Category: Lifestyle

If you are thinking of learning how to play the drums, you may also be asking questions about how you can learn to drum as a part of a band or what the best and easiest drum songs to get started with will be. Like the majority of tasks in life, when it comes to getting started with drumming, the first steps can often be the most challenging. But if you are enthusiastic about getting into drumming, it’s going to be this that motivates you to put in the necessary practice and reach your full potential as a drummer, even if right now, it’s completely new to you. Read on to find out more about the basic information that you need to get started with building a solid foundation for the best possible drumming experience.

 

Getting the Right Equipment

To get started with drumming, you will first need to invest in the right equipment. At the least, this will include a pair of drum sticks, a playing surface, and the right materials for practicing including sheet music exercises and rudiments. For those who are completely new to drumming, the first piece of drum equipment that you can use is actually your own body! You can get started with hand drumming, whether that involves tapping on your thighs or using a pillow. Tap along to your favorite songs and stay focused on playing along with the drummer. If you don’t have access to sheet music, you can still practice keeping up with a steady tempo, which involves alternating between tapping with your right and left hands.

 

Getting Started with Learning

Once you have all the equipment that you need and have gotten to grips with some of the basic drum notations, it’s time to start practicing. Just like any other skill that you can learn, good practice habits are essential to getting better at what you do. Start out with some easy drum songs for beginners and essential drum beats, and master these before you move on to anything more complex. Pirate.com has some great information on getting started with drumming, including posts on how to hold drumsticks; this is a great guide for beginners when it comes to getting the technique right. You can also use Pirate.com’s recording studios around the world to create professional music that you can listen back to and hear your progress.

 

Reading Drum Sheet Music

To get good at drumming, it is a good idea to learn how to read drum notation. Most drummers are also expected to know how to read sheet music. This is typically a requirement if you are in a professional ensemble such as a school concert band, jazz band, marching band, and more. Understanding drum sheet music can be your secret weapon and help you get more opportunities for making music. Drum notation is simpler than you might realize. Once you have the basics down, you will begin to find it easier to apply the knowledge to a range of more advanced concepts. For beginners to drumming, it’s important to start out with reading very easy and simple starter drum rhythms, before you move on to something more intermediate and complex.

 

Start Out Simple

It’s best to get started with something simple and easy to master. For example, you can start practicing drumming exercises that use a combination of quarter notes and quarter rests, with all the notes played on just one drum. Before you start to play them on the drums, it is a good idea to read the rhythmic exercises out load, since this will help to strengthen the connection between your limbs and your brain along with getting you more mentally prepared for the exercise. In addition, by reading out the exercise before you play it, you will have a better chance at locating any rhythms that you might find challenging so that you can spend more time working them out beforehand. When you’re starting out with rhythms, focus on the coordination of your left and right hands, making sure that you are playing in time with a metronome.

 

Coordinating Your Limbs

Many beginners to drumming will have trouble coordinating all three limbs, so to make this easier for yourself as you start out, you can break the exercise down to only focus on two limbs at a time. Before you start to put all three together again, make sure that you are comfortable with each limb combination. Eventually, as you practice and become more coordinated as a drummer, you will want to start introducing some fourth limb practice – the hi-hat pedal foot. Like you did with your hands and foot, you should also start out with some very basic simple exercises to get used to coordinating all four limbs before you start learning more advanced beats.

 

Get the Techniques Right

As you practice, it is important to make sure that you are checking in with the techniques that you are using to ensure you’re using the right ones. For example, as you are practicing, keep making sure that you are holding the sticks correctly. You can work with a drum teacher or tutor who can check your progress and offer feedback or use one of the many online guides and videos that are now available to help people teach themselves drumming and get good at it.

 

Practice Makes Perfect

No matter how good you get at drumming in the end, any good drummer knows that practice makes perfect no matter what level they are at. No matter where you are headed, you can practice drumming by tapping on your thighs or carrying a pair of sticks with you so that you can work on beats as much as possible. Once you have mastered drumming on your own, you may want to consider practicing as part of a band – if you have friends who play musical instruments, practicing together can be a great way to learn how to coordinate your skills with other musicians and a lot of fun too.

