Get ready to pay more for Mint Mobile’s upgraded data plans
With 2018 firmly in the rear-view mirror, prepaid carrier Mint Mobile will ring in the new year with more data for all of its plans. However, Android Central noted that the upgrades also come with higher prices.
First, the good: starting January 29, Mint Mobile will increase the amount of data for each plan. That means the 2GB plan goes to 3GB, the 5GB plan goes to 8GB, and the 10GB plan goes to 12GB. That is great news for those that found Mint Mobile’s plans a bit lacking in the gig department.
Unfortunately, a boost in pricing accompanies the boost in data.
If you opt for a three-month plan, the 3GB, 5GB, and 12GB plans will cost $75, $105, and $135, respectively. The three-month plans previously maxed out at $75 for 12GB.
Editor’s Pick
The price hikes aren’t as drastic for the six-month plans. The plans will start at $120 for 3GB and go up to $210 for 12GB. The six-month plans previously started at $108 and maxed out at $180.
Back to the good news, the 12-month plans will retain the same pricing as before. That means $180 for 3GB, $240 for 8GB, and $300 for 12GB.
Even better, those who currently have Mint Mobile service will keep the older prices and get the boosted data allowances. That also applies to anyone who signs up before January 29.
If you want to give Mint Mobile a try and T-Mobile coverage is good in your neck of the woods, click the link below.
Source: Android Zone
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Android Messages auto spam protection is coming, but there are privacy issues
- Android Messages will soon have an automatic spam protection feature.
- The optional tool will send phone numbers to Google servers, which raises some privacy concerns.
- Google is confident the auto spam feature is secure, but it will still give users the ability to opt out.
Right now, a new feature within Android Messages is rolling out which will help automatically sort out any spam messages you might receive. Although anything that cuts down spam is welcome, the feature raises a few privacy concerns.
Android Messages users have already been able to report spam messages with relative ease — just open the conversation, tap the menu icon, tap Details, and then tap Block & Report Spam. After doing so, the messages disappear and Google logs the information.
However, the new automatic spam feature will scan a conversation in an effort to determine whether or not it’s spam. If Google suspects a message as being spammy, it will issue you a notification asking if you want to block and report it. A quick tap on that notification will start that process.
Editor’s Pick
Google makes it clear that during this process your phone number and the messages you send are not scanned. However, if you report a message as being spam, Google will log that number and up to ten messages sent by the spammer (your responses, if any, are ignored).
Anything involving Google scanning and storing messages is bound to cause controversy. Google’s support page for this new automatic reporting feature tries to assuage privacy concerns by saying that “info about your messages is sent to Google without including the actual content or your phone number” and Google “does not store your phone number or the content of these messages.” Google also emphasizes that “the spammer won’t see or know about your report.”
Ultimately, if this is a concern for a user, they can always opt-out of the automatic spam protection feature. Just visit Advanced Settings and turn it off (once the feature fully rolls out).
What do you think? Will you turn this feature on, or would you rather report your messages manually? Let us know in the comments!
Source: Android Zone
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Asus’ education-focused Chromebooks should withstand some abuse
- Asus announced four new education-focused Chromebooks.
- The four Chromebooks include the CT100, Asus’ first Chrome OS-powered tablet.
- Asus will announce pricing and specific launch dates in the coming months.
With CES 2019 right around the corner, Asus unveiled four new rugged Chromebooks which include the company’s first Chrome OS-powered tablet.
Starting with the tablet, the CT100 features a 9.7-inch display with QXGA resolution (2,048 x 1,536), a USB Type-C port, the hexa-core OP1 processor, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a 35Wh battery. As a nice bonus, the tablet features a built-in stylus to use on the display.
Editor’s Pick
The tablet also features a 2MP selfie camera and 5MP rear camera. Finally, the CT100’s rugged build helps it withstand drops up to 100 centimeters (~39 inches).
Moving to the Chromebook C204, the laptop features a 180-degree hinge to lay it flat, an 11.6-inch display with HD resolution (1,366 x 768), Intel’s dual-core Celeron N4000 processor, up to 8GB of RAM, up to 32GB of storage, and a 50Wh battery.
Again, the C204’s rugged build helps it survive falls up to 120 centimeters (~47 inches) when dropped flat and up to 80 centimeters (~31 inches) when dropped on its sides. Finally, schools can outfit the C204 with either a non-touch or touchscreen anti-glare display.
Next up is the Chromebook C214, which features a few differences relative to the C204. The 360-degree hinge turns the C214 into a hefty 2.6-pound tablet, though the smaller 45Wh battery cuts down the runtime a bit.
Schools can outfit the C214 with either the Intel Celeron N4000 or N4100 processor. Schools can also configure the C214 with an 11.6-inch display that supports Wacom EMR and Gorilla Glass 3. The resolution remains the same as the display on the C204.
Finally, the C214 goes up to 64GB of storage and puts the outward-facing camera on the bottom-right corner of the palm rest area.
Editor’s Pick
Last up is the Chromebook C403, which sports a 180-degree hinge, 14-inch display with HD resolution (1,366 x 768), Intel’s dual-core Celeron N3350 processor, up to 4GB of RAM, up to 32GB of storage, and a 45Wh battery that should deliver up to 11 hours of use.
The C403 also features two USB Type-C ports and two regular USB ports.
The C214 and C403 will launch sometime during the spring. The C204 goes on sale “later this year,” while Asus remained quiet on the CT100’s availability. We might learn more about pricing and availability during CES 2019.
NEXT: How to setup Chromebook parental controls
Source: Android Zone
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Deal: 1More dual driver headphones now just $45.99
If Santa didn’t bring you a new pair of headphones this Christmas, it’s time to take matters into your own hands. After all, you’re going to need some crystal clear sound to face that commute on Monday.
