iOS 7 APIs and Frameworks for App developers – Quick review
iOS 7 : What is it to developers? - iOS 7 APIs and Frameworks for App developers – Quick review
Today on 10th June 2013, Apple made iOS 7 beta and Xcode 5 Developer Preview publically available for developers. The front UI changes doesn’t look like it has great transitions for daily users – many of these changes have been enjoyed by Android users already. But, there is a big leap forward in notification area, multitasking and messages etc..
However, app developers have a lot! New and enhanced set of APIs that will make you rejoice. Here is a quick walk through of what is new.
For UI designers:
For iOS app UI designers, new iOS 7 SDK offers something new. There are new APIs in the UIKit such as UIAttachmentBehavior,
iOS 7 for App developers
and UICollisionBehavior for developers to create better motion effects and transitions. You can download the UI transitions here for complete review.
The Newly introduced Wi-Fi peer-to-peer file sharing system, names AirDrop will help developers to use UIActivityViewController class to provide features to share documents within the application, and users can share data between devices and apps easily. The URL sharing in AirDrop is one feature that everybody would like.
With MultipeerConnectivity.framework users can enable communication between devices without internet connectivity. I believe this feature might enable developers to create a modem apps to share internet among devices too.
Text Kit is a framework newly introduced to manage Typography, which is a welcoming feature and it has extensions such as NSAttributedString, NSLayoutManager for layout test new attributes and some basic interface to handle text bases content.
Before UI designers start developing, it is necessary to see the UI Transitions at the iOS 7 UI trantion guide. A set of iOS design resources can be found under iOS Developer forum.
For advertisers:
You wouldn’t miss to note the new iAd Framework (iAd.framework) enables placing ads on top of videos.
For Game developers:
Game center has plenty of improvements especially in multi-player games and The Game Kit framework (GameKit.framework) has several changes. Check at the Game center reference for the framework changes. Looking forward to so see more agile and interesting games.
For Application developers:
Multitasking in iOS 7 has additional background execution modes enables background content loading, push notifications that enables background download operations and those modes can be launched and also moved from suspended tstate to background state whenever required.
The MKMapCamera object can be called for map location, 3D viewing and MKDirections object can be used direction-related route information, However which is restructed to Apple Maps.
Developers can now use MapKit.framework for better map based information handling and Location based Information handling applications can use 3D Maps too.
Also, Attaching files with messages has become possible with MFMessageComposeViewController framework.
One interesting development is using AudioUnit.framework is one of your app can record music from another app acting as an instrument or use it to send audio to another app for processing. The use of this API might look limited, But plenty of musicians would find Apps that are built with framework, useful.
Another interesting framework that comes with iOS pack is, Core Motion Framework would help developers to capture motion data from device hardware and process that data within the application. I hope to see several applications that compete directly with FitBit. This must be a framework we can expect to be placed in Apple’s watch.
For Objective C programmers, you will see support on modules that helps to build applications faster within XCode 5. Apple advises to enable this support explicitly by modifying your old project’s Enable Modules setting.
There are few APIs such as MKOverlayView class and its various subclasses, AVAudioSession class in the AV Foundation framework and many other have been deprecated. You are discouraged use them anymore. Though it will be supported by Apple for some time, it’s a good practice to refactor older applications in which you used them extensively.
Overall, the APIs and frameworks brought quit a lot of features to developers through iOS 7 SDK and I hope this major step
What is missing?
It still missed many vital features to the app users. The OS and the APIs are still maintaining a closed system very much. Communication between other applications is still closed and users cannot set their default applications. However, for developers they have a handful of supporting APIs to proceed with innovative applications that are still Apple users can become proud of.
SEO for Designers and Developers
First of all, Do not worry, This Article isn’t going to teach you SEO. But to help you to help your clients, learning these steps are must. Note that, you do not have to be an SEO expert to follow these steps.
Web development is an art. A website which is designed well will yield repeated visitors and in the case of a business website, good customers too. Apart from a good design a site should be developed with clean coding with all necessary semantics followed and the overall site structure should be organized. To sum it up, the way a website is developed and designed decides the future of the website.
When you code, make it ready for search Engines
Any website is to create business opportunities. There are many ways to promote your website. And SEO is one of the primary techniques to promote your client’s website, even if did notask you to make it SEO ready.
Not just for the sake of the look and usability of the website, even for the effectiveness of SEO, your website needs to be designed and developed with some basic aspects which are necessary even before your site is actually optimized for SEO.
301 permanent redirection:
This is something people tend to forget and all it needs to add a simple line of code in .htaccess file. Search engines consider these as two separate URL’s:
(Example) http://www.example.com and http://example.com . But we all know its the one and the same site.