Drumming is a fun skill to learn and as a drummer, you’ll be needed in all types of bands. Keep these tips in mind to get started, even if you have never played drums before. 

Malware infections and cyber attacks have significantly grown in frequency over the last few years, highlighting the need for the protection of sensitive data and safeguarding against malicious attacks more than ever before. For this reason, an increasing number of companies are now focused on hiring professional and experienced cyber security personnel that will keep their data and their business safe. But unlike many other job descriptions, the requirements of a good cyber security expert aren’t quite clear to many employers, especially the less tech-savvy ones. To help you hire the best people and ensure you’ve made the right decision, here are some of the most crucial cyber security skills to look for:

 

Cloud security

If you’re currently looking at cloud solutions for running applications and storing data, you will need qualified individuals who have knowledge of the underlying infrastructure behind this model, as well as how to incorporate authentication and identity management. As a high percentage of cloud breaches happen due to stolen credentials, individuals who understand efficient tactics will help you manage the cloud more securely, and identify and monitor potential schemes. In terms of business, it’s also beneficial to have someone who understands the clauses in contracts with cloud service providers, particularly in terms of your security responsibilities in the agreement.

 

Threat intelligence analysis

While there are a wide array of threat intelligence tools currently available on the market, individuals who can utilize them properly, along with analyzing and contextualizing trends in threats, are not that easy to come by. Many businesses have difficulties finding people with this specific skill set, and often even more challenges properly training them, as this job usually requires curiosity, great analytical capabilities, as well as the ability to handle critical pressure. Threat intelligence professionals also need to be talented in terms of analyzing digital forensics and have great programming skills, particularly when it comes to Python. Additional incident response experience might also be of help in this area.

 

Application security development

Your business also needs security employees who are proficient in DevOps operations, and are able to closely work with your software engineering teams. As engineering professionals are often more focused on the functionality of the product rather than its security, good communication skills can be quite important in this area. Similarly, security personnel also needs to be flexible and adaptable, as application security development doesn’t normally fall under their scope of work and direct control. Because security professionals tend to be more focused on protecting from breaches instead of building security solutions into products, adapting to new security culture and mindset could be of benefit here as well.

 

Networking & IT

You can’t expect to defend a network if you don’t understand how it operates. As this is one of the most important required skills, it’s recommended to take a professional cyber security course that will allow you to develop the foundational skills in networking and IT, and understand the best practices. Whether you take a course yourself or even ask one of your IT employees to expand their knowledge, having certified credentials will give you the opportunity to improve your security skills, configure devices and operating systems, troubleshoot and solve service problems, and implement the best security protocols, all while improving your soft skills such as communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking.

 

Penetration testing

Individuals with penetration testing (or red teaming) skills need to be forward and direct types. They should be able to confidently walk into companies, point out exactly what is broken, and offer solutions for fixing those issues. Years of specialized training and previous experience are typically needed to perform this job well, which is why you might have difficulties finding such professionals as well. Keep in mind that the best penetration testers like to believe they could hack virtually anything. It takes plenty of boldness and confidence to perform this job, but the work also requires extensive skills and knowledge gained in classrooms, interactive seminars, as well as previous job opportunities.

 

Access & identity management

A significant percentage of breaches are thought to be caused by weak, compromised, and reused passwords. To that end, your business also needs a professional who is able to explain potential threats to other employees and teach them ways of improving password practices, such as using authenticator applications or biometrics like face ID and fingerprints in their everyday office work. Your company will also require skilled individuals who will be able to implement user access review software, as well as configure and manage networks efficiently, in order to protect your business against intruders. Experts in this field should define access levels to specific data sets and set privileges correctly tailored to employee responsibilities and defined roles.