The 1More dual driver headphones might be just the thing. These high-powered, in-ear headphones are a perfect balance of top engineering and affordability, especially while this deal lasts.
The real selling point of these buds is the dual driver technology. Most headphones just use one driver, which is often an inadequate compromise between highs lows. The result is often distortion and loss of detail.
The 1More headphones split the workload across two specialized drivers. One is a balanced armature driver for sizzling clear highs, and the other is a state-of-the-art graphene driver for perfected definition and deep bass.
There are a host of other nice touches to these headphones too, such as Kevlar braided cable for extra durability.
1More dual driver headphones at a glance:
- Upgraded drivers deliver an extremely accurate listening experience with unsurpassed clarity.
- Aluminum alloy body comes with a Kevlar core braided cable for lasting durability and resilience.
- Oblique-angled ear fittings naturally match your ear canals for added comfort.
- Convenient in-line controls allow you to control volume, select songs, and take calls.
- New and improved L-shaped 3.5mm plug provides added security and durability.
The 1More dual driver headphones have a retail value of around $60, but there’s a tasty promotion right now over at Tech Deals. Until Saturday, you can get the headphones for just $45.99.
The deal will be over before you know it, so don’t miss out. Hit the button below to find it.
The AAPicks team writes about things we think you’ll like, and we may see a share of revenue from any purchases made through affiliate links. To see all our hottest deals, head over to the AAPICKS HUB.
Looking for a new phone or plan? Start here with the Android Authority Plan Tool:
This smart tool lets you filter plans by phone, price, data tiers, and regional availability. Stop overpaying for cell service you hate and a phone that you’re tired of. Use our Compare Phones & Plans tool to fully customize your mobile experience and painlessly transition from one carrier to another!
Source: Android Zone
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How much faster is the OnePlus 6T McLaren’s Warp Charge 30?
One of the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition’s key differentiators from its regular sibling, other than the $70 price difference, is the introduction of 30W “Warp Charge 30” technology. This speedy bit of tech promises to power up the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition to 50% in just 20 minutes. On paper, it sounds a lot faster than the OnePlus 6T’s standard 20W fast charging.
To find out if this bit of technology is worth the extra cost, we stuck the two phones side by side and charged them up using the chargers and cables provided by OnePlus. I kept track of both the charger’s output wattage and charging times to give us a bigger picture of how the technology works.
Warp Charge vs Fast Charge
First, let’s deal with the claim OnePlus makes inside the case of the McLaren edition. The text claims that Warp Charge 30 can power the phone up to “50% capacity in just 20 minutes”, at least under the company’s lab test conditions.
This seems to be bang on in our testing, although you’ll have to leave the phone alone during this time and turn off battery-sapping features like GPS. Warp Charge managed to fill 50 percent of the 3,750mAh battery in 20 minutes and 5 seconds. That’s clearly better than the regular OnePlus 6T, which managed 38 percent in that same timeframe.
The OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition hits peak charging wattage at about 25W, making good on its extra capabilities. However, this 25W peak appears only when the battery is quite low. Wrap charge offers just a temporary burst of current to kickstart a recharge, hitting around 5.6 amps, before returning to a safer and more familiar level after about the first 15 minutes of charging.
Warp Charging only speeds up the charging process when the battery level is below 40 percent. Afterward, the charging curves ascend at identical rates on both phones. The end result is that the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition can fully charge in one hour flat, while the regular model takes an extra 21 minutes.
Warp Charge offers faster charging when the battery is below 40 percent
The regular OnePlus 6T caps out at about 15W, providing up to about 3.8 amps of current at 4 volts when the battery is essentially empty. After the initial juice up, both phones’ charging power is much closer together, ranging between 15 and 12 watts as the battery charges up. The last five percent or so sees both fall to approximately 3 watts.
If you’re worried about temperature, the McLaren Edition’s internal temperature readings peaked at 33.5oC during charging. Meanwhile, the regular OnePlus 6T hit 32.6oC, so there’s only a margin of error difference between the two and neither phone approaches unsafe charging temperatures.
A note on compatibility
Warp Charge 30 is a McLaren Edition exclusive and you can’t obtain this faster-charging speed just by plugging a regular OnePlus 6T into the faster charger. It still charges quickly, but not at full Warp Charge capabilities. Similarly, if you plug the McLaren model into a regular 6T charger, you’re stuck at 20 rather than 30W charging.
There are a few reasons for this. First, the McLaren Edition has a modified battery protection structure to deal with the extra current. This makes the phone safe to use with faster charging without overheating the battery. Secondly, the new charger and cable itself are designed for higher current. The wiring is thicker and the charging scheme actually uses more wires and USB pins to handle up to 6 amps of current.
With that in mind, you’ll want to charge up the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition with the cable and charger provided in the box. As it’s a proprietary standard, you won’t obtain the same Warp Charge capabilities with third-party cables and chargers.
Quicker pit stops
At just $70 more, the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition and its little extras might be a tempting buy for those looking for a slightly more premium experience. Unfortunately, we found that the extra 2GB of RAM makes no difference to the performance of the more expensive handset. 10GB RAM is overkill for anything that you can throw at a modern smartphone.
The value proposition is better with Warp Charge 30. There’s a tangible difference to overall charge times, with the McLaren edition knocking off about 20 minutes to full capacity. More importantly, though, Warp Charge offers more power for charging when the phone is nearly empty. Hitting 40 percent in the first 15 minutes and 70 percent after 30 minutes means that just a short charge should give you enough juice to get through the day.