This is an SEO killer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Once the link promotion starts the domain popularity will goto only one URL, which is the key for organic success.
So while development make sure redirection is done to a single URL.
It’s recommended to be redirected to http://www.example.com. Apart from this you can set the preferred URL in Google webmaster tools.
2. No more Underscores, Just Hyphens from now on. Please.
This is official from Google itself. Underscores acts as a joiner and hyphens acts a separator. So it’s the hyphens that will provide the correct meaning for key phrases to search engines.
Please use Hyphens for inner pages and no underscores for the sites to be developed in future.
For Example:
http://www.example.com/buy_cameras_online
Google considers this as “buycamerasonline”, single word.
Whereas http://www.example.com/buy-cameras-online , here Google understands this as “Buy Cameras Online”, which is exactly what a site owner needs.
Most of the Opensource platforms will allow SEO friendly URLs and they are easy to setup.
3. No follow , No index for sites under development:
Sometimes DEMO sites get cached in search engines and the site may get penalized for this. Please make sure DEMO sites are shielded by a <no index, no follow > or you can have a robots.txt file uploaded din the root folder which clearly says search engines not to crawl them.
And once the site is made LIVE these tags can be removed in the websites pages. But in the demo url’s let these no follow tag be permanent.
<META name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”/> (This is the tag to be added permanently in the pages of the demo / sites under construction).
So, next time when you show your milestone based updates from your or clients production server use No Index an No follow – AND Do NOT forget to remove it when you make the site live.
4. No Duplicate META tags:
Please add the page name or product name in the META titles, till that page is optimized with keywords. Kindly do not copy the METAs of other pages.
Sometimes developers for get change the META tags while creating a new content page since most of them copy from a previously created page. This is not going to take much time.
5. Never change or rename the URL names before crosschecking:
URLS are backbone of SEO. For long term SEO campaigns and if a site is doing very well its only because of the domain popularity and that’s the reason still many websites still retain their old sites.
The URL names of a website should not be changed before checking whether the site is optimized for SEO. Even if a client insists, make sure you warn the client mail stating that the traffic will be lost, before making the change.
This could be a DISASTER and may spoil the entire online efforts a business puts in.
6. Contact Forms:
In terms of development it may be the small thing but from the business perspective of a site, this is the MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR. We should make sure the forms work perfectly with the client’s email ID and crosscheck with the client. Especially when a client is involved a costly advertising campaign this could become a catastrophe.
7. No Egos
Ask questions with your SEO team. Consult them and make sure that the site comply on SEO standards. You do not need to do Keyword research, But make sure that the code you make is clean, Even if the client isn’t ready for SEO, remember that they might come to you in future.
These are some main factors and more good practices are coming up in part 2.
Responsive Web Design frameworks that we like and use – responsive web design framework review
Responsive web design becomes unavoidable, due to the rapid growth of tablets, smart phones and smart televisions with different screens; it’s no wonder responsive designing has gained the attention of web site owners. One website that could display well on every screen is an inevitable option, since it eliminates the tiresome job of creating web pages for each device independently. Responsive designing also facilitates user experience by way of ruling out links that should be selected based on user device and its display conditions.
Having said that, we never fall behind the curve and our developers utilize a range of Responsive Web Designing (RWD in short) Frameworks to create user-centric websites. The following are the 4 RWD frameworks that we utilize skillfully. You might take a little while to get around these tools, but believe us it’s just awesome! Here is our responsive web design framework review.
Zurb’s Foundation 3 and now 4 (in 2013)
Foundation 3/4 is all the rage for it is an open source front end framework with extensive documentation and killer features. Its 12 column flexible grids, rapid prototyping, and multi-device mobility allow responsiveness to a great extent. Less tho
ugh in number oftools, the framework certainly allows creativity than any other. The best part is it has
not changed much in terms of syntax thus reduced learning or upgrade hassles for existing coders. Its clean codes have leveled off several implementation setbacks too.
There is one disadvantage though with Foundation 3 is lack of support for IE7 and Foundation 4 doesn’t support IE8 which still a large numbe
r of screens use.
Based on LESS.js this pre-processed CSS is another popular front-end tool utilized widely in designing adaptable websit
es.
You can now design fluid lay-outs using
LESS.js which is later compiled with CSS. Modifying gutter/ column widths, choosing the number of columns, and flipping between percentage and pixels are some key features offered by this system. The ultimatum is you can’t use CSS more efficiently than in semantic.gs.
Nothing can beat Bootstrap in the numbers game as it offers a la
rge set of tools and options to developers. And you need not download all the elements when you download Bootstrap. If you think something won’t work for you, you can easily ignore. No clustery codes and the look and feel of the UI forms and buttons could be made perfect with minimal changes. In short, bootstrap is an intuitive framework that eases the process of web design and development.