 

Remote computing

After the recent remote working requirements, many security teams spent their time introducing VPNs and managing Remote Desktop Protocol servers in order to allow employees to seamlessly access corporate data and applications even from home. Whether your company is slowly going back to in-office work or even adopting a hybrid working model, chances are high not all employees will be in the workplace just yet. If that’s the case, your business will also need security personnel that understands RDP servers and VPNs, helping your employees to segment their home networks for higher security.

 

Risk and compliance auditing

The skills and capabilities that are necessary for this area will likely depend on the industry you operate in. For instance, any company working in the medical field should understand HIPAA compliance for protecting sensitive data, while e-commerce businesses will need to comply with PCI DSS regulations. Depending on your location or the areas in which you operate, you might also have to comply with the EU’s GDPR or California’s Consumer Privacy Act. In either case, you will need skilled professionals who are able to assess non-compliance risks and understand which security protocols to implement and what paperwork to file, in an effort to allow your company to comply with necessary regulations.

With cybercrime continuously on the rise and a lack of privacy presenting an increasing threat to companies worldwide, your business would do well investing in cyber security. The cyber skills mentioned above are some of the most essential aspects to look for when hiring the best, most highly qualified security personnel.

The Chinese philosopher Confucius once famously said, “choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” These ancient words of wisdom are probably more relevant today than in the time they were first ushered in.

In this day and age, most people need to tackle more than one job to get to the end of the month. With the things as they are, why wouldn’t you try to monetize hobbies you hold dear and try to make your passion a source of income?

Here, we are going to quickly go through a couple of steps that will get you to the finish line.

 

Test the concept

Although most hobbies like cooking, art, and artisanship can be monetized in one way or another, not every business idea is equally viable. So, use your friends and family to test whatever may be crossing your mind at the moment. This “soft launch” will help you to learn more about your professional weaknesses, iron out some of the wrinkles from your business model, develop ideas even further, and hit the market confident in what you are doing. Of course, all these efforts should be performed as a side-gig. A full-scale launch should be postponed until you are sure of the concept and have solid two years of savings put on the side.

 

Write a thorough business plan

Essentially, the business plan is a blueprint for your future business. This document outlines your company’s short-term and long-term goals, business structure, sources of income, expenses, market projections, and other topics vital for the development of one company. Although it requires a great deal of effort, a business plan is an excellent reference point for all of your future efforts, as well as a tool you will use to pitch your idea to potential investors. Starting a company requires a lot of money, and no one will be willing to buy into your ideas if they are not backed up by some data.

 

Get yourself a domain

We are living in a digital age, so earning any kind of money off your hobby can’t be imagined without registering an appealing website that will serve as the launching pad for your marketing efforts. Hobbies and artisanship are inherently interesting, attractive, and passion-driven, so you can only benefit by blogging about your personal experiences and what made you fall in love with the hobby in the first place. Of course, you can always go one step further and get yourself a .me personal domain that will double down on that unique experience. People are emotional beings, and they beg for a good story behind their products.

 

Set up the business for growth

Who knows, maybe you are going to experience a real boom much sooner than you expected. So, be prepared to use opportunities as they come with as little growing pains as possible. For a start, use business tools that allow scalability. Do you want to get some new features? Just subscribe for a service. Don’t need it anymore? Unsubscribe. Also, be sure to always have access to drop-in workers. For instance, you may get some huge catering gig, and you don’t want to keep additional workers full-time. See if you can cut a deal with some local restaurant to “borrow” an extra pair of hands when you need them the most.

Infographic created by Clover Network, a retail POS company

Develop a focused marketing plan

No matter whether you want to become a successful blogger or get into aromatherapy, your goal is the same – offer the product to the people who need it. So, stop knocking on the doors that will never be opened. Instead, you should have a very clear idea about the people who need your product and focus all of your efforts on them. Do your homework, perform thorough market research and see what channels work best for the people you want to win over. The same goes for the voice you are going to use. Corporate events and birthday parties may use the same food, but we are talking about two completely different audiences.

