What Is Browser Cache and Why Do You ‘Clear It’?!

March 24, 2020April 9, 2019 by Michael Cremean

“Clear your cache” is a phrase we hear a lot when trying to fix an issue with our internet browser. When you search for a solution to most browsing errors you’ll notice the number one recommendation is always to ‘clear your cache’ first.

But what is cache exactly? Why do we have to clear it? What is its purpose of doing so, and why is this ‘cache’ there to begin with? The answer to these mysteries in more awaits you in this article.

What Is Browser Cache?

Cache is pronounced CASH (and if used properly with website optimization services, it can mean cash for your web page). However, cache has nothing to do with money. Cache is, put simply, your browser’s memory of your browser history.

If I sing “A-B-C-D….” and ask you to finish, you know from memory of singing the alphabet song that the next letters are E, F, and G. You already have that ingrained into your head; into your own personal memory cache. These memories are what defines cache data. Cached images and files are remembered so that the next time your internet connects with a website it’s already been too, it loads quicker.

How Does Cache Work?

When you visit a website for the first time, your browsing cache will be sure to take note and remember the site’s data. When you visit that same web page again, your computer remembers what was on that site. Remembering what was already there makes loading faster and allows you to get the information quickly. Instead of having to learn the website’s pictures over and over again, your browser remembers right away what was there before; recalling it from memory like your ABCs.

When your computer’s memory is too slow to keep up with a constantly updating internet your computer uses cache instead. Storing these temporary internet files helps shorten the time it takes to access the data.

Google Chrome browsers, Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox use browsing cache to save your browsing history. Web browsers can reach cached file data much quicker than they can from the data on the website itself.

What Does Clearing Cache Do?

Sometimes in collecting too much cache we can run into problems with how it loads the information from a website. If someone has updated their website and what type of web caching it’s putting out, they may be trying to improve the performance of the site. However, in doing so they may be giving the wrong signals to the information you cache already has stored.

When this happens, it’s good to clear your cache; wiping the slate clean so fresh information can be added in the future. Moving furniture around your home will rewire your brain to remember where everything is. Sometimes you might think to sit in a chair that is no longer there!

It’s not always an update that causes a browser issue. Sometimes there is too much cache data being processed and the cache gets confused. This is why clearing all your cache can really help fix an issue. Everything starts over new!

Browser Cache vs. Web Cache: Getting Good Web Optimization

Website data and how it loads can make or break a browsing experience. With clever website optimization services, Quadshot Digital can make sure your website has the latest version of everything it needs to create great web caching. Contact us today and we can make your site delightful for your target market.

What Can a Good Web Host do for You?

March 24, 2020January 31, 2019 by Michael Cremean

One of our many web design services is web hosting. Our main focus is WordPress web hosting. However, we are not limited to just WordPress. As a Las Vegas web host, we provide excellent server resources and website builders for websites we host. Discover the benefits of having a good web host.

What Is a Web Hosting Service?

Web hosting is the hardware and software that enables you to post your website online. Without a host, your website wouldn’t be live and people wouldn’t be able to visit it. The host provides all the technical capabilities and knowledge required to host your site and all the content on it.

Websites and their content are hosted on a device called a server, and the server allows people to connect with your website and view it from their own computers or smartphones. Along with a web server you will need to own a domain in order to point your audience to the server your website is hosted on.

What Can a Good Web Host Do for You?

Your website will be more secure

The hosting company you choose will essentially guard your website against security threats, meaning you won’t have to take care of those minor security issues that might otherwise pop up. If you use a poor service, the security measures in place might not be quite so comprehensive, which is why it’s so important to choose a good service that’s able to keep your website safe from the many threats present online.

Loading times will speed up

Faster loading speeds are important because anyone visiting and using your website will not want to wait around while the page tries to load. These days, people expect instantaneous loading times and they’re right to do so. If your website is lagging behind in this regard, it might be a sign that you need to upgrade the hosting service you currently use. A good one will ensure uptime is good and loading times are fast.

Growing your website in the future will be easier

Scalability is a major factor for many people who run websites, whether they simply want to grow their website or the business behind it. When you use a good and reliable hosting service, the task of growing the site and making it capable of handling ever greater levels of traffic will be so much easier. They will stay on top of things like this and allow it to grow naturally without any bumps in the road.

