Macronimous Web Design

Our popular E-Book Practical Search Engine optimization techniques is launched for the iPod Touch/iPhones. You can carry this simple iBook  in your iPhones and use it as quick reference. Its available at iTunes to download now.

1. Validate HTML

W3C provides HTML validations, which checks the validity of HTML, XHTML etc.

http://validator.w3.org/

2. Validate your CSS

You should use W3C’s CSS validator tool to validte your style sheets.

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

3. Validate site links

Check broken links across the site with W3C’s Link checker tool

http://validator.w3.org/checklink

4. Cross browser compatibility

Check the site on multiple browsers with this tool (You may not have a MAC, but you can you can test the site Mac Safari

http://spoon.net/browsers/

Even if its a simple static site, do them to make the site perfect.

What is Keyword cloud?

Keyword cloud represents most used keywords in a site visually, by showing it in different font sizes and it is known to be a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) term. It differs from larger to smaller in font sizes. Keyword that has been used more around the site and blog, which we call as keyword density, are shown in larger fonts. According to the keyword density the font size varies from larger to smaller. On looking at the keyword cloud size variation, users can see the importance of the keywords that relates to web site or a blog.

Benefits of keyword cloud

Keyword cloud is benefited to find relevant and useful web pages for user who looks for certain information. 

By using the keyword cloud, popular words (density rich words) are shown and it is as well clickable for users. When users find a keyword listed in keyword cloud useful then he will be going for a click on the particular keyword and he will be taken to the category search results page were all pages or blog posts will be listed related to the tagged keyword.

Make sure the keywords in the cloud section are not overlapped and ugly. Have it in a place were users could find it easily. The better option is to have it in the side bar of a site or blog. 

Keyword cloud generators

Here is a site that helps to generate a keyword cloud by mentioning your web link.

http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-cloud/

WordPress Keyword Cloud generator plugin

The below WordPress plugin helps you to install keyword cloud to your blog or site

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/resize-tag-cloud/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/keywords-cloud-for-wordpress/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-tagging-plugin/screenshots/

How Keyword cloud will look like?

If you find any other interesting information about Keyword cloud, you may share through comments.

Codeigniter is an open source web application framework for building dynamic websites with programming language PHP. Its main aim is to facilitate the developers to develop projects much faster than writing code from the scratch. If you are a developer who want to meet the clients’ deadline and tired of tediously large and painstakingly undocumented frameworks, Codeigniter is the way to go. When compared to other PHP frameworks, Codeigniter is often distinguished for its speed.

CodeIgniter

Now is the real time to know about the power of Codeigniter. So ignite yourself and initiate reading to know why you want to choose Codeigniter. It will suit if:

• You require a framework which can be set up very quickly and efficiently.
• You need an outstanding performance.
• You are a developer who needs methodical and clear documentation.
• You need a framework that does not call for sticking on to restrictive coding rules.
• You want a framework that needs nearly zero configuration.
• You need a framework which is compatible with many environments

Some of our developers always prefer to use  CodeIgniter, write me if you want to see some samples and know why they used CodeIgniter. If you want to start using CodeIgniter start right here at: http://codeigniter.com/

3. Frameworks we like: 2. CakePHP and why?

2. PHP Frameworks we like 1. Zend and why?

1. PHP Frameworks we like

Netbeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is an open source integrated development for software developers. You can run the Netbeans IDE on various platforms which include Linux, Windows, Solaris and MacOs. It is aimed at providing a comfortable environment for the developer during each stage of development. This is accomplished by integrating precise features required for PHP development into the Netbeans IDE.

As most PHP projects characteristically connect to MySQL databases, Netbeans has made a concentrated effort to offer to this configuration. By means of the Netbeans IDE 6.5 Beta, web developers can now benefit from the standard features like the syntax highlighting, refactoring, code templates, pop-up documentation, easy code navigation, debugger and lots more.

I have been currently using Netbeans IDE and I have penned down few features and positives that I came across in writing PHP based web application.

• It comes free.
• Netbeans will go along with PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Java and lots more.
• Indentation format is out of the top draw in Netbeans. You select a block of code which contains css, html or php code, Netbeans will make sure it formats the code evidently and placed indentation adequately.
• Common functions of PHP are shown automatically or you can use ctrl + space.
• While writing HTML, Netbeans ensures it checks the div id properly and it indicates if there is any hitch so that you can easily fix the bug.

I can stiff my neck out and say it’s the most popular IDE and also the most popular. So I would give an overall score of 8 out of 10 for Netbeans IDE.