 

Measure your progress

Making progress is hard if you don’t know the direction in which you are heading. Roughly translated to the business lingo – you should really find some way to measure how well you are doing at the moment. You will do that by identifying some KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) relevant for your company and trying to learn as much as possible about them before you finally launch the business. Granted, this can be pretty exhausting and tiresome, but great companies are built on hard work and compromises. Hitting the market without the tools to measure if you are actually doing well is a far, far worse outcome.

We hope these few suggestions gave you some general idea about the steps you need to take to turn your hobby into a full-scale profitable venture. We are living in a time when earning enough is hard, and time for doing the things you actually like is few and far between. Why wouldn’t you then try to earn by doing the things you like? Give it a shot – you have very little to lose and very much to gain.

 

 

 

Explore different methods to increase your Amazon store’s conversion rate while minimizing the cost involved. Keep reading to find out!

For years, Amazon – the world’s biggest e-commerce platform – has offered an opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs to make profits. But recently, this goal has been increasingly difficult due to the rising competition within the website, where more than 9.7 million sellers are launching their businesses.

If you are new to the industry and would like to convert the existing traffic into loyal customers with a limited budget, you might as well try out the free-of-charge techniques below. This way, you can dial down the expense and make sure the strategies do not cost a fortune!

 

What Is Conversion Rate?

Conversion rate refers to the percentage of people who decided to buy a particular product from your listing after viewing it. To calculate the conversion rate, simply divide the number of orders by the total visits you get within a fixed timeframe.

This formula is also applied to Amazon conversion rate, which measures the sales made solely from the platform. Needless to say, the higher your conversion rate is, the more lucrative your business has become.

Despite having no universal standard for what constitutes a good conversion rate, most experts agree that a typical Amazon seller account should aim for roughly 4-6%.

This statistic is heavily influenced by the clickthroughs from users, the quality of SEO, how effective ad campaigns are, as well as pricing. Thus, it makes sense to curate all of these aspects and ensure your Amazon store has an edge over its rivals.

 

4 Free-Of-Charge Ways To Increase Amazon Conversion Rate

Optimize the ad copy

When customers first drop by your main web page, the first thing they notice is arguably the text. Hence, making the ad copy readable, scannable, and informative enough for shoppers should be your top priority.

Headline

If written properly, headlines will strike a good impression with your target audience and raise the visibility of your product. Therefore, you should try to include as many details about what you have to offer as possible.

The name of the product and the brand itself are two indispensable factors that must come first. Next up, give potential buyers a brief of the item by adding more about the size, capacity, color, package, material. If needed, you can even add a few unique selling points of your item.

Still, it is worth remembering that Amazon only allows a title to be under 250 characters. You might want to avoid cramming and stick to the most important bits.

Bullet points

As the name already indicates, bullet points are where you can display the most distinctive features of your product in short texts.

It is best that you group similar traits into one umbrella category (such as safety, comfort, powerful performance, etc.) and dedicate each bullet point to quickly capture why customers should choose this item from your store.

Product description

This part is an extension of the bullet points, which enables store owners to dive deeper into the characteristics of each product. Here, you should take the chance to explain the working mechanism, functions, as well as any noticeable merits.

The more comprehensive your texts are, the easier it is to convince potential shoppers to take action.

Add suitable photos

Imagery helps illustrate a listing and offers customers valuable insights about the product they are currently viewing. Currently, Amazon leaves enough space for businesses to upload 9 photos maximum to a listing, including one primary and eight secondary.

For the former, go for a front shot that shows the most seeable angles. As far as the rest is concerned, you should add a back shot, a detail shot, a step-by-step instruction, a before-after (if your product requires an assembly), and even a video.

In most cases, it would be ideal to use a white background in all photos so the product and its features can stand out.