The regular OnePlus 6T charges quickly enough for most people. However, the McLaren Edition really starts to give the fastest charging phones, such as the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Oppo R17 Pro a closer run for their money.
Source: Android Zone
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‘Lithium’ is a pro 3D film rig for the Red Hydrogen One, because why not
The Red Hydrogen One was one of the most highly-anticipated smartphones of 2018 — and unfortunately landed as a dud with bad reviews and underwhelming photography (which should have been its main appeal).
Now, via Red’s Facebook page, we know that not only is the company standing by the Red Hydrogen One, but it’s also releasing a sure-to-be-expensive 3D filmmaking rig for the smartphone. The company refers to the rig as “Lithium,” but it’s not clear if that will be its official release name.
Using Lithium, filmmakers will be able to film cinema-quality 3D stereoscopic images while viewing what they create in real-time on the Hydrogen One. Check out the image of the rig below:
What you’ll do is film your scene with the Lithium camera while your Red Hydrogen One smartphone processes the 3D imagery and displays a rough draft of the scene. Using this method, directors won’t have to film a scene, convert it to 3D, note any changes, and then re-film. Instead, they’ll be able to see what it will look like on the Hydrogen One, make adjustments as necessary, and then film the scene.
Editor’s Pick
Theoretically, this will dramatically cut down on the time it takes to shoot a 3D film scene, which is surely a welcome advancement for filmmakers around the world.
However, there are two major issues. The first is the obvious problem of the Red Hydrogen One being a big disappointment on numerous levels, which likely is preventing filmmakers from buying one in the first place. Additionally, its $1,300 price tag makes it a sizable investment.
The second issue is that 3D films are not doing so hot right now. According to Collider, “box office revenues for 3D films in the U.S. and Canada fell 18% in 2017 to $1.3 billion,” and that decline has continued through 2018.
In other words, Red is introducing a 3D filmmaking tool which attaches to an expensive, poorly-reviewed phone at a time when people aren’t so interested in 3D films. Nice.
Red didn’t announce a release date or price for the Lithium camera attachment.
NEXT: Here are the biggest tech and mobile blunders of 2018
Source: Android Zone
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How to Increase Your Blog Traffic – The Easy Way (27 Proven Tips)
Starting a blog these days has become easy with platforms like WordPress. However once it is up and running, the next big challenge you have is to bring more traffic to your blog or website.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to be a marketing guru to promote your blog. You can easily increase your blog traffic to get more visitors by using some proven best practices.
In this article, we will share some of the easiest and tested tips to increase your blog traffic like an expert marketer.
Unlike other articles on growing blog traffic, we are only going to share tips that we have personally used to increase our website traffic to millions of pageviews every month.
We also have done our best to make this the most comprehensive website traffic guide, so you can have a holistic blog traffic strategy for your business.
Ready? Let’s get started.
1. Create Audience Profiles to Understand Your Users
Before you start creating content for your blog, it’s important to spend a little time understanding your target audience and what they are looking for.
You can quickly build an audience framework by answering the following questions:
- Who is your target audience?
- What problems are they facing that you can help solve?
- What kind of content are they looking for?
- How would they ideally try to find the answers to their questions?
Answering these questions will help you get a clearer picture of your target audience.
You can also expand on this by adding further personalized questions such as:
- How old are they?
- What are their occupations?
- What is their education level?
- What is their expertise level in the subject matter of your blog?
These audience profiles are also known as buyer personas in the eCommerce industry. If you run an online store, then we highly recommend that you check out this detailed guide on how to create a buyer persona with examples and templates.
2. Do Keyword Research to Plan Your Content Strategy
Keyword research is a technique used by content creators and SEO experts. It helps you discover specific words and sentences that users type in Google and other search engines to find the content they are looking for.
Normally, beginners just rely on their best guesses when creating content. As you can imagine, this strategy is a hit or miss.
If you use the “best-guess” strategy, then a lot of your articles will likely not do well in search engines. Simply because no one’s looking for the keywords you have used, or there is just too much competition for those keywords.
By doing proper keyword research, you will unlock the following benefits:
- Discover actual search terms people are looking for
- Find unique content ideas for popular search terms
- Learn from your competitors and beat them with better content
- Create a series of pillar-articles to drive steady traffic to your blog
Now the question is how do you actually do keyword research? Luckily, it is not as difficult as you would think.
There are a lot of free and paid tools that can help you do proper keyword research.
All you would have to do is enter a keyword, a competitors blog/website URL, or your own URL to find out more keyword ideas.
We have created a detailed guide on how to do keyword research for your WordPress blog with step by step instructions.
3. Make an Editorial Calendar
Once you have done the keyword research, you’ll likely come up with tons of blog post ideas.
Sometimes, the large list of keywords can overwhelm beginners to a point where they simply give up.
To make sure this doesn’t happen to you, we recommend creating an editorial calendar (a game plan). Remember, no large blog was built in a day.
It takes time and consistent effort to create a successful blog.
Creating an editorial calendar will help you create and stick to the plan.
There are plenty of useful tools that you can use like Asana and Trello to name a few.
These tools come with a powerful set of features that will help you stay on top of your game.
The goal is to organize, create a bird’s eye view of your strategy, and be more productive.
Here are some more tips on managing your editorial workflow more efficiently.
- Don’t be too hard on yourself. Start with two articles a week and gradually increase your pace when you can.
- Be consistent with your publishing schedule. Make sure you follow your calendar and publish regular content as planned.
- Add notes, keyword ideas, and outlines to your calendar. This will help you produce better quality content when you sit down to write.