In our experience Bootstrap has better browser support and this could be our first choice.
This is one other lightweight jQuery plug-in used to build cross browser compatible, responsive websites. The strategy is simple. Here we focus and build websites for mobile devices first which could render optimized performance and user experience. Later this is used as a base and tweaked further for desktops and other devices. The dynamic action hooks and HTML 5 dataset ensures responsiveness and ease in designing.
Each of the above listed frameworks is unique and efficient in their own way. Not to mention, there are some flaws and implementation difficulties as well. Choosing the appropriate one is tricky and it solely depends on your specific requirements. Responsive designing is seeing a steady growth and so does the tools of this space. So, get set and go the responsive way!
Other reads:
Responsive web design to make your site mobile ready – Is it worth doing? (http://blog.macronimous.com/responsive-web-design-to-make-your-site-mobile-ready-is-it-worth-doing/)
Why You Need to Prioritize Responsive Design Right Now (http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2013/03/26/why-you-need-to-prioritize-responsive-design-right-now/?goback=%2Egde_4025191_member_226513082)
Improve your Domestic/Regional Business with Local SEO
Local SEO is one of the trends that you want to watch out for if you are a small scale business trying to get customers and increase your business turnover. Local SEO is the process of optimizing your website so that you can target your business locally and target your audience more specifically. These days Google is giving a lot of focus on local SEO. If you are a small business trying to find your place in the market, and you do not have the kind of money and resource to invest in organic SEO, then Local SEO is the magic wand for you. You do not have to spend tremendous amount of time, effort and money to be visible to your domestic customers.
Local SEO
Local SEO can provide direct customers not just potential Customers:
Local searches and geo-specific keywords have become prevalent with the customers going mobile. They can search for a local listing of what they want and with just a click of a button or a tap; they can find what they want including the contact number and the directions to that place. There is no need to even have a website in such cases as long as you have your contact details listed. The most amazing thing of a local search is the fact that these searches are targeted buyers or customers who have decided to avail the services. They are not just potential customers but actual customers so having your listing on top will bring in more revenue for your business.
Local SEO can be more effective than Organic SEO:
Another interesting fact that gives more reason to have a local SEO is that the local listings come up above the organic search results. So by having a local SEO you only have more benefits to reap and you do not have to compete with big giants who already have state of the art organic search in place. And the local SEO market is new and hot, so you will have early bird advantage as well. For a local SEO, the number of searches is less and so are the competing pages for such a search when compared to the competing pages for the more generic search results. So your business will be recognized at the top very easily and the targeted approach will bring in higher revenue for your business.
Boost your local SEO with Google Places / Plus local:
Local SEO can be done very easily with Google+ Local, Yahoo local or Bing Business Portal listings. For instance Google+ Local enables a business to create an account/profile and list down all the details like contact information, store location, business category for easy search and retrieval, include images, have a short and precise introduction that includes the keywords most commonly searched and also include other links and websites that you would want to share. The linking of these is automatically done by Google. This is the latest and greatest tool that a business can get handle of through which one can acquire new customers and open new avenues to increase the business. This platform is a social media service which will play a vital role in the local SEO search marketing strategy. A business will have to just leverage this avenue to not only improve online presence but also to take your business in the steep upward direction.
Macronimous offers Local SEO Services to clients throughout the Globe:
Get local SEO services from Macronimous and take your business to the next level. Our team of dedicated SEO experts will analyze and promote the client’s local listing in their respective geographic location. With limited budget for your small scale business, you can easily afford our local SEO services and you can get a great deal of online search engine presence. This is not it; your ranking will also be higher than others. The ROI for Local SEO is tremendous with higher conversion rates turning 1 in 2 leads into your actual clients.
Getting started with PhoneGap development – What a developer needs?
Driven by smart phones, mobile and web based app development has gained momentum, though, for a novice, it is getting trickier day after day. With diverse gadgets accessing the web, developers across the world face challenges pertaining to multiple use cases like varied screen sizes, pixels, screen mode (landscape or portrait), user convenience, etc. Today, all of these need thorough consideration during an app development process since it is practically impossible to write codes on and on for every new device hitting the market.
Here comes PhoneGap, an open source mobile development frame work to ease the process. PhoneGap takes advantage of the webkit rendering instance, a common characteristic of all the latest gadgets like iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, etc. In addition, the developer need not learn new codes nor is he expected to have a thorough knowledge of the device SDK, but be capable of using web standards. Simply put, PhoneGap allows you to create web apps using Java script, HTML5, and CSS3. And it’s exciting because it harmonizes with the device API and allows you to package the web app like a native app getting access to the phone’s unique hardware/ services.