You’ll receive regular upgrades and maintenance

Most people don’t have time to be doing their own website maintenance, and most wouldn’t know how to even if they wanted to. It’s another reason why using a good hosting service is so vital these days. All of the important upgrades and regular website maintenance will be taken care of for you and you won’t need to worry about any of it. If you’re working with good people, you’ll be able to trust them to do this work correctly too.

You’ll get an SEO boost

SEO is important because it helps your website become easier to find when people search for key terms via search engines like Google. Using a good hosting service is something that definitely helps your SEO efforts because of some of the things mentioned above. Search engines like fast websites and they like secure ones too. So by getting these things right with the help of the right hosting service, your website will get an SEO boost.

Find a Great Web Host in Quadshot Digital

Running a business takes time, and that’s time you don’t have to mess around with web hosting. Let Quadshot Digital offer you an amazing web hosting service, and say goodbye to the full time job of keeping your website up-to-date. Contact us and we can get right to work on making your website the best it can be!

What Is the Future of eCommerce in 2019?

March 24, 2020December 14, 2018 by Michael Cremean

The future of eCommerce looks like it’ll continue to go from strength to strength. Not only is it growing at more than 15% year over year, but it’s now become the most popular retail medium, with 51% of US consumers preferring to shop online.

eCommerce continues to evolve, and 2019 looks set to be no different. Here are some of the eCommerce technology trends that we’re most excited about and how online retailers can respond.

What Does the Future of eCommerce Look Like in 2019?

The rise of marketplace advertising

Google and other search engines have, for years, allowed businesses to place ads on their platforms which link to their products and services. An advert on Google, for instance, might connect to a seller on Amazon, boosting their visibility. But some sites, like Amazon, have now become so fundamental to the online retail environment that they will shortly offer sellers their own ad space.

Our prediction for eCommerce trends in 2019 includes more ads opportunities on these platforms. Sellers on Amazon, for instance, may come to depend on paid promotions to gain visibility, and we could see a bidding system for page space, similar to the approach adopted by search engines.

As an online retailer, you may want to offer suppliers the opportunity to preferentially position their products on your pages, just like regular brick-and-mortar stores.

Better recommendation engines

Previous generation recommendation engines used knowledge about past purchases to recommend future products. But they had significant drawbacks: once you’d bought a fridge-freezer, for instance, it was unlikely that you’d want to buy another soon after.

eCommerce websites know that recommendation engines are potent tools to incentivize purchases, but they are hard to get right. New machine learning technologies, however, allow retailers like you to increase the sophistication of how you make recommendations without substantially increasing costs. Personalized shopping assistants, developers hope, will have more “common sense” and provide customers with bespoke recommendations based on a range of factors, not just what they’ve bought before.

The creation of online communities

eCommerce websites know that social media is a useful marketing tool. But they are yet to include the principles of social media in their own websites to encourage sales. The future of eCommerce, many believe, is the integration of social media with the shopping experience natively on eCommerce sites.

Warby Parker—a spectacles retailer—has already experimented in this arena. It provides a facility which allows its customers to share photos of themselves wearing the company’s glasses with the community. The idea is to recreate a regular shopping experience with friends, where customers receive input from their peers. Online retailers wanting to get ahead of this trend should act now and provide mechanisms for their customers to communicate with each other on their platforms.

Faster shipping

Online retailers know that shipping times are a significant obstacle to mass acceptance of their business model. Consumers are getting used to the idea that they might have to wait a couple of days for a package to arrive in the post, but they’d rather not.

In 2019 a flurry of companies may begin offering same-day shipping and delivery, beating out next-day delivery options in the convenience stakes. Customers will have to pay handily for the privilege, but better fulfillment technologies may soon make same-day possible.

Online retailers, therefore, need to focus on automating their fulfillment technology, reducing the amount of time it takes products to go from the warehouse and into the distribution network.

Discover How Quadshot Can Help

Get your site ready for the budding eCommerce trends of next year. We’ll help you design a WordPress site built for conversions. Learn more about our eCommerce website development services, then contact us today.

Get Your eCommerce Site Ready for the Holidays

March 24, 2020December 5, 2018 by Michael Cremean

For many online retailers, the holiday season is the busiest time of the year. It’s when shoppers let rip, using the disposable income they’ve built up during the year to splurge on gifts for loved ones. eCommerce websites experience additional traffic during this time, so it’s essential to make sure that your website is prepared for the onslaught. Here are some holiday ecommerce design ideas to get your site ready for the rush.

