What Is Holding Your Website Back?

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In 2018, there is no excuse for not having an effective website ad a good online presence. However, this can often be a lot easier said than done, especially if you have found yourself in a bit of a rut and you do not know where you are going wrong. If your website is failing to have the positive impression you hoped for, read on to discover what could be holding it back.

A lack of security – There is only one place to begin, and this is with security. Today’s customers are savvy. They know that there are a lot of hackers and fraudulent businesses on the web today. They don’t want to take any risks, and so your website needs to be a safe haven. How do you achieve this? Firstly, you need to make sure the payment method available to your customers is secure. Aside from this, trust signals, including security badges, work well. You should also make sure there are a number of different ways for people to get in touch with your company.

No responsive design – Mobile has surpassed desktop in terms of Internet usage, and so if you have not had your website optimized for use across all devices, this is most definitely what is holding you back. You are going to be missing out on tons of potential customers. Not only this but not having a responsive design will hurt your search engine ranking too.

You have used a free website builder – Free website builders can be very tempting. After all, they are free! Nevertheless, these websites are very limited in terms of functionality, plus they offer nothing in terms of branding. Your website will look like thousands of others on the Internet, which is never good. Not only this, but it is likely that you will have to cope with a plethora of performance issues. Your website will also take a long time to load because, with every design facet, there are dozens of lines added to the back-end code. Slow load times create a poor user experience and this also hurts your search engine ranking.

You don’t capture customer information – Finally, a customer will present you with an abundance of information whenever they enter your website, and you need to capture it. This is essential in terms of target marketing and boosting the experience your website provides. From finding out at what point people leave your website to zoning in on buying habits, there is so much to gain by capturing consumer details.

Hopefully, you have now got to the bottom of where you are going wrong with your website. If you have noticed any of the errors mentioned above, there is no need to panic, but you do need to get to the bottom of the issue sooner rather than later so that you can start seeing the improvements you hoped for in terms of visibility and, ultimately, conversions.

Reading Up: Bookish Ways To Improve Your Life

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When you’re a bookworm, there’s nothing quite like the idea of getting your hands on the next book in your favorite series, or cozying up with a new discovery that you picked up in a second-hand book shop. Reading can quite easily consume your life, and you wouldn’t want it any other way. But if you’re not much of an avid bookworm, but you do love to read, you may find that you could benefit from adding a little more literature into your life. Because reading is a really great way to better yourself.

There are many benefits of reading. But many say that it makes you smarter. So if you’re looking to improve yourself while at college, or at any point in your career, you should always look to books. However, that being said, you don’t have just to assume that you have to read textbooks or classics. Of course, they will help you to broaden your understanding of both literature and the world, but they’re not your only options. There are so many weird and wonderful ways that books and bookworm related ideas can help you to flourish. So, we’re going to talk through ten different bookish ways that you can improve your life.

Challenging Yourself

First up, we’re going to talk about those classics. Because they really should be read at some stage. Not every classic is going to appeal to you, but you will find that reading one or two will really help to open your eyes to words and literature, and inspire your mind too. If you’re new to reading the classics, or you want to push yourself, this classic books challenge could be exactly what you need to get inspired. Simply slotting in a classic every now and again should be enough for you to challenge yourself and benefit from some of the best literature the world has to offer.

Researching

And you really ought to consider picking up a nonfiction book every now and again if you want to grow. We’re not necessarily talking straight up textbooks here, but if you fancy flicking through one, give it a go. In general, if you commit to doing some kind of research within your reading, you’re going to improve your life. You’ll be learning, taking in new things, and broadening your understanding of a certain topic - and that can only ever be a good thing.

Reading The News

Now we’re going to talk about another form of reading you should commit to on a regular basis if you want to improve. Newspapers are still wildly relevant. Even if you tent to pick up snippets of world events on social media, don’t forget about the classic dailies and more in-depth broadsheets stuffed full of interesting articles and thought-provoking insight. Yes, you can get a lot of this online, but there’s nothing like a paper.

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Taking On Different Opinions

Similarly, what about reading a magazine or two? And we’re not talking the gossip rags or something about cars. Of course, feel free to take these in two if they’re what you really love. But, if you’re trying to push yourself with your reading, opt for something criticism or comment lead - every a literary magazine. These are the kind of options that are going to challenge you to think differently.

Learning A New Language

Maybe you’d like to take the idea of learning something new a step forward and opt for a new language? Although you may be used to this being taught in a lesson format, you can learn a new language by reading literature if you put your mind too it. And that’s always going to be something that’ll allow you to better yourself.

Discovering A New Interest

Perhaps you’re curious about one type of literature in particular, or even a topic in life? Reading can help you with this. Whether it’s reading up on literary fiction, or getting to know more about lakes, reading can certainly increase your interests. Sometimes, you never really know that you’re going to discover said new interest. So you have to be willing to pick up a book in order to access the opportunity at all.

Reading Up On The Past

And what about history? Are you fascinated by the fifties? Or have you always wanted to know more about the battle of Britain? Either way, reading is the best way to find out. After all, not only are there several texts written about historical events, with even more being published each year, there are titles that were written in history too. So you can get to know a topic via the words of someone that was around at the time.