So, let’s get started!
PhoneGap for iOS
- Get xCode and PhoneGap installed.
- Once done you will find a number of folders relevant to various OS. Click on the iOS folder as we are creating for iOS. This will install PhoneGap features into xCode..
- Run xCode and create a new xCode project. Opt for the folder “PhoneGap based application.” This would allow xCode to create parts required to develop an iOS application. Compile these assets in an iOS folder on your computer.
- Thereafter name the demo project and decide on options like the application name, screen mode, app icon, etc.
- Subsequently, launch xCode in the project navigator and open file named “www.” This contains all parts related to PhoneGap.
- Click on indexfile.html. Here you can modify codes as required.
- Now run the demo app on any preferred simulator (iOS versions). Once the demo app is successfully run you are all set to create real time apps of your choice for iOSusing PhoneGap framework.
PhoneGap for Android
- Install eclipse and Android SDK.
- Download ADT plug-in and restart eclipse.
- Launch PhoneGap for Android and run Eclipse.
- Create a new project on Eclipse and name the project. Select the appropriate Android version.
- Check “create activity” and go to Android project folder. Build folders like www, libs and res and drag in assets including cordova 1.5.0.jar, cordova 1.5.0.js, and xml to the appropriate location such that it has all parts and pieces required for the demo PhoneGap app development.
- Finally, create index.html file and put in the required HTML codes. Choose the respective emulator and check for the output.
All said, it takes a little while to get around the framework plus the run time for any PhoneGap app is quite high in comparison to a native app. However, developers could easily bridge the gap for it is a great tool to build effective and innovative mobile applications.
We at Macronimous provide PhoneGap development as part of our wide range of mobile development services. Please check here for further details.
Responsive web design to make your site mobile ready – Is it worth doing?
Responsive Web Design
You own a website successfully now but did you ever find out if your website is accessible and view-able with any of the smart phones? It is great if you have your site designed aesthetically using Flash or any other jazzy technology, unless you have your website compatible with the current smart phones, your effort may go wasted. These days your website must be compatible with the cell phone browsers as most of the young users are going online using their mobile phones. There are more mobile phones than there are TVs in the world now. Mobile is here to stay and by time the usage will only increase. With the increase in number of smartphone users accessing internet, it is essential for every business to progress into the mobile world of internet. The very reason why you have a website is making you think of the importance of having a site that is mobile friendly. There will be a time when this feature will become a necessity rather than a nicety. So do not wait till that moment comes, take a step forward in making your site mobile ready.
Responsive Web Design (RWD) – The Long Term Solution
Creating a website version each for different resolutions is not the best way to make your website mobile ready. This will become an unmanageable and a daunting task. RWD is a whole new way of thinking about design over and beyond the adjustable screen resolutions with automatic resizable images. With RWD using CSS3 and media queries you can have a single page that will perfectly display the content and images on diverse screen sizes with high resolution. By detecting the user’s screen size which includes validation of screen height, width, resolution and other variables the corresponding CSS3 is applied allowing flexibility of a page in accordance with the user’s device. With some changes to your website style, you can make your site compatible with all kinds of smartphones.
Why Target Mobile Users?
It is logical to wonder why one would want to invest more money now in expensive RWD. You will be amazed by the fact that the global internet usage through mobile devices is doubling year after year. This year the mobile browsing has increased by 10.01%. Even though the mobile usage seems to be just about 10%, but the rate of this growth is outstanding. With this kind of increase in the mobile usage for online browsing, it means that now people are using these devices to do online shopping as well. You will have to eventually keep up with this pace and make your website compatible with mobile devices. This will give you the edge to be the spearhead in the market and attract more leads and grow your business drastically.
Having heavy sites that takes forever to load is not only cumbersome but will also drive away the users from visiting the site again. Mobile users have very little patience and to add to that mobile is very sensitive and also take a lot of time to load heavy websites. Another reason for frustration of mobile users is that they have to view the site in a small screen with miniscule links.
As per a recent research, customers who end up with not so good experience with a website while browsing in their mobile will not prefer to do business with them again and 40 percent will turn to their competitor website. Let your website NOT be the one to lose out on business due to incompatible website.
Get Started
You can get started on knowing how your site looks like when you view it from a mobile device. There are many online tools that give you this ability for free. This will give you a good idea of what looks good and what doesn’t fit for a mobile phone. You can use this site to find out how your website looks on a smartphone. You can test your site for any broken links and you can also see the aesthetics of your site and find out how it looks on the mobile. You will also realize if the content and the graphics used are skewed or not. Here are some of the questions you can answer to find out if your site is mobile ready.
