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Your PreLaunch eCommerce Checklist Not to Miss

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Your PreLaunch eCommerce Checklist Not to Miss 7

Launching an eCommerce store takes way more than just having a website. It encapsulates a thorough consideration of various key elements before the launch of your website. Failing to do so cost you sales, revenues, and customer trust. 

In this post, we are going to share your essential website prelaunch checklist, you wouldn’t want to miss out on. So, without further ado, let’s get started. 

  1. Pay attention to the design of category or listing pages

Help your customers easily find the products they are looking for. A coherent eCommerce website with well-designed pages doesn’t go amiss. 

Properly designed category pages optimized for SEO allows your customers to find the product of their choice. It also speeds up the checkout process which is a critical element ensuring higher customer satisfaction. 

Designing listing pages requires you to have the following key elements: 

  • Include a quick product view. 
  • Facilitate internal linking between categories and subcategories. 
  • Show stock availability. 
  • Have filtering and sorting options in place. 
  • Display best-sellers and customer reviews for social proof. 
  1. Make sure you have an effective shopping cart page 

Another vital element on your eCommerce launch checklist is an efficacious shopping cart page. The shopping cart is an extremely important place in your eCommerce store. 

So, how do we go about creating an engaging shopping cart page? Let’s get you started by sharing these key pointers. 

  • Avoid having any hidden costs, taxes, and shipping costs. 
  • Have an attention-grabbing ‘call to action’ for clear navigation. 
  • Display product details such as the product name, size, color, pricing, and quantity for an enjoyable shopping experience. 
  • Allow customers to add/remove products and change color, size, and quantity with sheer ease. 
  1. A well-designed and conversion-oriented checkout page

Let’s face it! The checkout page is the place where cart abandonment happens the most. 

As a far-sighted business, you must ensure that the checkout process is smooth for your customers. 

There are countless eCommerce stores in the digital scape and cart abandonment is a sore point for the majority of them and clearly due to the lack of a well-designed checkout page. 

  • Have a progress bar page right from the beginning to help customers know how many steps are left to complete the buying process. 
  • Have a live chat option to provide timely support to your customers. 
  • Refrain from adding unnecessary steps and combine multiple steps if needed as it will help expedite the whole process. 
  • Have ‘checkout as a guest’ option in place. 
  1.  SEO is important 

Your eCommerce store needs to have a robust SEO strategy in place to drive conversions. It is a myth that SEO is dead and numbers vouch for the fact. 

More than 37.5 percent of eCommerce traffic comes from search engines and if you do not invest in SEO with a well-chalked-out plan, you are surely missing potential possibilities. You will be left far behind in the competition. So, here is a quick SEO cheatsheet for you. 

  • Create and submit a sitemap. 
  • Leverage schema markup to increase the click-through rate. 
  • Make sure your target keywords are included in the product descriptions and categories. 
  • Make optimum use of keywords in meta titles, descriptions, and tags. 
  • Optimize your eCommerce website for speed. 
  • Focus on creating high-quality and SEO-rich content. 
  • Get rid of duplicate content. 
  1. Harness 3rd party apps and plugins on your eCommerce store 

There are numerous useful 3rd party apps out there in the WooCommerce space and you can use them to your advantage for better customer experience and conversion rates. 

It is no exaggeration that your eCommerce launch checklist is incomplete without considering to use 3rd party apps and plugins. Some of the apps/plugins you may want to use are mentioned below – 

  • Site optimization. 
  • Apps/plugins for products and inventory management. 
  • Apps/plugins for marketing and promotion. 
  • Apps/plugins for better sales and conversion. 

Speaking of the best WordPress plugins, we would like to share two of the most trusted plugins out there in the market. The first one on the list is a WooCommerce category plugin named: 

  • Product Categories Designs for WooCommerce 
Your PreLaunch eCommerce Checklist Not to Miss 8

The plugin is loaded with 2 wonderful layouts and 10 marvelous designs for WooCommerce categories. It offers a categories grid and carousel view. 

The best of this plugin is its seamless integration with all popular page builders including DIVI, WPBakery, VC Composer, Beaver, and Elementor to name a few. 