Strengthen the keywords

Keywords are what determine the visibility of your listing. Even when you do not intend on running Amazon ads, it does not kill to put them in relevant terms, as they would boost your ranking higher on the search result page. So what are some highly recommended tactics for keyword optimization?

• Backend keywords: These are not visible to Amazon users, but the algorithms still take backend keywords into account when calculating the quality of your landing page. Common phrases that usually belong here are misspellings, variations, and names of similar products.
• Long-tail keywords: Long-tail keywords do not offer the highest search volume, but they are strong intent. Including a few long-tail keywords makes it easier for your product to appeal to a specific section of customers.

Take advantage of upselling

Upselling is the art of persuading customers to buy more than what they intended in the first place. There are multiple ways in which you can increase the value of each order on Amazon. The most common tactic is to make related items visible when customers reach the “Add to basket” stage. For the best results, you should pick out anything that can complement the benefits of the original product but is significantly less expensive.

For example, your Amazon store focuses on selling smartphones. To upsell this line of products successfully, consider adding phone holders, phone cases, or pop sockets.

These items are capable of optimizing the user experience while costing only a few more dollars. Consequently, shoppers are more inclined to buy the whole package.

 

Conclusion

Increasing the revenue of an Amazon business is no piece of cake. Suppose you are well-equipped to handle everything on your own, then good for you. But if not, do not hesitate to contact Olifant Digital and explore what the professionals have in store.

Here, rest assured that the agency is more than willing to provide you with detailed instructions on maximizing the conversion rate and maintaining the performance in the long run!

 

Cars benefit greatly from having a reliable set of floor mats in place to protect the interiors from the attrition of the outside. From dirt and sand, mud and snow, floor mats on the car can keep any of these destructive elements in one place. They even provide a sense of balance when on the roads.  

But floor mats are supposed to be exposed to dirt and dust and other elements. Therefore, they are prone to damage far faster than most other car goods. But you can extend the longevity and value of your floor mats by choosing items of improved quality.  

Finding the right floor mat for your truck or car is easy and fun. Here is what you need to know about making the best selection for your VW Polo.  

 

Carpets 

Tufted carpets floor mats for cars are often made of polypropylene, nylon, and other durable synthetic fibers. On the reverse side, you will find non-slip rubber grips that keep the floor mats sturdily in place. 

The great thing about carpets is that they can be tailor-made to your personal needs and style. When it comes to the style and design that car owners are looking for, there are virtually unlimited options available. Furthermore, the vast availability of this product does much to keep the prices at an affordable low.  

Of course, these carpets will always gather dirt and mud very quickly as this is their purpose. A well-designed floor mat will actually be designed to collect and hold dirt until it is properly cleaned and can release all contaminants.  

But carpet floor mats are the best option for cars that will not be driven daily or regularly. They are best reserved for a finer car that will never see much dust or dirt on the interior. Furthermore, they are an aesthetically pleasing option and only a good investment for those with aesthetics on their mind.  

Rubber 

Rubber floor mats are made of a thick rubber designed and crafted to withstand rough treatment and all types of damage from rocks, mud, and dirt. Therefore, they are also very easy to clean, simply hose them down and in just a few minutes they will be dry enough to be returned to their position. Because rubber is an especially long-lasting material, rubber floor mats are also especially long-lasting even under the harshest treatment. You will notice that these rubber floor mats typically feature long grooves that make them weather-resistant and non-slip.  This is something you will notice in all VW Polo mats.  

But the only downside to rubber floor mats is that they are not available in such a wide range of design options and don’t do much to improve the aesthetics of the car in one way or another, other than simply looking like high-performance top-quality floor mats. If these floor mats are left in the sun for too long, they will begin to crack and they also can become slick when wet or oily.  

For cars that will be heading out for adventure and possibly hard work, there is no better option than a rubber floor mat. If you have to transport rowdy passengers who will potentially throw their food and drinks around, rubber floor mats would also be a good option for you.

Buy your VW Polo mats here for an aesthetically pleasing interior that is protected.