Symfony a web application written in PHP as per the Model-View-Controller (MVC) standards launched by Sensio Labs during 2005. It is aimed to give developers full authority over the configuration. Symfony also looks to up the tempo of creation and maintenance of web applications and to reduce the recurring coding tasks. More or less a whole lot from the directory structure to foreign libraries could be customized.

The symfony templating component is a flexible layer on top of PHP which provides you simple yet influential features that covers most familiar templating needs. One of the objectives of symfony templating component is to be as fast as possible. It comes as a tool which is very easy to use with just a single archive to download and that’s it, you are ready to be on the go.

You might ask me the next question, what is the exact need for any framework in PHP? PHP was supposed to be meant as a fast web based programming language. The ever escalating popularity of Open Source Technology today has given away to the position of PHP in web community.

Given this condition why do you need a Symfony? Why a framework in the first place? Let us see how the Symfony framework is going to benefit the customer and as well as the developer.

Benefits of Symfony Framework for Customers

• Released under MIT open source license, the Symfony framework comes as free software and you can use it for any commercial purposes.
• Symfony Framework is independent of database due to the ORM layer “Propel” or “Doctrine”.
• Use of tested code and also less lines of code which always results in less chance of bugs and also it will minimize your cost.
• Web applications are very easy to modify later on because of the clear Model View Controller (MVC) structure that separates application into separated layers.
• Swift developments of a custom-made website build on proven methods and principles.

Benefits of Symfony Framework for Developers

• All codes are object oriented and entirely in PHP5.
• You will gain plenty of time in the overall development process and get improved maintainable and testable code.
• Very appropriate for development methodologies like XP.
• Advanced cache system which includes file cache, apc cache, mem cache and few others.
• Offers tools to make use of every useful best-practice accessible on the web today.

Initially when I came across this Symfony software, found it really overwhelming and appeared a big step. But the structure of the framework and also because of the consistency of Application Programming Interface (API), the documentation provided was really wonderful.

I must admit that ever since we started using Symfony, we haven’t looked back.

3. Frameworks we like: 2. CakePHP and why?

2. PHP Frameworks we like 1. Zend and why?

1. PHP Frameworks we like

Doing Unit testing is helps a team to produce quality application with in time by allowing the developer to test the code as soon as they write it. By developing a test document, developers are forced to do rigorous testing before it reaches to QA team. This way the span of life cycle is reduced by avoiding it going back and forth between the developer and the tester. The following few Frameworks help teams to do unit testing efficiently. This way unit testing could become a fun to your developers too.

Four Frameworks to perform unit testing in PHP are

1. SimpleTest

2. PHPUnit

3. phpt

4. SnapTest

SimpleTest:

It’s a Open souce unit test framework created by Marcus Baker for PHP. The test structure in SimpleTest is similar to the Junit and PHPUnit.  It contains all of the typical functions in Junit and PHPunit and also includes Mock objects. Simplte Test helps to automate the web application’s regression testing. Regression testing on web applications can be done by parsing the HTML page by using scrpitable HTTP client for simulations like Form submission and clicking on Hyperlinks. Some of the JWebUnit functionalities like web page navigation, cookie testing and form submission are also incorporated in this.

Download and test your version of Simple test.

PHPUnit:

PHP Unit is a part of xUnit family, which has testing frameworks in it. It provides a framework that helps in creating the test scripts easily and also the functionality to execute the tests and then analyze the results. The tests are arranged into cases in PHPUnit, which is very similar to Simple Test. A case is essentially a class in which public methods are singular independent tests.  A test name starts with “test” if the test is a public method. Any test, which is not, a public method will not be taken into account unless interpreted as a test under PHPUnit.  Helper methods are very useful for recurring tasks. If used Helper methods to set up a test, the test will be considered as a separate test by the framework. Refrence to assert methods are present inside each and every test. An assertion is mainly taking an expected value and then comparing it with an actual value. If the expected value does not match the actual value, then the test fails. Mock Objects are hugely important component in maintaining a unit test’s segregation from all other classes and resources except the one under test.

The following link will assist you to get more idea on PHPUnit.

PHPT:

A phpt test is a small script, which used by the php internal and quality assurance teams for testing PHP’s functionalities. Writing phpt tests helps to make PHP more stable. For writing up a phpt test, we need a basic knowledge on PHP language, a text editor and a method to get the results of the code.  Phpt test is used in following scenario: The run-tests.php scripts call the test and it takes different parts of phpt file to name and to create a .php file. The newly created .php file is executed and the output of the same is compared with different sections of a phpt file. The Test pass only when the output of the script “matches” with the output provided in the phpt script.  Phpt test will do the following: It tries and breaks the PHP functions. PHPT test check the functions normal parameters as well as edge cases.