- Use colors, tags, categories, and other features in your calendar app to make it more visual and organized.
Here are some more tips on managing an editorial calendar for your blog.
4. Create Comprehensive and Useful Content
The most important thing that users and search engines look for is good quality content.
For a blog, a quality piece of content is usually a comprehensive article on a specific topic that covers all the details. This makes it extremely helpful for users.
These comprehensive articles are known as “pillar articles”. Other experts may refer to them as flagship content or cornerstone articles.
Basically, these are your most important articles. You need choose the most promising keyword and then provide as much information as you could in one long-form article.
You should create as many pillar articles as possible to cover all the important keywords in your industry.
Following are some tips that you should keep in mind when creating pillar content:
- Pillar content could be any type of article. For example, a how-to guide, tutorial, comparison article, opinion piece, a listicle, and so on.
- The difference between pillar content and other articles is that your pillar articles are more comprehensive and provide in-depth information on the topic.
- Your pillar articles are not time-dependent. They are evergreen and always useful. Although we recommend keeping them updated with new information to stay on top of search results.
We will cover more tips later in this article that will help you create high-quality pillar articles to get more traffic from search engines.
5. Make Your Content Readable
As we mentioned earlier, search engines and users love longer and comprehensive articles that provide all the information they need.
Now the problem is that humans have a short attention span.
A slight difficulty in reading or understanding will put off your users, and they will leave without looking at all the useful information that you offered.
To solve this problem before it happens, you need to make all your content easy to read.
A good place to start would be to present your article in bite-size sentences using a friendly tone and lots of visuals.
Following are just some basic tips to make your content more readable and user-friendly.
- Use smaller sentences and paragraphs. This leaves a lot of white space around text making it easier to look and read.
- Try to improve typography by using more readable fonts, large font-size, and plenty of line spacing.
- Check the readability score of your content. Yoast SEO comes with a built-in tool for that, you can also find tons of other online readability checkers
- Use a grammar checker. We recommend using Grammarly, it not only checks grammar but actually helps you write better.
- Use images, screenshots, videos, infographics, and other visual elements. These media elements make your article highly-engaging and easier to read.
6. Learn and apply the SEO basics to your Website
SEO is a set of best practices that help you make your website more search engine friendly. You don’t need to be an ‘SEO Guru’ to improve your website.
Contrary to popular belief, anyone can do SEO for their own websites without hiring an expert. There are plenty of SEO tools and plugins, free advice, and step by step tutorials available that you can use.
We recommend using Yoast SEO plugin for all WordPress websites. It is the most comprehensive SEO and website optimization tool. The free version includes all the SEO features that you will need on your website.
You can learn all you need to know about SEO, in our complete WordPress SEO guide for beginners. It includes step by step instructions, and it is the exact same SEO setup that we use on our own websites.
7. Learn to Write Great Headlines
When users find your content in search results or RSS feeds, the first thing they see is your article headline.
A catchy blog post title stands out and gets more clicks. Whereas a plain and boring headline gets ignored, and users are likely to scroll by it.
This makes headlines very important.
You need to learn how to write better titles for your blog posts that capture user attention and get more clicks.
Luckily, blogging experts have been doing research on headlines for a very long time, and you can benefit from their findings.
These are the basic building blocks of an effective headline:
- A good headline triggers an emotional response (joy, surprise, shock, curiosity, fear, excitement, greed, and so on).
- It offers users a reward and value
- It promotes the content by including target keywords
Copywriters use power words to trigger emotional responses. They tell users why the article is valuable or what they will get from clicking on the headline.
Lastly, a good headline includes a call to action for users which is often subtle and sometimes implied.
To learn more, we recommend you to check out these headlines that went viral and what you can learn from them.
You can also use the following free headline analyzer tools to help create better headlines:
Our team regularly uses these three tools to create better blog post titles and headlines.
8. Make Internal Linking a Routine Task
Now that you have started creating good content, it is important to link to your articles from your existing blog posts. This is called internal linking, and it plays a huge role in SEO.
Here is why internal linking is so important:
- Internal links help Google understand the context and relationship between different articles on your website. It then uses this information as ranking signals.
- Internal links, when placed strategically and in context, can help you increase page views and reduce bounce rate.
- It is harder to ask third-party websites to link to your articles. It is way easier to create links on your own site.
We recommend making it a habit to link to your older articles from your new articles.
Because internal links play such an important role in SEO, we have even made it part of our pre-publish checklist for our writers.
9. Start Generating More Backlinks
A backlink is an incoming links to your content from an external website. Backlinks are one of the most influential signals in Google’s rankings.
Getting backlinks from reputable websites and blogs is very difficult. Not just for beginners, even experienced bloggers struggle with it.
Here are some tips to get quality backlinks to your website:
- Reach out to influencers and reputable blogs in your industry, and then tell them about specific content on your website that they might want to link.
- Write guest posts on other blogs and websites.
- Interview influencers and bloggers on your blog. They will likely want to let their users know to come checkout their interview, and you’ll get a backlink.
- The easiest way to get a backlink is to add a link to your website on all your social media profiles.
10. Add Images, Charts, Infographs to Create Visually Attractive Content
In step 5, we mentioned that adding images and charts to your articles make it more readable.
Since visual elements are so important, we believe they deserved their own spot on this list.
As human beings, our brain prefers visual elements. We love colors and objects because aesthetics trigger emotional responses in our brains. This makes us more engaged and immersed in our surroundings.
People love looking at infographics because they make information engaging and easy to consume.
Images in your blog posts grab user’s attention and help them focus on not just the visual element but also the text around it.
If you’re just starting out, then it’s important to know that you cannot just use any image you see on the internet. Images are protected by copyright and stealing copyrighted material can have serious consequences.