• If your business is trying to sell something, is the shopping cart visible?
• Is the font used readable? Is the content easy to read and understand on the small device?
• How long does the site take to load on a mobile?
• Can the customer find what they are looking for?
• Can the links be clicked at ease with a thumb?
Once you know the answers to these questions, you will know why you need to have a mobile friendly site. Remember just because your website comes up on a smartphone doesn’t make it mobile friendly. Mobile marketing has become an indispensable element of marketing these days.
Services Out There
There are many solutions out there that allows small to large businesses to develop mobile websites.
• Google Mobile Optimizer (Go Mo) is a tool by Google that will allow you to test your site. They will be able to give many tips on how you can transform your site into a mobile version.
• MobiReady is a similar tool where you can test your site and they also offer detailed reports on the potential areas of improvement in making your site mobile friendly.
• DudaMobile is also like GoMo and MobiReady. They have many templates that you can choose from for the mobile version that will just make you and your users happy.
Interesting Statistics
• 17% of mobile phone users use their phones for online browsing rather than using the traditional desktops.
• There has been a 10.01 % increase in mobile browsing in 2012.
• It is estimated that the mobile internet usage will surpass the desktop internet usage by 2013.
• Web browsing figures have risen to 111.2 million using phones alone.
• A recent survey has shown that 75% of customers would like to have a mobile ready website.
There are 90% of businesses that are out there with a website that is not mobile ready. Belong to the mobile ready category as early as possible and make a difference to your business goals.
17 WordPress Plugins you must install immediately after setting up your site
WordPress is undeniably one of the most sought-after platforms for bloggers. It is enriched with loads of user-friendly and feature-rich applications that are second to none. Every user loves WordPress for its uniqueness, inclusiveness, and extendibility. Being an excellent open source community, it serves as a gateway for millions of bloggers and readers to share their knowledge and thoughts on a range of informative topics.
WordPress Plugins add more functionality and performance-boosting features to your WordPress powered blogs and keep readers glued to your content. Are you on the lookout for the most attractive WordPress Plugins? With thousands of plugins available, it can be so difficult and time-consuming to find a few good ones. Given below is a great compilation of 20 most impressive WordPress Plugins you should incorporate in your blogs to give your visitors an engaging blogging experience. Read on and check them out!
Your search for the most secured WordPress Plugin should end with Better WP Security. This first-rate plugin incorporates the finest WordPress security features and applications, thereby ensuring that even the most minute security loopholes in your blog site are patched up proficiently. It also detects hidden 404 page errors that can otherwise dent your SEO efforts and cause missing images, broken links and much more damage. With the one-click activation feature for most of its applications, this should be one plugin that you should integrate your WordPress powered blogs with.
If you are looking for an all-encompassing SEO WordPress Plugin then this is the right plugin for you. This comprehensive plugin includes snippet preview, image titles, page analysis functionalities, Meta descriptions, XML sitemaps with a string of optimization options at various stages of your streamlining processes. Hence, this plugin is a strong recommendation if you want to optimize your web pages and make it more all the more appealing for users.
Monitoring all the comments on your blogs can be really time-consuming. And failing to detect spam content might attract your site a heavy penalty from search engines. Your restless search for a spam-free WordPress Plugin should end with Akismet. Just install this plugin and bid adieu to spammers. The latest version of Akismet highlights the links to make it so easy to distinguish between a good link and a broken or bad link. Available free for personal use, Akismet can be installed by default provided you have a WordPress API key.
Google Analytics for WordPress
This top-notch WordPress Plugin from Google lets you track a huge amount of metadata on your site ranging from page views and category views by different visitors to 404 errors and a whole lot of other productive stuff at various stages of your optimization process. Besides empowering you to specify the required data for your site using custom variables, it also enables you to track a range of user activities including clicks per link, downloads per link, and much more.
Page loading speed matters a lot for visitors. They aren’t going to think twice to leave a slow loading web page. WP Super Cache is a super-fast catching WordPress Plugin to speed up your web pages. It generates static html files of your blogs and speeds up the page loading time by several times while reducing the bandwidth considerably. If you want to give your users a faster blogging experience then this is the right plugin for you.
FD Feedburner (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/feedburner-plugin/)
This plugin efficiently redirects the main feed and the comments feed to Feedburner.com. By using this plugin you don’t have to modify templates , .htaccess files or configure hidden feeds. This plugin seamlessly integrates all existing feeds and makes it transparent to the users. Just feed this plugin with your Feedburner URL and you are done!