More features: 

  • Change post order
  • Display category title and description
  • 2 shortcodes
  • Include or exclude specific categories

Another plugin on the list is a great plugin for product sliders in WooCommerce called

  • Woo Product Slider and Carousel with Category
Your PreLaunch eCommerce Checklist Not to Miss 9

Woo Product Slider and Carousel with Category is a renowned plugin that is equipped with more than 50 predesigned templates and 8 layouts. You can put several sliders on display including best-rated products, best selling products, featured products, etc. 

More features: 

  • Show product rating 
  • Display sales
  • Custom CSS editor
  • Fully responsive 
  • Multi-lingual support
  • Easy integration with famous page builders
  1. Use email marketing to your advantage

Prudent eCommerce businesses use email marketing quite deftly to their advantage and you must also include it in your WordPress website checklist. There are different types of marketing emails you should use such as – 

  • Welcome or thank you emails. 
  • Survey emails.
  • Cart abandonment emails. 
  • Order confirmation emails. 
  • Promotional offers and festive discounts. 
  1. Setting up analytics 

This is a no-brainer, to be honest. No eCommerce business can be imagined without analytics. Make sure you have set up Google and Facebook analytics without missing any key steps. 

Also, verifying checkout tracking is important for your eCommerce store. Set up a Google search console and verify your site.  

  1. Download backup of your site 

This is one of the most crucial steps you should always bear in mind. You shouldn’t take for granted even a small change you made, because you don’t want to be in a situation when you cannot revert the changes. Also, use the services of a reputed hosting provider as it always helps you a big time. Make it a point to download the backup of your staging as well as the production site. 

  1. Run a mock order test 

Perform a mock order test before you launch your website. It should include auditing the whole checkout process of the cart and order confirmation. It goes without saying that you should include all the possible steps your customers would take in a real case scenario. Add a product and increase/decrease the quantity to make sure it is working. Add products to the cart and remove them apart from applying coupon codes. 

Here it is also important to see how the product page appears when a product is out of stock. Make a test purchase by checking out the cart, of course besides checking the payment options on there. Once the mock purchase has been made, head back to the My Account section. 

  1.  Migrate your website files and DB from staging server to production 

You must be working on a staging server and now it is time to move your website files and database to the actual production server. Again, before you do this, you must take a comprehensive backup. 

  1.  Enable search engine visibility 

Enabling search engine visibility is of utmost importance if you want to be discoverable on search engines. To do this, go to your WordPress dashboard, look for settings and click ‘reading’. 

Now look for ‘Search Engine Visibility’ and uncheck the box that reads ‘Discourage search engines from indexing the site’. 

Publish changes and you are good to go. 

  1.  Install SSL certificate 

Installing an SSL certificate is quite crucial if you do not want to face issues later on. It isn’t as complicated as it might appear at first. Install the certificate and activate it and once it is done, you will be able to see a padlock on the address bar. 

Your hosting provider should be able to help you with this as well, so if you do not know how to go about it, do not fret. 

  1.   Submit your sitemap

Submitting your sitemap to search engines allows them to index your website; however, it should be done only after you are set up 301 redirects correctly. 

Submitting your sitemap is fairly an easy process and by following just a handful of steps on Google Console you should be done. 

Simply log in to your search console or create if you don’t have one already. Look for sitemaps and click on them. Submit your new sitemap and if you are using an SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO, then the link will show something like this- /sitemap_index.xml

Hit ‘Save’ and that’s it. 

 Conclusion: 

Only a future-ready eCommerce business can survive in the cut-throat competition of the contemporary eCommerce market. We have tried to make the WordPress website checklist as comprehensive as possible. If you keep the abovementioned pointers in mind, you will see boosted sales and Increased profits. 

Author Bio: 
Amisha Parmar is a content writer and SEO marketing manager at Essential Plugin, which sells a WordPress Plugin Bundle that includes front-end utility plugins. Expert Inbound Marketing Tools, Templates, and Security are required for the overall development of a WordPress website.

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How to Make Money with eCommerce Website

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How to Make Money with eCommerce Website 14

According to the International Trade Administration, worldwide eCommerce growth increased by 19% in 2020.