Ideally, you want to use your own images, graphics, and photographs, but not all bloggers are graphic designers or photographers.
Luckily, there are so many great resources to find royalty free images, and there are even tools that you can use to easily create your own graphics. Here are some helpful resources:
- 16 best places to find free public domain images
- 16 best tools to create better images for your blog posts
- Guide on how to optimize images for blog posts
11. Add Videos to Your Articles
Videos are the most successful form of content on the internet. Users spend more time on blog posts containing videos than just text and images.
Adding videos to your articles in WordPress is super easy. However, you should never upload videos to WordPress because it is not optimized to stream videos.
A video hosted on your WordPress hosting server will take up too many resources, and the user experience would be terrible.
The best way to add videos to your WordPress site is by uploading them to YouTube and then embedding them in your blog posts.
This gives you even more exposure as YouTube itself is the world’s second largest search engine, and a popular social media platform.
There are many ways to easily create video content for your website. Here are few that you can start with:
- You can create slideshows of how to tutorials with voice over instructions
- You can create screencasts
- Record interviews with other bloggers and influencers in your industry
- Become a vlogger by adding your own videos shot in selfie mode
For video editing, if you are using Mac, then iMovie is perfectly capable of performing basic video edits. Windows users can use free video editing software like Lightworks or Shotcut for basic editing.
12. Utilize User-Generated Content
User-generated content is basically any content generated on your website as a result of user activity. This includes comments, testimonials, guest posts, user reviews, and more.
User-generated content helps you bring more traffic to your website because it gives users multiple opportunities to participate and get involved.
Users are more likely to return, share, and even purchase from your website when they spend more time on it.
There are many different kinds of user-generated content that you can add. You need to choose what works best for your blog and start from there.
For more ideas, see our guide on how to use user-generated content in WordPress to grow your website.
13. Keep Your Website Design Clean and Clutter Free
There are a lot of great WordPress themes available on the market. The problem is that many beginners want to use a theme with all the bells and whistles. These themes are not always the perfect design for your website.
Bad website design stops your users from spending more time on your blog which decreases your pageviews.
Whereas a good design helps them discover more content, explore different sections, and spend more time.
We are often asked by users how to choose the best theme? Our answer is to always to strive for simplicity.
A simple, clean, and functional theme makes a good first impression and offers the best user experience.
If you are looking for some theme recommendations, then check out our expert-pick showcases:
14. Optimize Website Speed to Load Your Pages Faster
In this era of instant gratification, no one wants to wait for a website to load. If your website is slow, then users will simply leave your website before it even loads.
Search engines like Google also consider website speed and page load time as one of the important ranking factors.
To make sure that your website loads fast, you need to optimize your WordPress performance. This means you need to use caching, avoid unnecessary bloat, and optimize your images.
We have prepared a step by step WordPress performance optimization guide that will help you speed up your website without hiring a developer.
15. Start Your Email List Right Away
Most beginners spend too much of their time bringing new users to their website. However, more than 70% of users leaving your website will never return.
The trick to growing your blog traffic is NOT to just get new visitors, but you also need to keep existing visitors coming back.
How do you make sure that users return to your website?
You do that by asking them to subscribe to your blog.
Users can subscribe to your website’s social media profiles. However, most social networks limit your reach, and your users can only see some of your content.
This is why you need to start building your email list.
The best about your email list is that you own it. No one can limit your reach, and you get direct access to your user’s inboxes.
Email marketing is the most cost-efficient and highly effective marketing tool at your disposal.
You are losing potential subscribers each day without an email list.
For more on this topic, please read our article on why building an email list is so important.
Once you have an email list, you can send regular email newsletters to bring more visitors to your blog.
16. Automatically Share Your Blog Posts
When we stress that you should build an email list, we don’t mean that you should stop building a social media following.
Quite the opposite, in fact, we want you to continue building a social media following on all the important social platforms, and even find new niche platforms that you can explore.
The problem with social media websites is that you have to regularly post content to keep your profiles active and drive traffic to your blog.
If you do that manually, then you’ll soon be spending quite a lot of time on sharing content.
This is where IFTTT comes in. It is a free online service that allows you to automatically share your WordPress blog posts on social media websites.
17. Regularly Share Your Old Articles on Social Media
If you’re like most blogs, you probably only publish one article a day, this means for the rest of the day, there is no update from you on social media.
On platforms like Twitter, your Tweet will soon disappear, and your users will probably not even see it.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could automatically share your old content at regular intervals throughout the day?
This will help you get more traffic from social media by increasing your visibility and keeping your profiles more active.
Luckily, you can automate it with tools like Buffer and Revive Old Posts.
With Buffer, you will have to bulk-upload your updates manually. On the other hand, Revive Old Posts will allow you to automatically share your own old articles.
18. Explore Other Social Networks
There are so many social media websites out there, but most of us spend all of our time on few top platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Obviously, you want to focus on them to drive more traffic to your blog.
However, depending on your blog’s topics you may have more success on other social platforms that are less crowded.
For example, if your blog is about building businesses, then you may find more engaged users on LinkedIn.
If you run a lifestyle or fashion blog, then Instagram may be the platform you should focus on.
You can always spend time on Quora to answer user questions which build backlinks and help increase blog traffic.
We recommend that you try spending more time on social networks other than the big two. You may find a more passionate audience and a bigger following there.
19. Participate in Online Communities
Online communities are a great source of traffic mainly because they already have engaged users who are interested in the topics that you are discussing on your blogs.
You can find smaller communities on Reddit, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, YouTube communities, and more.
