Optimizing the pages of your website: SEO "on-site."

To be properly referenced, it is necessary that each of your pages is optimized.

The title of the page or article must be clear

When a user arrives on your page, he must be able to understand what you want to put forward quickly: place the keywords in the title of the page or in the title of the article (if it is a blog post).

Meta tag description for each page

The Meta description tag is the description below the URL that appears in the search results pages. The Meta tag description of each page must be different! After all, it makes sense: Each page you create on your site is topic specific and different from others.

URLs worked

Just like Meta description tags and for the same reasons mentioned above, every page of your site must have a short and understandable URL, which includes the keyword you took care to select.

Alt-text images

Since some web robots are not yet able to analyze visual content, the alt-text tag (short for "Textual Alternative"), as the name implies, is there to tell the browser what is in the package. The image to facilitate the analysis of the page by Google "spiders."

Make your site "Responsive.”

That is to say adaptable to all devices (tablet, PC ...) and all browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.), and Mobile-friendly. Google penalizes since 2016 sites that are not readable on a smartphone. We advise you to remedy if this is not already the case!

Secure

Google takes into account, in its many SEO criteria, sites that are secure. This is known as HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) protocol, which is the encrypted and secure version of the HTTP. This protocol, symbolized by a lock in the URL, secures the confidentiality of data during an exchange of data between the user and the site via your computer. It allows, for example, to pay securely on an e-commerce site or to have the authentication that you give your information to the correct site and that they are secure.

5 tips to optimize your working relationship with your web developer

We ask a lot of Web developers. It is not a simple task to create a functional website from scratch, and we do not always make it easy for them. When we create difficult conditions or make unrealistic demands, we make it less likely that they will be bright to give us what we need.

If you hope to improve your working relationship with your web developers, and better equip them for the mission at hand, we have some tips that could help you optimize your working relationship with a website developer.

Development and design are not identical

The rapports "web designer" and "web developer" are often used interchangeably, whereas they should not. Designers and developers fulfill two very different roles, and they require very different sets of skills. Web designers are similar to graphic designers: they create the appearance of the site. They are often responsible for implementing the user interface (UI) and, in general, they create a static picture of what the site will look like.

To conceive first, to develop in the second time

Many project managers and contractors have wasted time and effort of a developer by not respecting this maxim. It is important to have a concrete idea of what you need so that your site can be coded accordingly by the developer. If you have not implemented this design, it will be a lot of back and forth in exchanges with your developer and lost time for all.

Imagine for an instant that instead of building a website, you were building a physical store. If you say to the builder halfway through the project “Why is it tile? I wanted wood “or” You know, I think we would need a second bathroom “You will seriously upset the craftsmen, it will have to undo all the work already done. So it will be easier for the developer to do everything.

The misdeeds of Scope Creep

The Creep Scope is evoked when features or requirements are added to a project that is already running. This increases the workload that must be done to complete the project. This is a common problem for developers because few people understand what needs to be done to add features after the fact.

If you want to optimize your relationship with your developer, you must be alert to this problem and work to avoid it.In any case, make sure that you and your developer are on the same wavelength, and have a clear empathetic of what is expected, to avoid wasting time and effort.

The deadlines of the project may vary

No matter how simple the project is. Any construction takes time and effort. And since you probably do not know how to code your project yourself, it's best to leave the timeline estimate to the professionals. That said, here are a few things you can do to speed up the schedule.

Coders, computer operator, and developers often talk about a zero-sum game played with three variables: release date, feature set, and development resources. If you want to modify an adjustable, you must modify the others appropriately.

The developer may not agree with you

Finally, you must be aware that because you are a human being, you are inclined to have ideas. And, for the same reason, all these ideas will not be good. From time to time, you may encounter disagreements between you and your developers. This often happens because you have suggested a feature or design element that goes against industry best practices. Get ready to accept that they know more than you about building a website and know how to implement your ideas. Respect their expertise to achieve a true relationship of trust.

Startup Weekend: 10 tips for web developers

Prepare your work environment

Think about the techno you will use (especially if you are a project developer). Install/configure everything you need, so you do not have to do it during the weekend.

Take a tour of the table to know the level and skills of each

From Friday night, it is important to know each other's skills to make good techno choices and best dispatcher tasks. Indeed, it would be a mistake, for example, to save the data on MongoDB when no one has used it and that a good old Postgres database or MySQL would have done very well.