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Escaping

But reading doesn’t just have to be about intellectual growth; it can aid in emotional growth too. Because sometimes, we all just need to escape. When that’s the case for you, you need to try something such as LitRPG books or even some romance. Anything that feels far enough away from your daily grind to give you some kind of escape as you read.

Increasing Your Knowledge

However, we can’t really ignore the fact that reading does really increase your intellect. Because as you read anything, you learn more. From new words to new ideas, it’s all something that we can absorb. So you should always look to have some kind if reading material with you, no matter what it is. When you do, and you commit to reading something each day, you will increase your knowledge. And as knowledge is power, this will always improve your life.

Teaching Yourself Something New

Finally, you could also use reading as a way of teaching yourself a new skill. Yes, you can learn things and discover new information, you can even teach yourself to speak a new language, but you can also gain practical skills when you read too. From woodwork to fishing, there’s a lot of skills that you could choose to teach yourself when you make more time for reading. So the world really is yours at the flick of a page.

Give Your Blog The Ol' Spit And Polish

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Every now and then, we could do with a bit of a makeover. You know the kind of thing I mean - hitting the shops to buy a new jacket, getting a new haircut, and buying some slick new shoes. It’s great for our self-confidence, but it also helps us keep up to date with all the current trends.

And this is the case with our online personas as well, specifically our blogs. Imagine if you had kept the same blog design that you had when you first launched it? It would certainly look very out of date by now! So, every few months, it’s time to go over your blog and make sure that it’s all up to date and is looking as good as it can. It’s what I like to call the good ol’ spit and polish! Here are some things to add to your blog checklist.

Update The Design

When was the last time you changed the design of your blog? As I’ve mentioned above, if you haven’t done so for a while, it might look decidedly outdated right now. And this could be putting off new readers - after all, no one wants to spend time on a blog that looks like it’s straight out of 2007! So, if you are using a hosting platform like Squarespace or WordPress, it’s a good idea to take a look at some of the other templates on offer. Don’t worry; changing the template shouldn’t lose any content, but it’s always a good idea to backup just in case!

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Watch Your Language

How is your language on the blog? If all of your blog posts are filled with spelling mistakes and other typos, your readers will be instantly turned off. It really is worth going through your most recent posts and making sure that all your writing is up to scratch. Got a few grammar questions that are bugging you? You can also check out this blog to see if it holds all the answers. It’s also worth getting a friend to proofread your posts before you publish them as they will probably find it easier to pick out your mistakes.

Review Photos

As well as regularly updating your website’s design, it’s a good idea to review photos on a semi-regular basis too. If you are using someone else’s photos and images, it’s important that you go back to check the license for them. Sometimes these can change and an image that was creative commons might not be any longer. If this is the case with a photo on your blog, you need to change it.

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Go Mobile

Is your blog mobile responsive? If not, it needs to be so that it can improve its SEO. Mobile responsive just means that it can be viewed on a smartphone or a tablet device easily. If you use WordPress or Squarespace, they will have guides that can help you create a mobile-responsive design for your blog.

Once you’ve given it the ol’ spit and polish, your blog will look great!

Taking Your PC Gaming Visuals to the Next Level

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Gaming graphics are constantly getting sharper and more photo-realistic. Without the right software and hardware, you may be missing out on the visual capabilities that new games have to offer. Whether you simply want to see each game in stunning high resolution or simply want a smoother frame rate so that you can react more sharply, here are some of the modifications worth making to your PC.

Upgrade your monitor

A decent monitor can help you to see opponents more sharply and clearly as well as truly testing out the graphic capability of each game you play. HD monitors were once the pinnacle of technology, but these have since been replaced by Ultra HD monitors – some reaching a staggering 8K pixel resolution. These latter screens are obviously very expensive and most HD monitors can do the job just as well. Sites such as Armchair Empire offer some great reviews on gaming monitors. These may help you choose the best monitor for you.

On top of size and resolution, many gamers are exploring options using multiple screens. One monitor can be used for gaming, whilst another can be used for showing leaderboards or options. Alternative setups allow you to play with an almost panoramic view made up multiple monitors.

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Improve your graphics card

By replacing your ordinary PC graphics card with a more high-end specialized one, you can obtain a greater frame rate as well making your resolution sharper. Graphics cards can vary in price with some selling under a hundred dollars and others such as the GTX Titan Z reaching over three grand. Your more expensive and finely tuned versions are better suited to those using screens with a resolution of 4k and above, or multiple monitors.

A cheaper option to buying a new graphics card is ‘overclocking’ it. This involves taking off limiters set by the manufacturer, enabling the graphics card to deliver higher visual frame rates. The risk of this is that it can cause overheating or damage to your hardware if you keep pushing the card beyond its capability. Only those with the technical know-how should attempt to do this to prevent breaking anything.

Optimize your settings with software

Many background processes may be using up memory and CPU processing power that could be better used for boosting your graphics. You may be able to manually manage these processes, although it may be easier to download optimization software such as Razer Cortex that can automatically handle such background processes whilst you game. Regularly de-fragging your computer can also help improve visual performance as well as updating drivers on your graphics card. On top of this make sure that your in-game setting are tweaked in order to get the highest performance possible.