Pro Tip: Don’t just start posting links to your articles. This is called spamming and moderators will instantly block you.
You should spend some time building reputation, answering questions, joining discussions, and then only share your website if it is appropriate.
20. Make Your Own Online Groups
Another way to build a passionate following around your blog is by starting your own online group. You can use free platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn and invite your users to join in.
As your community grows, so will your influence. The active participants in your group will proactively help you promote your blog on their own social media profiles.
After some time, this little community can become a major source of traffic for your blog.
21. Participate in Q & A Websites
You may have noticed that sometimes years old answers from websites like Stack Exchange, Quora, or TripAdvisor would still outrank more established blogs in search results.
Question and Answer websites are one of the biggest online communities on the internet.
The advantage of answering questions on these platforms is that your answer will remain live for a very long time which means that it can become a regular source of traffic to your blog.
Once again, we will not recommend you to just go there for posting your links. Instead, you should write actual detailed answers with links to your blog posts only if they fit in the context.
22. Find and Engage with Influencers on Social Media
Influencers can help you promote your blog and can significantly boost your website traffic.
However, the problem is that most influencers get tons of messages already. Since you are a new blogger, they assume you probably don’t have anything to offer them in return.
So how do you get the attention of an influencer? More importantly, how do you get them to promote your blog?
First, you need to start a conversation with them on social media.
Next, share their content with your own commentary, reply to their threads, leave comments on their blog posts.
Make sure each of your interaction adds value to their discussion.
Influencers love it when users appreciate their efforts. They will notice and remember you. Once you have established a relationship, you can approach them to give you advice.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it helps you build life-long friendships that are mutually profitable.
23. Use Social Proof to Get More Traffic
Human beings are social animals. We like to know about other people’s experiences as social proof and use it to make our own decisions.
You need to use this social proof on your website, on your social media profiles, in your tweets, and in emails to promote your blog.
Now you may be wondering, what if I am just starting out? How do I leverage social proof on my blog?
There are tons of ways to leverage social proof, even on a new blog.
- Add a feedback form and ask users to leave you feedback that you can share on your blog.
- Directly approach users and collect testimonials
- Ask users to rate your articles
- Ask users to write reviews
- Numbers are brain candy. Share your social media counts, email list subscriber counts, and other numbers as social proof.
Don’t worry if your numbers aren’t as big as other successful blogs, they are still powerful social proof.
24. Monitor Social Media
People are asking questions all the time on social media websites like Twitter. Set up alerts to monitor keywords on social media and then jump into conversations to answer their questions with a link back to a relevant article on your website.
You can also monitor social media websites for your brand name, links, conversations, and more.
There are plenty of tools that you can use for this. Here are some of the best social media monitoring tools that can make it all easy for you.
25. Track Your Website’s Keyword Rankings
After you have started creating content and promoting it, you need to track how well each content is performing. Furthermore, which keywords is it ranking for.
You can do this with a tool called, Google Search Console. It is a free tool provided by Google that helps you see how your website is doing in Google Search. We have a complete Google Search Console guide that will teach you how to use this immensely powerful tool, like a Pro.
Next, you would want to monitor your competitor websites. Google Search Console will not tell you who is ranking higher than you and why.
For that, you’ll need tools SEMRush and Ahrefs. Using either of these tools, you can get detailed insights into your competitors, their top keywords, and what you need to do to outrank them.
26. Track Your Website Traffic and User Engagement
Now that you have started getting some traffic, you need to know where your users are coming from, and what they do when they are on your website. Without this data, you cannot evaluate your strategy or plan your next moves.
This is where Google Analytics comes in.
It tracks your website visitors and helps you see traffic reports, engagement, and other user activity on your website. For instructions, see our step by step tutorial on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.
The biggest advantage of using Google Analytics is that you can see what your users are doing when they visit your website. See our article on how to use Google Analytics to track user engagement on your website.
Knowing this data helps you double down on what’s working, and stop doing what’s not.
27. Continue Learning Online Marketing and SEO
These tips will help you increase your blog traffic and continue getting more subscribers.
However as your blog grows, you need to learn more ways to grow your business.
WPBeginner is the largest WordPress resource site. We regularly publish tutorials on online marketing and SEO. We have a YouTube Channel as well, where you can learn more about WordPress, growing your blog, and SEO.
OptinMonster Blog is another great resource that you would want to follow. OptinMonster is the best conversion optimization software on the market. Their blog is where they regularly publish articles on how to get more traffic, subscribers, and sales.
We hope these tips helped you increase your blog traffic. You may also want to see our list of most useful tools to help you further grow your blog.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Increase Your Blog Traffic – The Easy Way (27 Proven Tips) appeared first on WPBeginner.
Source: Wordpres
The post How to Increase Your Blog Traffic – The Easy Way (27 Proven Tips) appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.
Here’s an alleged pic of a real-life Samsung Galaxy S10 with punch-hole camera
We’ve learned quite a bit already about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S10 and have even seen a few renders. Now, though, we have our very first look at what appears to be a real-life image of the Galaxy S10 from trusted smartphone industry leaker @EVLeaks (a.k.a. Evan Blass).
According to Blass, the model depicted in the image below is the “Beyond 1” variant of the Samsung Galaxy S10, which essentially means the “vanilla” model. We expect a cheaper variant of the S10 to launch (“Beyond 0”) and, of course, a Plus model, too (“Beyond 2”).
Check out the photo below:
It’s a little tricky to see in the photo, but it appears the phone is in a protective case of some kind, which unfortunately obscures the dimensions and look of the device. However, it’s easy to see the hole-punch camera at the top right as well as the small-but-still-there chin at the bottom of the display. The side and top bezels, however, look to be very thin indeed.