Most business institutions open digital stores to reach the maximum number of customers. So, in the last year, the growth of the eCommerce business has become a skyscraper.

The future of eCommerce is flourishing because the advancement of technology will generate AI Shopping. Large numbers of mobile phone users will also increase the length of the eCommerce sectors.

So, if you are an eCommerce business entrepreneur, you need to know multiple techniques to take advantage of this competitive marketplace.

Let’s get some idea about eCommerce websites.

An Idea About eCommerce Website

Idea About Ecommerce Website

An eCommerce website is a website that primarily focuses on selling products online.

eCommerce works on a simple model: a company sells products online, and customers purchase the products by making payments online. Store owners can promote their products online with email marketing and digital advertising on multiple channels.

eCommerce websites can be classified based on the method of payment they accept.

The customer can either visit the website to make the payment or submit the order over the phone, and the company will deliver the products to the customer’s door.

If the customers are unsatisfied with your products, they can return them and may ask for a refund.

 

How to Start an eCommerce Business

This section will discuss how to start an eCommerce business as a beginner.

1. Go through Research

If you want to start an eCommerce business, you must research the competitors in the current marketplace. Gather knowledge about the customer’s demands for multiple products.

Suppose you want to open a digital book store, then you need a good idea about which book genres and writers are popular in the current market.

If you sell autobiography books in your store, but your audience likes fictional books, it will negatively impact your business. So, you must go through better research before starting an eCommerce business.

2. Choose the Business Name and Product Types

After completing the research, select a name and type of product for the target consumers. You have to choose a business name that is relevant to your products.

Let’s assume you want to open an online food court, but you set the store’s name as “Bestseller.” This name will not be familiar with your products.

Also, choosing the correct product type according to the marketplace demands is very important. You have to choose products depending on geographical location, customer demands, economy, market trends, etc.

3. Approval from the Authority

Before starting an eCommerce business, you need legal permission from your country’s government. You have to apply for registration in the government office, and they will provide you with a license to continue your business.

4. Finalize your Business Plan

As a starter, you need a proper arrangement of the products you want to sell. You don’t have to store all the products before starting the business, but you can contact the dealers and agree on how many products you need.

Financial management is also essential before starting an eCommerce business. Calculate your future expenses, such as shipping costs, product costs, etc.

5. Create an eCommerce Store

This is the most significant part of establishing an eCommerce business. If you started a physical store, you had to find a location to build your store.

But you are opening a digital business and need a website to run your business.

So, get a domain name and URL for your website.

You need to use an eCommerce platform to customize this website according to your eCommerce business. Multiple platforms are available, such as WooCommerce, Shopify, Magneto, Squarespace, etc.

WooCommerce is the most flexible platform because it’s an open-source and free plugin with full eCommerce compatibility.

You can promote your eCommerce products by creating a product feed. CTX Feed plugin will help you to generate product feed.

With the help of this plugin, you can maintain your WooCommerce product feed for multiple channels, such as Google Shopping, Bing Ads, etc.

6. Promote your eCommerce Website

You have successfully generated an eCommerce website, but this is not the end.

Now you have to promote this website to reach the maximum number of customers. Focus on SEO optimization to improve the website’s search results ranking.

You have to create a better networking circle with the other successful eCommerce owners in the marketplace. Also, you need to share your website on multiple social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Customers don’t readily come to your website, and you need to follow multiple marketing strategies to reach them properly.

Some Strategy for the Growth of eCommerce Business

After successfully starting an eCommerce business, you need to focus on essential factors to improve the eCommerce growth.

1. Focus on Social Media Promotion

Social Media Promotion

Social Media plays a significant role in the marketing of an eCommerce business. In everyday life, many people use social media, and it can create a massive impact on the growth of your eCommerce business.

You can make promotional posts about your eCommerce store products on multiple social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

Research multiple social media posts, comments, and reactions about your business and products. This helps you get a decent idea about your customers’ demand for the products.

When writing a post, you have to focus on the post structure that identifies the value of the products. If you use well-researched keywords on social media posts, it will grab more customers to your site.

