 pm
I am also a Melbourne based SMB marketing, graphic & web designer and when I needed to update my education (HTML to WordPress) Hogan’s tutorial was what sold me on Themify. I trialed it in 2015 and haven’t looked back since. I primarily do marketing and websites these days and I still reference your tutorials Hogan for little tips and tricks – thanks and dont stop. Technically you are responsible for all my websites ;)