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Blass’ tweet attached to the image doesn’t give much information, other than calling it the Samsung Galaxy S10 and referencing the “Beyond 1” codename. With that in mind, we don’t know much else about this picture such as where the photo was taken, who took it, and how they got their hands on it.
In the comments of the tweet, though, Blass does mention that the Galaxy S10 will be able to wirelessly charge other devices, such as smartwatches and wireless earbuds. We saw similar technology on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, which launched in October.
What do you think? Is this an exciting look at the next flagship from Samsung, or is this design not enough to get you to switch? Let us know in the comments!
NEXT: What we know so far about Samsung’s foldable phone
Source: Android Zone
The post Here’s an alleged pic of a real-life Samsung Galaxy S10 with punch-hole camera appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.
Arm unveils new image processors for better HDR pictures
Before we head into a melee of CES 2019 announcements, Arm has detailed its latest Mali-C52 and Mali-C32 image signal processors (ISPs). Although these processors aren’t aimed at the high-end photography market, they are designed to boost image quality and processing capabilities in the fastest growing market segments. This includes the IP camera, drone, and robotics markets.
The key capabilities inside the new ISPs are support for HDR bit depth management and accurate tone mapping, thanks to a number of its in-house technologies. The aim is to improve image quality via better-looking colors and superior contrast. Low-light pictures should also be in for a boost, as Arm’s ISP accelerates multi-exposure and several denoise techniques that are often used to achieve better low light pics. In total, there are 25 different processing steps inside these ISPs. This includes RAW processing, noise reduction, demosaic, HDR processing, and color management.
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Better image quality also has knock-on improvements for additional processing down the line. If a company uses the ISP in conjunction with machine learning techniques, such as for picture improvements or object detection, the quality of those results is improved by ensuring a high-quality source image. As such, Arm envisions that this ISP will be paired up with some of its latest Cortex-A series CPUs and GPUs, along with its Trillium NPU dedicated to machine learning.
Both the Mali-C52 and C32 support up to 16-megapixel resolution cameras. The ISPs boast a throughput of 600 million pixels per second, which is enough to support a 4K 60fps video stream. The C52 boasts a larger, more powerful noise reduction engine that ensures better texture detail and also supports 3D color lookup enhancements that aren’t available with the C32.
Arm notes that the new ISPs are primarily targeted at embedded applications such as security cameras, drones, and home assistants. The C52 covers the whole spectrum, while the C32 is for customers more concerned about power and area budgets. The Mali-C71 ISP remains dedicated to the extra security requirements of the automotive market.
Arm is supporting its new products via drivers for Linux or bare metal coding, which includes software for auto-white balance, exposure, and focus. However, the Mali-C52’s capabilities are also suited to mid-tier smartphones, ones that don’t require huge resolution cameras but want to accelerate tone-mapping and high dynamic range processing. Although the big mobile SoC vendors already have their own ISPs. Developers could also port the software over to Android Things to help build a wider range of smart home products equipped with HDR cameras.
Source: Android Zone
The post Arm unveils new image processors for better HDR pictures appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.
Hackers seize control of more than 70,000 Chromecasts, promote YouTuber PewDiePie
A pair of hackers have hijacked Google Chromecasts and called on their owners to follow YouTubers PewDiePie. The hackers, known as HackerGiraffe and j3ws3r, are estimated to have accessed more than 70,000 devices so far with the exploit, according to the CastHack website the hackers launched (via The Verge).
Affected Chromecasts cast a message stating their device is exposing sensitive information about them and advising owners to visit the CastHack page for more information. The page was live during the writing of this article but currently can’t be reached. In addition to displaying the CastHack URL, the message also suggested that users subscribe to PewDiePie.
The exploit targets a router setting that makes smart home products viewable on the internet. With Chromecast access gained, the hackers can “remotely play media on your device, rename your device, factory reset or reboot the device, force it to forget all Wi-Fi networks, force it to pair to a new Bluetooth speaker/Wi-Fi point, and so on,” it said on CastHack. Folks have also taken to Reddit to talk about their hacked devices.
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Google has said it isn’t to blame for the attack, but that it’s the fault of the individuals’ routers. Both Google and HackerGiraffe have said the best way to fix the issue is to turn off “Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)” in their routers’ settings, said The Verge.
Despite advocating the YouTube stars’ pages, HackerGiraffe said promoting PewDiePie wasn’t the main purpose of the attack. Rather, the hacker said it was to expose the product’s vulnerabilities and remind Google of security flaws.
Reportedly, the hackers don’t harvest or save any information accessed during the attack, they just rename devices. Still, well-meaning or not, seeing the hack message pop up on a TV must be a very unsettling experience for the people affected.
Source: Android Zone
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Big surprise: Google’s Fuchsia OS will indeed run Android apps
Google has been hard at work on a new platform, dubbed Fuchsia OS. It was almost a given that the upcoming operating system would support Android apps, but a change to the Android Open Source Project has seemingly confirmed the feature.
“These targets are used to build ART for Fuchsia. They differ from usual Android devices as they do not target specific hardware. They will produce a Fuchsia package (.far file),” reads an excerpt of a Readme file accompanying the change, according to 9to5Google.
“ART” refers to the Android Runtime, which is the environment used to run Android apps. So clearly Google is working on bringing this environment to its new operating system. The outlet also notes that the .far file in question is Fuchsia’s take on Android’s APK file.
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The Readme file adds that ART on Fuchsia OS will support x86 and ARM architectures. This means the functionality should theoretically run on desktop and mobile processors. In other words, this adds more weight to claims that Fuchsia will run on a variety of form factors.