How to Improve Your Site’s Holiday eCommerce Design

Stress test your site

Because so much of your annual revenue depends on the business you do over the holiday period, you need to stress-test your site well in advance to make sure that it can cope with demand. Third-party hosts can help you test your eCommerce website design and speed, telling you how much traffic it can manage without crashing, and informing you of any bottlenecks in user experience. Remember, for every half-second delay in loading a page, you could lose 10% of your customers.

You also need to make sure that your servers can scale. Good web hosts provide servers with automatic scripts that immediately increase server space in response to spikes in traffic.

Prime your audience to spend

Holiday eCommerce competition can be stiff. It’s imperative, therefore, to “prime” your audience to shop with you rather than your competitors. Priming begins early—right at the start of the festive season. Retailers need to offer their customers a compelling story about why they should shop with them. It could be anything, from special seasonal bulk buy discounts to clocks counting down to the last chance to order and receive before Christmas Day.

Get your payment systems working efficiently

Data from holiday shopping trends in 2018 suggest that this will be the busiest ever for eCommerce websites. Online retailers, therefore, need to make sure that their systems for getting paid work properly, even under high volume. Integrating sales data with accounting software can help retailers automate performance tracking and establish internal metrics for comparison in subsequent seasons.

Encourage early purchases

The last-minute rush before Christmas can be frantic. Online retailers often struggle to make a large volume of deliveries in the time available to them. It’s a good idea, therefore, to encourage customers to shop early. Send them gift ideas lists to their email. Entice them to buy earlier in the season using “Black” sale events. And provide special offers, like “free delivery” before the season to avoid any last-minute rush.

Test your holiday ads

Holiday advertising is necessarily different from the rest of the year. It needs to start early and persist throughout the holiday season. Retailers that begin A/B testing early tend to do better in the long-run, refining their messages and generating higher conversion rates.

Manage your security

The holiday period provides excellent opportunities for hackers to attack and bring down websites. Attackers can hide among the extra traffic, using bots to spam websites, slowing them down, or causing them to fail. Online retailers need to speak with their web host about strategies to prevent a site failure.

Get Your Site Ready for the Holidays and 2019 with Quadshot

The Quadshot Digital team is well-versed in the best practices for WordPress web design and eCommerce sites. Learn more about our services, then contact us to get more information on how we can help support your business.

Quick Tips to Optimize Your Website for the Mobile Generation

March 24, 2020November 15, 2018 by Michael Cremean

The world is becoming more and more mobile. Tablets, smartphones, and other portable devices are commonplace. With more people using them to go online on a daily basis, you need to make sure your website is catering to mobile users. Discover some website optimization tips to grow your business in the mobile generation.

How to Optimize Your Website for SEO and People

To optimize your website for mobile use, you have to think about both search engines and people. People who are using mobile devices want to be able to use your website easily and find what they’re looking for without too much trouble.

Search engines tie into this because they want your website to be easy to find for your users and usable for them, too. Google wants your site to be relevant and fast, as well as offering something of quality to your users.

Ensure responsive design

The first of our website optimization tips is all about making your site versatile. When you design your website, it’s essential to make it responsive. This means the design of your site adjusts depending on which device the person is using. In the past, you might have had a separate mobile site, which had to be built separately to your main site.

However, now you should have one site that changes to fit the size of the screen, the browser and the type of device. Mobile optimization means making your mobile site a bit cleaner, with less content so that it’s more suitable for a smaller screen. A good web designer will make sure your site is responsive and all mobile users can use it.

Improve mobile speed

User experience in web design is crucial. And people want faster sites. Google recently started taking the speed of websites on mobile into account for their rankings. If your website is a little slow, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will affect how well your website does in search engines. However, a site that’s very slow on mobile devices could end up suffering.

But how do you know if your site is fast enough? You can use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to check up on how well your website performs on mobile. It’s not just all about search engines. Your users don’t want to wait more than a couple of seconds for your site to load.

Image optimization

Images can be pretty large, which means they can take a long time to load. This isn’t good news for mobile users, so you need to make sure that your images are optimized for mobile. Some of the things that you can do include reducing the size of your images, but without making them pixelated, and removing unnecessary metadata using image compression. Smaller image files will help your site to load faster on mobile devices.

Consult the Quadshot Team for a User and Mobile-Friendly Site

Contact the team at Quadshot Digital for a consultation. With our website optimization services, we can provide a strategy to optimize your site for mobile and make sure you won’t get left behind.