Another important social media promotion strategy is to spend money on paid promotion. Product ads on platforms like Instagram and Facebook are very beneficial, and promotional video ads are now the top priority in the digital marketing world.

YouTube is one of the most visited websites on the internet, and it is the best platform for promotional video ads. So, you can create video ads about your products and use them on YouTube. Analysis of user purchasing behavior and their thought process is also essential for the growth of your eCommerce site.

2. Generate Mobile Friendly Website

Mobile Friendly Website

According to Statista, in 2021, there were almost 6.2 million smartphone users. So you must optimize a mobile user-friendly eCommerce website to get the highest numbers of customers.

The Google search engine keeps the better mobile experience websites in the highest rankings.

Optimizing your websites for mobile users will increase the sales speed of the products.

Today, most of us are very busy with multiple jobs, so if we want to buy something from the internet, it needs to be a short duration and more flexible.

Users can order their desired product from anywhere with just a click on the mobile screen. Mobile marketing is essential for the growth of the eCommerce business.

Nowadays, most business sites have a smartphone app for customers so that the owners can send push notifications about new updates, offers, new products, etc. Also, they can send promotional SMS to the customer’s phone numbers.

To compete in the eCommerce marketplace, you need to update your business frequently, such as launching new apps, because today, youths are a significant part of the market.

With the help of mobile-friendly sites, you can reach more customers, which will increase the revenue of your eCommerce business.

3. Focus on Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization
How to Make Money with eCommerce Website 39

SEO ranking plays the most significant role in the growth of an eCommerce website.

When customers search for any products on the internet, they click on the first few results.

Suppose you have a better-developed and highly optimized eCommerce website, but most prominent search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo don’t have any data on your site. This will not be beneficial for your business.

So, you need a proper SEO e-commerce strategy to improve your website ranking on the search results.

You should follow these factors.

  • Better SEO Ranking: To improve your SEO ranking, you need to research your competitor’s websites appropriately.
  • Relevant Keywords: Choosing perfect Keywords is also significant for the search ranking, and use those keywords that are relevant and famous in the marketplace.
  • Brand Awareness: It also impacts brand awareness. If your product’s links are constantly displayed at the top of the results, that will create a better impression of your website to customers.

SEO also impacts the marketing funnel where it creates awareness to the customers, and then they get interested in that product and finally buy it.

Search engine optimization will help increase the conversion rates of websites.

If you focus on SEO, it will significantly impact your product’s sales, which will help you generate more money from the website.

4. Value of Customers Review

Value of Customer Reviews
How to Make Money with eCommerce Website 40

As an eCommerce retailer, one of the best ways to ensure you’re making money on your products is to get them in front of as many potential customers as possible.

Product reviews are a great way to generate quality traffic to your website, create your brand’s values as an authority in your industry, and build a better connection with potential customers.

They’re also a great way to build your email list and engagement, the key to long-term revenue.

The review will provide explicit knowledge about the customer’s thoughts on your products. Better customer reviews create a trustworthy relationship between customers and owners.

Nowadays, most consumers research product reviews before deciding to purchase products.

They focus on the positive user experience of that product or service, then finally purchase. The recommendation of others influences most people when they select products. So, a positive review is a significant factor in increasing sales.

Product review also impacts the SEO ranking of your eCommerce website.

Also, shop owners can get a good idea about the product acceptance by the customers and improve the product quality to ensure customer satisfaction.

Positive reviews help market your eCommerce business because it creates a loyal and trustworthy customer base, which indirectly makes a better promotion.

After learning from the negative reviews, you can improve your product and service quality.

So overall, product review helps you make more money from your eCommerce website.

5. Using Email Marketing Method

The most popular way to market your products is through email marketing.

Many email marketing services are available in the market that help you send emails daily to customers.

It is a cost-effective way to market your products. When you market your products using email marketing, you can build a relationship with your customers.

They feel comfortable contacting you whenever they have a question or want to share their experience with your product.

Through email marketing, you can also build a community around your brand. They will be more likely to purchase from you when they see others using your product.

The most significant way to keep your email marketing subscribers is to provide valuable content continuously. This generates a positive brand perception and builds a long-term relationship with your customers.