Easy-to-use, this is the most elegant mobile WordPress plugin for your website. It transforms your WordPress powered blog site into an enticing application-like theme fully loaded with Ajax submissions providing stunning effects for the users when viewed from mobile devices such as iPhone, iPad, and Android mobile devices. The application also enables readers to swap effortlessly between the WPtouch and the site’s default theme, giving your readers the perfect mobile blogging experience that they want.
Get massive traffic from social bookmarking sites by integrating this social networking-friendly Widget to your WordPress enabled blog site. It allows readers to share your blogs with over 330 popular services at the click of a button. There can’t any easy way to get traffic from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg and StumbleUpon. What’s more, this user-friendly plugin also makes it easy to share address bar in modern browsers with a small quick-to-load button.
As the name itself suggests, this popular WordPress Plugin effectively creates automated backups for your web content. Besides including the additional option of having the backups emailed to you, it is also one of the most easy-to-use plugins that don’t require any set-up installation. It works well on Linux and Windows even in a ‘low memory’ shared environment.
This is the mother of all comment systems. It efficiently replaces all the comments in your system with Disqus enabled comments thereby giving bloggers an even more engaging experience. Some of the enticing features of this plugin include threaded comments and responses, subscription to RSS feeds, automatic email notifications on the approval status, powerful spam filtering options, and easy-to-moderate admin tools.
This is a cool plugin which makes it so easy to verify your blog with the world’s most popular search engine- Google, in just a couple of clicks! It relieves you the time-consuming process of copy-pasting tokens. It efficaciously gives you get access to a range of Google services in just a couple of clicks of the button!
Optional, But recommended:
With this simple but flexible WordPress Plugin, you can efficiently manage multiple contact forms, and customize the forms and your email contents seamlessly using an easy-to-use markup tool. This user-friendly WordPress plugin supports Ajax submissions and includes CAPTCHA and Akismet spam filtering and much more!
This blog owner-friendly plugin is very different as it comes with an easy-to-use interface that allows you to edit your posts conveniently. Don’t worry if you have a post for Monday but couldn’t publish it as you had an extended weekend outing. This impressive plugin allows you to edit, manage and schedule your blog posts at your convenient time. Use the drag and drop menu to schedule your posts and check the status of your blogs when you are back!
Previously available only to WordPresss users, this powerful plugin turbo charges your WordPress enabled blogs with the super power of WordPress.com. It generates simple but concise stats adding no extra burden on your server. This impressive plugin lets you add a wealth of media-rich content including popular sites such as YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, and Digg. What’s more, this plugin lets users share and like your blogs on their favorite social bookmarking sites at the click of a button! The Akismet powered contact forms kicks off any spammy content to the trash and keeps your blog completely spam-free.
This funky plugin lets you link your WordPress enabled blog to an external URL (rather than a WordPress URL) of your choice. Ultimately, it redirects users who look for your old URL to the new URL that you have linked. This could be really advantageous particularly when you want to set up easy-to-navigate links to the non-WordPress content of your site or to an external site. With this easy-to-use tool, even a newbie can effortlessly create a handmade menu that links to different posts, pages, categories and anything!
Want to halt users multiple login attempts from the same IP or through browser generated cookies? If so, then this is the right plugin for you. As WordPress, by default, allows multiple logins either by means of the same login page or by sending unique cookies, this plugin should be an obvious choice to integrate your WordPress enabled blogs with. It makes it impossible for users to crack your passwords. Available in close to 20 language translations, this fully-customizable plugin expeditiously alerts users on multiple login attempts, retires and lockout page time.
This irresistible plugin identifies any kind of security threat to your WordPress enabled blogs. It effectually scans your blog and generates a reliable security grade based on your blog’s performance in the security test that involves hundreds of crucial issues. Why should you have plugins that aren’t updated for months when you have the Ultimate Security Checker that gets updated regularly? The one-click installation and automatic scanning features certainly saves you a lot of time.
There you go! Each of the aforementioned WordPress Plugins is unique in its own way. It certainly saves a lot of time for blog owners while giving bloggers the most interactive blogging experience that they want! Whether you are a newbie or an experienced blog owner these are some of the most impressive WordPress plugins that you can’t do without! So which is your favorite and why? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section given below.
Monitor your SEO progress – what every site owner need to know
We all know SEO can do wonders for a business and even a non brick and mortar firm can rake in huge money. And even for business owners who tops in conventional business strategies, SEO can definitely help improve their business. For many small scale businesses, SEO has become the life saver. And with the introduction of features like Google places business owners who were invincible before SEO giants sprung up and made huge profits in their business. Mostly for small scale business, SEO firms promote the websites and whether the SEO campaign is a success or a failure, and it is necessary for the business owner to know whether the SEO campaign succeeded or not. There are certain features that the business owners need to know from the SEO companies who mange their business website.