What to Know before Starting eCommerce Website Development

March 24, 2020November 1, 2018 by Michael Cremean

Whether you’re launching a new digital business or want to expand your existing company by taking it online, developing an eCommerce site can unlock the door to a world of new opportunities. However, with roughly two billion websites on the market, yours needs to be created in the best possible fashion. The eCommerce website development process is quite complex, requiring success in various aspects. Here are six key issues you need to remember.

Understanding the eCommerce Website Development Process

First impressions are everything

When a prospective client finds your website, they will form an opinion within three seconds. This will be influenced by load times and the overall look of the homepage. Choosing professional eCommerce web design services ensures that the site is built with the modern trends and expectations in mind. When the branding is good, consumers are more likely to give your business a fair chance.

Consumers need to be able to trust the site

Having consumers show an interest in your products and services is one thing, but it counts for very little if they cannot trust the site. When developing an eCommerce site, it’s vital to keep this in mind. From using the right payment gateway to employing strong data protection and excellent customer care, inspiring trust is key. Customer review platforms are useful add-ons too.

Mobile optimization is not optional

The way in which consumers now access internet data has changed dramatically, with over half of all interactions taking place via smartphone and tablet technology. Therefore, a website that fails to cater to this audience is essentially limiting its potential market by over half. Whether launching a dedicated App or merely ensuring that all aspects are mobile optimized, keeping the mobile audience happy is vital.

Success is largely gained from external platforms

While perfecting the on-site design and content is vital, it’s important to remember that it counts for very little if nobody knows about the website’s existence. Search engine optimization and external marketing will play a crucial role in the site’s overall traffic figures. Las Vegas web design services ensure that you gain the localized and general SEO support needed to boost your venture up the rankings table.

Modern websites need ongoing management

Once upon a time, it was more than Ok to have a largely static site. Not anymore. Ongoing management is needed to keep the site fresh and exciting, or else clients won’t return. With expert eCommerce web design services, everything from running a blog or updating page layouts to integrating social media is under control. This can lead to far greater sustainability.

Products should sell themselves

The brand image and general layout of the website are crucial. Nevertheless, it’s imperative that the content relating to the products is of the highest standard. Taking the right product images and writing attractive product descriptions is a specialist skill. Whether seeking tuition on how to take the DIY approach or getting someone else to do it on your behalf isn’t overly important. The crucial factor here is to ensure that consumers are directed to the converted sale.

Work with a Team That Knows eCommerce Best Practices

At Quadshot Digital, we know the best practices to design and maintain a conversion-friendly eCommerce site. Learn more about our eCommerce website development services, then contact us for a consultation.

Cyber Security: How to Tell If Your Website Is Secure

March 24, 2020September 5, 2018 by Michael Cremean

In a world where online interactions play a more central role in business than ever before, it’s absolutely vital that your website becomes one of the best weapons in your arsenal. To truly unlock the full potential of the site, however, it’s imperative that you keep it secured.

Without the right protection, your company could be exposed to a range of attacks while clients and employees alike will have concerns regarding trust. Here’s how you can tell if your online facilities boast the cybersecurity they deserve, as well as some tips to make your site more secure.

How to Audit Website Security and Protect Your Site

Encrypt the data

Data encryption is one of the most important features of a safe and secured business site. SSL certification is easily recognized because your domain address will change from ‘HTTP’ to ‘HTTPS’, which means visitors will instantly know whether your site boasts the right cybersecurity.

To gain SSL certification, you need to choose the right web hosting package. Next, you’ll need to download the SSL encryption software (which isn’t expensive) before installing it to your site from the backend of CMS system. If you’re having trouble, our experts are here to support you.

The encryption is ultimately there to ensure that any information entered by the user travels from site to server in a protected fashion. If your site has the magic ‘s’ in the domain, this is a great place to start.

Use a website seal

Protecting data that is being transferred during online interactions is a vital first step as it will keep hackers at bay. However, Malware and viruses are the other major concerns that must be addressed right away. Otherwise, it could spell disaster for the business as well as the clients.

A Site Seal is a security tool that actively monitors your site for Malware that may have been uploaded by hackers. You can think of it as like having an antivirus software running for your website. Aside from the direct benefits, seeing the badge will comfort visitors and deter hackers.

A website Security Seal is even cheaper than the SSL certification. So, you can protect the site in both ways for under $100. Given that this small investment can prevent an array of cyber threats and attacks, you’d be a fool to skip this any longer. After all, 60% of attacks happen to SMEs with under 1,000 employees.