You can send them emails with product updates, special discounts, and other marketing campaigns. Then they feel extraordinary to receive your emails because they know that you care about them.

6. Better Product Image

Product images are an essential element in eCommerce websites. It helps enhance the aesthetic appeal of the products and capture the customers’ attention. You can use images of your products on your website to show the quality and size of the product.

You can also include images of your product from different angles to demonstrate the quality.

The customers’ opinion about product image is critical. When customers browse through your product page, they will have an idea about the quality of your products. But they won’t buy anything without physically seeing the product.

If you provide good quality product images with multiple viewpoints, customers will be satisfied.

The customers will immediately get an idea about the quality of the product by looking at the image. So, it is always essential to have good product images, and people will purchase products that they can see themselves using.

So optimizing better product images will impact your eCommerce business revenue.

Conclusion

Today, eCommerce is one of the most profitable business platforms. So you can earn a good amount of money from eCommerce.

This article has discussed how to start an eCommerce business as a beginner and some significant factors to help you make money from e-commerce.

We hope you will get a better idea about eCommerce before starting the business.

Author Bio

Fahim Muntasir

How to Make Money with eCommerce Website 15
How to Make Money with eCommerce Website 41

Fahim Muntasir works as a content writer at WebAppick – a giant WordPress plugin development company. His specialized sectors are WordPress, WooCommerce, Google Merchant Center,eCommerce, and other topics.

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What is Blockchain Technology? Impact of Blockchain Technology On Various Industries.

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What is Blockchain Technology? Impact of Blockchain Technology On Various Industries. 17

Blockchain is a scrambled computerized data set shared by a few gatherings in a distributed organization. Any transaction that happens in the organization is recorded, verified, and put away in an information base. Transactions are communicated to all arranged members — making an unalterable transaction log. Blockchain is based on technology, where different duplicates of information exist across an organization instead of a solitary server or data set. Because no concentrated power — or institution — controls it, members can get to a similar version of the information in close to ongoing.

The decentralized administration takes into consideration quicker, less exorbitant handling of transactions while likewise permitting untrusted members to arrive at a consensus on the condition of the information base. This article will tell you everything from the beginning to the end about blockchain technology and what are its impacts on various industries. Also, you can hire a Top Blockchain Development Company from here if you need.

For what reason is it so Popular?

Exceptionally Secure – It utilizes a computerized signature element to conduct misrepresentation-free transactions making it difficult to ruin or change the information of a person by different clients without a specific advanced signature.

Decentralized System – Conventionally, you want the endorsement of administrative specialists like an administration or bank for transactions; nonetheless, with Blockchain, transactions are done with the common consensus of clients bringing about smoother, more secure, and quicker transactions.

Automation Capability – It is programmable and can create precise actions, occasions, and installments naturally when the standards of the trigger are met.

Impact of Blockchain Technology On Various Industries

Banking Sector

Imagine you send $5K to your companion through a conventional bank. The bank charges you a $100 expense; thus, truth be told, you’re only sending her $4900. If she’s abroad, she’ll settle the scoreless because of move rates and other secret expenses included. Generally speaking, the interaction is tedious and costly – and isn’t destined to be 100 percent secure.

Blockchain, on the other hand, disrupts the business banking framework by giving a distributed installment framework with high security and low charges. No focal power exists, so you don’t need to pay for one. How cool is that? This kills the requirement for an outsider to make a transaction utilizing a digital currency, such as Bitcoin or one of the numerous others. Your transaction to your companion is kept in a record that is seen and reviewable by any of the cryptographic money clients – giving you genuine autonomy over your transaction.

For instance, a digital currency application called Abra gives distributed money moves. With Abra, clients can store, move, and get advanced money on their PCs, tablets, or smartphones. A beneficiary can pull out cash through an Abra teller. Clients don’t have to have a financial balance! As may be obvious, then, at that point, the utilization of digital forms of money rather than banks genuinely disrupts the personal money market, imperiling the last option – as it ought to be. Why pay charges and dread security when blockchain can finish transactions rapidly, unreservedly, and without stress?