1. Google Analytics:
This is one of the most fabulous tools provided by Google. Even a site’s hosting company to provide details such as these, it will charge thousands of dollars and the most interesting part of it is its absolutely free. Just a piece of code creates magic. Google analytics provides complete details such as the visitors, pages visits, Demographic details, and time spent on website, most visited pages on the site etc. By default, Google Analytics provides the above details for the past 30 days from the current date but the beauty of is the comparison of the above details between two different periods of time because Google analytics completely stores the all the above data from the date the code was added to the website. E-commerce websites product performance data and sales revenue details can also be detected using Google analytics.
2. Conversion Rate:
Search engine optimizers often boast their performance by quoting the number of keywords they have achieved top rankings, the amount of traffic they have brought to the website and so on. On the contrary, business owners will never even bother to listen all of the above SEO success stuffs unless some business is generated out of their website.
In Google analytics, goals can be set either on Contact page where websites normally have the contact form; phone number and contact email address are displayed. Even goals can be set on a “Thanks” page that appears after a user completes the contact form in websites. This way the conversion ratio can be determined and the business owners can measure the success of SEO and can make suitable adjustments with regard to landing page optimization.
3. SERP:
Search engine ranking position (SERP) is the most important factor in organic SEO success. Only for the improvement in these keywords, SEO is actually done. Even while optimizing a business website for the search engines (It maybe any business), its better to get certain important business core keywords from the business owners itself and based on the keyword count, suitable modifications can be done later. The synchronization between the business website and keywords is highly important and Google also weighs this factor inn the name of keywo1rd relevancy. And regular progress of the business keywords (provided initially by the business owners) should be updated to them (Monthly/ weekly). This way the business owners can directly measure the site performance.
4. Target Audience and Market:
The target audience and target market vary from Business to business. So it’s highly important to provide certain details such as the demography of the traffic. If the traffic is high but the enquiries are not convertible, then the business owners can change their business content / pricing for that particular target market to increase the revenues.
The above said factors are the basic factors that’s every site owner need to know otherwise whatever stats the SEO firms show them its just Greek and Latin for them.
5 must do validation check for every website
If you are serious about your website, you can not just settle with what you see, remember your visitors are worldwide, and they use different screens to access your site – they use even their LCD TV, in 50 inches. The following are must have validations that you should insist your web site developer to check.
1.W3C Markup Validation Service
2.FEED Validator
3.W3C CSS Validation Service
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator
4. Link checker
http://validator.w3.org/checklink
5. Mobile compliance
http://validator.w3.org/mobile/
Believe this, its worth spending those extra hours and money. !
6 things to make your site content SEO ready
Flashy images and videos in a website may look attractive in terms of the site’s design. They may also be highly relevant to the website owner’s business but are they enough to bring top results in search engines. The designers who must have worked on that website may say YES, but the answer is NO. So, apart from all these factors the aspect that is going to bring traffic and business to your website is none other than the content in the website. Again, not just blind content will bring traffic to a site. So what are the factors required for a content to be of high quality.
The following are the factors and methods to make the content in a website to be ready for SEO:
Keyword placement:
Selection of right keyword holds the key for an SEO process .Key words are the words with which people search for a product or item in search engines either to acquire information or to know about a product to make decision for actually buying it. Selecting the right key word is an art. To have a SEO friendly content you need to analyze the top keywords that people use to search in search engines relevant to your business and integrating it properly with the page content will decide your traffic and ROI. One without varied domain experience may opt for keyword with out applying due SEO strategy and research, which won’t yield significant benefit to the site owner.
Keyword density and stuffing:
There is a fine line between keyword stuffing and keyword density. One is all about how it should be and other is about how it should not be. Generally the keyword density should be around 2 – 8% as per the search engine guidelines. It is a must for competing with business competitors and to top the rankings in search engines. Keyword stuffing pushes the site behind in search engine rankings or chances exist for delisting by search engines. People think that more keywords on a page result in Good ranking but which is not the fact. Keyword density in percentage is based on a combination of number of keywords used and the total number of words used. Keywords should be used optimally it should not be stuffed for the sake of benefits. Keyword stuffing results in penalizing the page by search engines.
Tools like http://www.keyworddensity.com/ and http://www.iwebtool.com/keyword_density can help in calculating your contents’ keyword density.
Keyword proximity:
Keyword proximity indicates how two or more keywords are clubbed to each other. Higher ranking can be achieved if keywords are placed together. If you have keywords close then you have chance that rank are much higher. An SEO ready content is one, which has the right set of keywords, used at appropriate places with proper density and frequency with out stuffing. Thousands of tools are available to select the keyword .How ever it is highly advisable to use the services of an SEO expert to get positive and long lasting results.