Be prepared for the worst

Protecting your website and business with the right cyber security should be the priority as prevention is always the best form of protection. Nevertheless, the fact that some of the biggest companies on the planet have still suffered virtual attacks should highlight the fact that you’ll never be 100% safe. That’s why you need a team like Quadshot Digital helping you secure your site and taking the proper steps for security from the beginning.

Build a Safer Website with Quadshot Digital

A safe website is a better website that will put you and your clients’ minds at ease. Visitors will demand other features such as accessible contact details. While this will help build trust, getting the security measures under control is top of the agenda. Contact the experts at Quadshot Digital to help with your website security today.

Why Use WordPress?

March 24, 2020July 30, 2018 by Michael Cremean

What is WordPress you ask? WordPress is the most popular open source Content Management System (CMS) available today. Over 75 million websites are using it. This CMS is unique because it has thousands of plugins and WordPress templates that create a flexible and straightforward interface. Traits like these help reduce deployment time and development costs. There are plenty more reasons why we use WordPress here at Quadshot.

Why Use WordPress?

Here at Quadshot, we have many years of experience accumulating knowledge and resources. This makes it easy for us to deploy high-quality websites. Here are a few reasons why we use WordPress for each of our clients.

Popularity

If there were a CMS contest, WordPress would win every year. It holds the largest CMS market share and currently accounts for about 25% of all websites today. As a result, plenty of users have familiarized themselves with WordPress CMS software, requiring less training of staff when creating new sites.

Open source

Because WordPress is self-hosted, there are no costs associated with downloading, installing or upgrading. There are over 50,000 WP plugins available for users to pick and choose from. A few examples would be slideshows, SEO optimization, contact forms, Smart Links, and more.

Highly customizable

WordPress is widely used because it meets and exceeds the demands of its users. The flexibility of its framework grants designers and developers the opportunity to create and modify applications and layouts. Paired with user-generated extensions, websites aren’t limited to enterprise extensions.

Quadshot has experience with extending WP functionality, as well as including a wide range of plugins, to exceed our client’s needs and demands.

Designed for anyone

Often, web development is not easy. WordPress was developed for those who are not that tech-savvy. With that being said, most of the user-interface components are simple and easy to use.

The written, recorded manuals make it easy to learn the WP functions. Quadshot will handle all the complexities of customizing and setting up your website. All you need to do is update the content on your pages, widgets, and posts. This is one of the main reasons why we use WordPress.

Don’t Stress, Use WordPress

WordPress might be precisely what your website needs to improve your customer experience. For assistance on creating your WordPress website, Contact us at Quadshot today!

WordPress Security – Version 4.7.2 Fixes Vulnerabilities

March 24, 2020February 2, 2017 by Michael Cremean

WordPress Security Update

WordPress Security is very important. Wordpress is great, but since it is the most popular web publishing system in the world, it is makes WordPress a hackers biggest target.

Luckily the people at Automattic keep on top of the issues and release Security and Bug updates.

WordPress 4.7.2 Security Release is an example. It closes some potential Security holes.

To prevent getting hacked, it is important to keep your software up to date.

Some best practices to prevent having a VERY bad day:

Keep your WordPress and Plugins up to date
Choose plugins that are currently being maintained, and compatible with your current WordPress (this is not always possible, but a good ideal)
Always have a backup – offsite from the server you host your website
Host with someone who knows security – server network, server software and WordPress

Some people do it themselves, others hire someone to do it. (obvious pitch: Quadshot has WordPress Hosting and Maintenance Programs.)

Here’s a writeup from ZDNet about the potential dangers:

WordPress patches dangerous XSS, SQL injection bugs | ZDNet

WordPress has patched three security flaws including a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability and SQL injection problem which could lead to the creation of new vulnerabilities. Last week, the content management system’s (CMS) developers said in a security advisory that the new fixes resolve three important security issues, all of which impact WordPress versions 4.7.1 and earlier.

WooCommerce Subscriptions hits 2.1

March 24, 2020November 17, 2016 by Michael Cremean

One of the biggest changes to the popular WooCommerce Subscriptions plugins is the addition of some great features

Subscription Reports
Failed Recurring Payments Retry
Manual Payment Retry
New Cancellation Dates

and several other features including new customizable emails and others…

For the overview, check out this update on WooCommerce.com.

What’s New in Subscriptions 2.1 – WooCommerce Docs

WooCommerce Subscriptions version 2.1 has been in development for more than a year. This major new version introduced two big features as well as many smaller features and improvements. This guide covers everything that is new and improved in WooCommerce Subscriptions version 2.1.