Medical care

Can we just be real? Today, horde issues exist in the capacity of individuals’ well-being information. Anyone can approach this extremely private information because it is totally contained in halfway found records. Whenever someone asks someone else for a person’s information, it can require hours for that person to find the right document, offering open doors for information breaks, burglary, or misfortunes. That is the reason blockchain technology in this industry is so significant.

Blockchain technology here kills the requirement for a focal power and empowers quick admittance to information. Here, each square is connected to one more square and distributed across the blockchain hubs, making it difficult for a programmer to ruin the information. Keeping personal clinical record information hidden is the very pinnacle of concern, so blockchain technology seems OK, no?

Another medical care concern spins around fake medication, and blockchain technology has some control over this, as well. That’s what the issue is; often, fake medications are difficult to distinguish from genuine ones. Blockchain technology tackles this issue by utilizing store networks and the executive’s conventions where the medication provenance can be followed.

Joined Healthcare has worked on the protection, security, and interoperability of clinical records utilizing blockchain technology. It’s seen its operations work decisively subsequently. We anticipate that other medical organizations should go with the same pattern as they decentralize their operations, as well.

Network protection

Cyberattacks are the top danger to our computerized world. Look what happened when Equifax declared its immense information break earlier that impacted 143 billion consumers – that went off the deep end. Blockchain technology can end such bad dreams. There are chances of the data leak, unapproved access, and altering. Because blockchain is a decentralized framework, it’s great for environments where high security is involved. Here, all the information put away on a bitcoin or other blockchain network is verified and encoded utilizing a cryptographic calculation – which prompts no SINGLE mark of section for a wide-scale assault.

Likewise, you can undoubtedly identify malignant information assaults with blockchain because of shared connections, where information can’t be adjusted or altered. Also, by disposing of a focal power, blockchain gives a solid and straightforward approach to recording transactions without disclosing private information to anyone. One illustration of a company effectively utilizing online protection this way is Guardtime. Because of its prosperity, we expect that many organizations will follow, further disrupting this industry as well.

Inventory network Management

Blockchain technology can follow every one of the means of an inventory network, so suppose you put in a request for food, had the food conveyed, and observed the food disgusting. The proprietor of the company from whom you requested it could revisit his blockchain record and figure out how in the store network the request veered off-track to displease you. For instance, he can go from the rancher to the maker, to the distributor, to the retailer, then, at that point, as far as you might be concerned, the buyer.

At the end of the day, in the production network, the executives, blockchain gives long-lasting straightforwardness and validation of transactions shared by different production network accomplices. All transactions are super durable and verifiable, making it simple for a proprietor or a client to see each record.

It very well may be utilized for a verification – for instance, fish verification, where it can follow the fish from sea to showcase. The Pacific Tuna Project utilizes blockchain to oversee fishing information, trading/bringing in subtleties, and buying subtleties to follow fish fishing. This forestalls unlawful fishing. As such, utilizing blockchain for the production network, the executive’s work permits you to fish for the information you want and reel in the right responses like clockwork.

Government

Blockchain technology can end electoral misrepresentation. In a traditional democratic interaction, most citizens stand in line to project, cast a ballot, or send in mail votes. Then, the votes should be counted by a neighborhood authority. Online democracy is conceivable in this situation, as well; however, likewise with any remaining industries we’ve discussed, because a focal authority is utilized, issues of misrepresentation arise.

Utilizing blockchain technology in this way turns into the wisest decision. Here, individuals can cast a ballot online effectively without uncovering their characters. Utilizing blockchain, officials can count votes with outright exactness, realizing that every ID can be ascribed to only one vote. Misrepresentation can’t happen because it is close to inconceivable with blockchain technology. What’s more, once a vote is added to a record, it can’t be changed or eradicated.

Wrapping up

Blockchain technology is poised to assume control over the manner in which we work. Fostering the right instruments and tending to these limitations will take time, yet continued interest in blockchain technology will probably address a considerable lot of these issues and difficulties confronted, like other mechanical revolutions of the past. Perhaps ten years from now, similar to the web, blockchain will be commonplace technology, and we will look forward to the following innovation. If you are looking for a blockchain development company, then you can click here to hire.