More on Phpt

SnapTest:

The most powerful unit-testing framework for PHP 5+ is SnapTest.  PHP’s runtime language is the only one of its kind that can be used to make the unit test process simpler without sacrificing the agility tests. The philosophy on which the Snap Test was build: Unit testing should be transparent in Snap Test. Complexity of test harness and coding out stub files should be avoided in Snap Test. The obstacle in writing tests should be very less so that it becomes easier to write the tests than writing the code.

Features of the SnapTest are:

• JUnit Compliant Test Harness

• TAP Compliant Test Output

• Runnable from Command Line via .sh or .php scripts

• Full support for mock objects at runtime (minimum parallel structures) as actors and critics

• Extensible add-on system for adapting SnapTest to just about any developer environment

Here you go for:  SnapTest

Let me know if you are familiar with other frameworks.

Day-to-Day we see lot of SEO tools in web and many people would have missed useful SEO tools that are not marketed well. Here are four SEO tools that you would have missed and you would be interested to use.

Keyword frequency analysis (single words, two and three words)

The tool helps to pick top 10 keywords in-group of single, double and three word keyword phrases from title, Meta description, Meta keyword and ALT-attributes. This tool can be used to find competitors on-page optimization work related to keyword phrases tags.

http://oyoy.eu/page/keywords/

Search engine SPAM detector

The tool analysis and finds whether a webpage has followed keyword stuffing, doorway farms, hidden text through JavaScript or by CSS. This tool can be used to find web page aspects that search engines could consider as spam.

http://tool.motoricerca.info/spam-detector/

Backlinks Checker Tool – Backlinks Watch

The tool helps for the best to find everything related to inbound links and covers anchor text, backlinks quality plus limitations with nofollow tag and inbound links Page rank.

http://www.backlinkwatch.com/

Keyword mapping tool

The Keyword Map tool shows the relation between search terms / keywords in graphic with good interface for easier understanding on choosing the right combination of keywords.

http://www.kwmap.com/

1. Ajax powered WordPress Themes:

Alisha provides a list of Ajax powered WordPress themes. You may want to try one or more.Some of them are good, Some are limted with one or two features like search. Some not found. But worth a look if you plan to use Ajax in your templates.

http://www.softtechreviews.com/web-design/ajax-enabled-wordpress-themes/

2. Ajaxed WordPress

This is a WordPress plugin which adds power, usability and the beauty of AJAX to WordPress based blogs and WordPress based websites. The plugin improves the user experience, the administration capabilities and the design potential or the blog/site.

http://ajaxedwp.com/#awp::

3. Ajax for WordPress plugin developers

So how about writing your own WordPress plugins with Ajax? WordPress codex helps you to begin: http://codex.wordpress.org/AJAX_in_Plugins

4. Four Ajax WordPress plugins

Finally, here are four plugins discussed. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9574 This should help you to get more ideas to start.

Looking for tools around?  Do you know that Google offers various handy tools that would help you to maximize your site visibility and drive more leads to your site?

Here some top Google tools to increase your sales conversion and ROI

1. Google Search suggest

When you type your business services or products words, Google suggest estimate what you type forth and the words listed are most searched terms. By this you can find the users search terms and compare with your site theme and go on with on page optimization. As well it do help for off page optimization by getting down the suggestion of most searched directory keywords.

2. Google alerts

Make use of Alerts to keep track on you competitor activities or industry or getting latest stories on specified key phrases through an email

3. Google Trends

Compare two or more terms to find out the search volume on a daily bases that are typed into Google’s search-box. The search popularity will be shown in charts and it is easy to find the difference on term search volume

4. Google Adwords keywords

The tool helps to get new keyword ideas and as well you can type your website URL so that Google lists out the search keywords related to your business services or products

5. Google Analytics

This is a web analytics solution offered by Google for free. It give you an insight on you site traffic and goal conversions. There are several options to track down your daily site visits / page views, keywords search visits, Geo, top contents visited, Goal tracking and many more

6. Google Web master tools

This tool helps you to find how Google see your WebPages. You can configure your sitemap about the page to be indexed and all about robots.txt. As well you can track total number of internal and external links, query traffic and diagnose problems if any

7. Search-based Keyword Tool

Using this tool you can get keyword ideas based on specific pages of your site and the keywords listed are from Google search queries

8. Google Insights for Search

This tool helps to compare search volume across categories, geographic distribution and Properties

9. Google Traffic Estimator Tools

Get quick traffic estimates for search keywords related to target location and bid amount without logging into adwords account

10. Google Website Optimizer Tool

This tool helps you to improve your existing web pages and traffic by testing your site content and design in relation with users performance.

These free tools are more of a pack from Google and hope you should have got an idea of these tools and how the tools can be used for your business growth exercise