In any event, Android app support would be a smart move for any Android successor, since many thousands of apps have already been developed for the platform, and consumers could continue to use the ones they’ve previously purchased.
NEXT: Phones we caught cheating benchmarks in 2018
Source: Android Zone
The post Big surprise: Google’s Fuchsia OS will indeed run Android apps appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.
What we know so far about Samsung’s foldable phone (Updated January 3)
Update, January 3, 2019 (04:50 AM EST): We’ve added Samsung’s official details on its foldable phone, including news of its triple camera setup. Head below to learn more!
Samsung confirmed the first details about its foldable phone at the Samsung Developers Conference on November 7, 2018. When it gets released, it could start the next major revolution in the mobile phone industry.
Trending: Samsung Galaxy S10 rumors – price, release date, specs, design
Samsung didn’t confirm a release date in its announcement on November 7 but indicated a release in 2019 is all but certain.
In this roundup, we take a look at what we currently know about the anticipated Samsung foldable phone, along with all of the rumors about this device that have been reported over the years.
We will be updating this article with the latest plausible news and rumors about this foldable smartphone from Samsung as they are reported.
- Read: Best Samsung phones
- Read: Best cheap Samsung phones
- Read: Best foldable phones
Samsung foldable phone: Name, release date, and price
At its developer conference in November, Samsung announced the first details about its foldable phone. Samsung played coy, announcing its screen technology is called Samsung Infinity Flex Display but didn’t show us too much, dimming the lights to hide design details. Further, Samsung didn’t hint at a name or a potential release date for the device.
However, there have been consistent rumors relating to the phone’s production and speculated release date. In April, The Bell reported that Samsung planned to start production of the device in November with the aim of releasing it in early 2019. MK, citing a senior official from Samsung, later said it is preparing to release the device in the first quarter of next year.
Those looking to get their hands on a foldable phone should perhaps start saving now, however: MK suggests Samsung will sell the device for close to 2 million won (around $1,791).
Whether that’s completely accurate or not, Samsung’s first folding screen phone certainly won’t be cheap.
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In the middle of July, The Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the project as saying Samsung will launch its foldable phone in early 2019 (which could coincide with an announcement at Mobile World Congress around February) and that the phone would then be available sometime in the second half of 2019. The same report also alleged that the phone could cost over $1,500.
Read: As good as it gets: has the smartphone peaked?
Samsung foldable phone: Specs and design
Samsung did let us in on some details about the phone’s displays and user interface.
Samsung’s folding phone will have two displays: a tall 4.5-inch 840 x 1960 screen on the outside or front of the device, and a foldable 7.3-inch 1536 x 2152 display on the inside. Bloomberg reports this would not feature an in-display fingerprint sensor, due to the difficulties of putting such a sensor with the screen technology.
Though Samsung had a prototype device on stage at the developer conference, it was encased in a thick box to stop people getting a proper look at it. Because of this, we are still unsure what the final version of the phone will look like.
Samsung did show some renders of a foldable device, however. These renders showed a device with fairly big bezels around the outer display and much smaller bezels around the inner, foldable, display. We don’t know if these images will be anything like the final design but we are expecting refinements.
Not much else was confirmed in terms of specs or the phone’s design. However, as expected, Samsung unveiled details about the device’s UI.
The layout of the UI will automatically change depending on whether the device is folded or unfolded. There will also be continuity between the two displays; if you are using an app on the front screen then open the phone, the app will automatically open on the larger inner display.
This was something Google also confirmed at its developer conference on the same day. Google said Android will soon support foldable devices and released an animation of how it could work.
Additionally, Samsung introduced multi-active window, a multitasking system that will allow you to run up to three apps at once on the larger display.
Samsung released a video via its Twitter account hinting the phone would be usable in various positions. In the video, an animated icon moves from a fully folded position to a fully open position, stopping halfway through the animation. This suggests the phone will be usable when closed, partially open, and fully open.
Samsung will probably want to equip the phone with a large battery to go with the large display. SamMobile reported Samsung would begin producing flexible batteries with capacities ranging from 3,000mAh to 6,000mAh later this year.
XDA Developers unearthed Framework files referencing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8150 (Snapdragon 855) chipset in relation to Samsung’s folding Android phone. It’s very likely this will be the SoC used.
As for the cameras, recent speculation from etnews suggests the phone will have a triple rear camera setup, like what Samsung used on the recent Galaxy A7. The setup would apparently consist of a similar dual camera + wide-angle camera setup as the midrange A7, though the folding Galaxy’s sensors may be the more powerful.
Samsung foldable phone: Possible rivals?
A folding display concept from LG.
While Samsung has been the biggest talking point in regard to foldable phones, it’s not the only company that has shown interest in this kind of device.
We have seen phones released with twin displays that fold into each other, connected by a hinge, from companies like Sony and from ZTE with the Axon M. The Royole FlexPai also beat Samsung to the punch as the world’s first foldable smartphone.
Huawei has also revealed it is working on a foldable phone of its own. Recent speculation indicates the company is working with LG Design on the flexible display for it, with an inward form factor, and that it was hoping to launch it by November, possibly beating Samsung to the punch.
In 2016, Lenovo showed off prototype concepts for a foldable smartphone and tablet, including a phone that could literally wrap around a person’s wrist (seen above). Lenovo has since confirmed it is working on a foldable phone, but said it isn’t concerned with being first to market.
- Read: Best Huawei phones
- Read: Best Lenovo phones
Are you excited about the prospect of a foldable phone from Samsung? Let us know in the comments.
Source: Android Zone
The post What we know so far about Samsung’s foldable phone (Updated January 3) appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.
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