Readability:
Readability is the ease with which text can be read and understood. Readability differs form legibility which conveys how easily letter and characters differs from each other .The factors which makes up the idea for readability are visibility of text, perceptibility at a certain distance, speed of perception, Visibility, reflex blink technique. Content should be readable and legible especially when it caters to the diverse audience across the world. The following are the factors that are the building blocks for a site contents readability scores.
Flesch –Kincaid grade:
Flesch –Kincaid reading grade was developed under a contract toUnited Statesnavy for the use of electronic authoring and delivery of technical information. Fk formula was first used to assess the difficulty of technical manuals and after its relevancy is duely approved and hence it became a military standard. In flesch reading case higher score indicates material is easy. Readability test are used extensively in education making easier for parents, teachers, educators and all those who read. FK formula is used in different languages.
Gunning fox index
Gunning fox index is similar along the lines of Fk with the objective to improve readability of English writing. Index estimates the years of formal education needed to understand the text on a first reading .Fog index is used to confirm that the intended audience can exactly read the text. Texts for a wide audience generally deserve an fog index less than 12. Texts requiring a near universal understanding generally need an index less than 8 .Fog index is good sign of hard to read text .All complex words are not difficult .A short word can be very difficult if many people do not use it.
Coleman liau index:
Coleman liau index is a readability test to gauge the understandability of the text .It relies on characters instead of syllable or word. Although opinion varies on its accuracy as compared to the syllable /word and complex word indices. Characters are more readily and accurately counted by computer programs than are syllables.
Syllable based readability indices do not require the character content of words to be analyzed. Only their length in characters. Therefore it could be based in conjunction with simple mechanical scanners that recognize character content of words to be analyzed, only in their characters.
Tools like http://www.read-able.com/ measures your content with the above said metrics and based on the overall score, you can fine-tune your content.
Spell and Grammar check:
Spelling and grammatical mistakes in content are like jet-black dots in a piece of white paper. It will be clearly visible for readers and the impression for them may go bizarre about the website. So, spell check is important for good accessibility, crawl ability, and indexing for search engines. Search engines are providing greater emphasis on spell check. Search engines rank websites higher when they are free of errors. As a result increased traffic is guaranteed. Normally a site with tens of thousands of pages it is hard to spot out the spelling as a result spell check tools are advocated which gives better impression on web site.
Wrongly spelled words and grammer conveys unprofessionalism .The bottom line is to spell check everything without good grammer and spell check your website is not complete.
There are several web-tools, which gives accurate measurement of the grammatical mistakes done.
For instance, http://www.whitesmoke.com/grammar-checker is tool, which clearly points out the grammatical mistakes done in content, and it’s highly advantageous with huge contents, where spotting minor mistakes is as tough writing such another volume of content.
Duplicate content:
Almost all the search engines that users make use of are working on contents of websites. Quality of website’s content definitely is one of the key factors Duplicate content delivery often has a negative impact on sites overall search usability. People search web sites for unique product or idea so that if poor or duplicate content exists chances are that it may affect the sites credibility in terms of usage by end user as well as by search engines. Web pages should be unique by all logic it should be unparallel. Word by word copy is a duplicate content .If difference exists in terms of 30 % content then content is not considered to be replicated one. Plagiarism and duplicate content derails an effective SEO process. But there are several occasions where accidentally content may fall into plagiarism. After all, content is imagination of writers to present their business to readers and the languages having shortage of words, plagiarism may occur often.
Web- tools like http://www.seovalley.com/seo-tools/duplicate-content-checker-tool/ and
http://www.virante.com/seo-tools/duplicate-content.php can detect duplicate content, so that you can modify them for avoiding the negative consequences.
And tools like http://research.ithenticate.com/ can detect duplicate content from top magazines, e-zines, archives and journals, which will make your content 100 % free from any copyright issues from any source.
In a nut shell:
To sum up a SEO ready content should be original, free of spelling errors, grammar errors, and usage of exact key words without stuffing.
Infact, an actual SEO process should be started only after this is done. All the major updates in major search engines are related to content. So day-by-day a website’s content is becoming all the more important as the other SEO factors.
All the above said tools will help to measure and select the right keywords and to match up your business competitors in search engines and now it is the bottom line for sustaining rankings in search engines.
Macronimous Web Solutions, the professional SEO Company offers SEO content writing services along with conventional SEM services. We analyse the contents of each and every website according to their niche and suggest suitable recommendations to make the content and website SEO friendly.