About The Author:-

What is Blockchain Technology? Impact of Blockchain Technology On Various Industries. 18
What is Blockchain Technology? Impact of Blockchain Technology On Various Industries. 53

Hermit Chawla is an MD at AIS Technolabs which is a Web/App design and Development Company, that helps global businesses to grow through Global Clients. He loves to share his thoughts on Web & App Development, Clone App Development, and Game Development.

Facebook:- https://www.facebook.com/aistechnolabs

Twitter:- https://twitter.com/aistechnolabs

Linkedin:- https://www.linkedin.com/in/hermit-chawla-lion-82b6513b

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‘Portal’ And ‘Left 4 Dead 2’ Arrive On Linux

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'Portal' And 'Left 4 Dead 2' Arrive On Linux 20

'Portal' And 'Left 4 Dead 2' Arrive On Linux 21

Steam is powerful, hot, and painful. It can move trains, boats, and has driven minds crazy with the power of invention. And now, the power of steam has come to Linux. That’s right, Linux. Until recently Linux users were the most unloved members of the gaming world. They have been the outcasts, the rejects in the corner who preferred an operating system, which quite frankly, is the most logical of all of them. They are Linux users. And now, they have arrived.

Ok, enough with the dramatics; Portal is available if you’re running Valve’s Linux Steam client, you’ve got it. If you don’t have it, get it, because the Steam Box is coming. While PC, Xbox, Play Station, and Mac users have all had a gaming advantage, the love for Linux users has never been there. Until now.

Linux gamers now have access to Valve’s Half-Life,Half-Life: Blue Shift, and the just-released beta Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2). And that’s good news.

'Portal' And 'Left 4 Dead 2' Arrive On Linux 22

For all the mega super awesomeness that this news could potentially be, it’s not quite the best. Valve’s current catalog for Linux is still quite sparse. With only 13 titles as of this article, it’s barely a scratch against the wall of Mac and PC game titles out there, but hey, it’s a start. I mean, Portal is a game from 2007, and the original Half-Life was first published in 1998.

This padding of the Linux library is likely part of preparations for the Steam Box console, which is expected to run the OS. Valve’s entire catalog will probably be available for Linux before long. The question is whether any other big-name developers will follow suit. There are over 100 Linux titles on Steam right now, but most of them are smaller games from indie developers. The Steam Box may have to stream games from a Windows-equipped PC if it wants to offer a similar selection of blockbusters to next-generation consoles.

Now, Remember that Valve utilizes a Direct3D -> OpenGL layer for its ports. It takes the D3D9 with extensions and dynamically created oGL calls. Not only does have to call oGL but it also has to deal with that translation overhead. Despite that, it still ends up being faster than native DX where no translation is done.They still use d3d9 but go through live translation to oGL calls and still they outperform the native DX9 implementation despite having the same limitations. Faster than native despite having additional translation overhead is nothing short of impressive especially when you consider Valve had next to no oGL experience when they started this ( although then basically then hired an all-staroGL team to carry out the endeavor.

It’s hard to talk about the Linux OS without talking about the Steam Box, which, if you believe Valve head Gabe Newell, is the console killer. Newell has confirmed that Valve’s own Steam Box will come packaged with Linux. The OS is anathema to the walled gardens of Windows, being both free and open-source. It’s just as alien to the Xbox and Playstation front-ends. Where they curate content and load up with adverts, the Steam Box is as open as an average PC.

Newell says you’re free to install Windows on Valve’s Linux box, and download whatever you fancy. Imagine a console with Adblock. Imagine a console that isn’t hamstrung by its components half a decade down the line, a console that doesn’t force its creator to make a loss on each sale or to devote a gigantic chunk of budget half way through its life cycle to make its successor.

The Steam Box should scare console makers. 2012 was a monster year for PC gaming, the portents of doom that dogged the platform for years finally shaken off as the once dominant consoles felt their teeth grow too long.

 

With the upcoming Steam Box, and Portal and Left for Dead 2 coming to Linux, the rise of the few should be a concern to all.

 

Author Bio: The article is written by Jason Phillips, a freelance writer and an enthusiast. His passion about gaming inspired him to write gaming articles, blog about gaming and starting an online gaming site Zombie Games 365.

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