Work agile

From the beginning, draw on a flipchart a 4-column chart (backlog, to-do, and current, done). As soon as someone has an idea, he writes his idea on a post-it (breaking it down if it is too complex or too vague) and sticks it in the backlog. Whenever you make a point (every 3-4 hours), choose the highest priority ideas (based on their complexity and business value) and put in the to-do column. Then, as soon as a developer starts a task, he moves it to current. Finally, you will understand, when the task is finished, the post-it goes into done.

48h is very short, take care to always work on the highest priority tasks. Also be sure always to have a few tasks running at the same time.

Always think about congratulating someone who finishes a task, who has a good idea ... This is mainly what will keep motivation during the weekend!

Deploy regularly

In order not to be caught off watch 5 min before the end, I advise you to deploy the application (every 3-4h) regularly. This allows non-dev to test the app, to go up a bug, new features...

Keep the focus on dev

Try as much as you can to concentration on development. Do not worry about doing the design if you do not have a designer, buy a design on Theme Forest; it will do the trick. Do not worry about the admin sys if it's not necessary, deploy your application using PaaS. Also do not be afraid to create techno debt (for example, by failing to do tests if it is relevant), you can correct the code the following week.

There is a service for everything

Feel free to spend a few euros in a service that can save you valuable time. Here are some services to know:

•          Hop toad: collects errors that occur on your application (Rails, iOS, PHP, Java, .net ...) and aggregates them for easy consultation
•          Pusher: Real-time push on a web application through Web Sockets
•          Radis To Go: accommodation Radis
•          Send grid: sending email
•          Webstore: full-text search based on Solar

Stay efficient and fit

•          Take breaks regularly
•          Feel free to take a nap if you're tired
•          Set up peer-programming at least for complex tasks

If you are a Rails developer

Use Rails Wizard

Rails Wizard allows generating the code of a Rails application with some essential gems. You can choose the gems that you want to integrate according to your habits and needs. This will save you a few minutes.

Code version with getting

It has become a standard for many devs in Rails. Get is also essential if you want to deploy on services like Hurok.

Deploy on Hurok (if possible)

Hurok allows you to unload the system administration part completely. You push on the Get of your Hurok project, and presto, the application unfolds. Best of all, the uncomplicated version is free ;)

Since Hurok provided a Get repository for deployment, you will not even need to create a GitHub or other get to work in a team. For example, work in a dev branch and pushes on the master branch whenever you want to deploy.

If Hurok is too restrictive for you, look for solutions like Engine Yard, Dot cloud ...

There is a gem for everything

Avoid at all costs to reinvent the wheel. If you develop some pretty classic things, have the reflex to look at Ruby gems if there is not a gem that does that very well. There are nearly 22,000 available gems you should find what you need quite often.

The 3 basic elements of a good SEO

Although the web marketing business has been evolving for the last few years, some things remain relevant to search engine optimization.

It is from this perspective that it may be relevant to remember, from time to time, the most important aspects of SEO.

Now are the main points to remember if you want to implement an effective SEO strategy even today.

1. The accessibility of the website

To be visible, or invisible, in the eyes of Google and another modern computer programme, it is essential to incorporate the robots. Text protocol on its website.

In short, this protocol comes to tell the different engines which crawlers can scan pages.

It must imperatively be placed at the root of the site to be respected by the robots.

In this lineage, it's good to take a look at the 404 error pages on a regular basis on the Google Webmaster Tools and make the necessary redirects to avoid them.

The guideline associated with these elements is an effective transfer of the link juice between the pages of a site as well as the classification thereof.

2. The structure of the website

The structure of an Internet site goes through three major points: the protocols, the tags and the mesh of internal links.

These points are used to improve the navigation of a site by users, but also for search engines.

The mesh of internal links must be done keeping in mind that a visitor must find the page he wants in just 3 clicks.

This means that you must protect yourself from a hierarchy of pages by sorting them, for example, by subject, and then creating an optimized navigation menu.

Among the most influential tags on SEO, we find the title tag and the description tag. These must give a clear overview of the content of the page.

These two tags have specific objectives, that of improving the referencing of the pages of a site and that of encouraging users to click on the page.

The best-known protocol is probably the Sitemaps which keeps a list of all the URLs of a site and their basic information. The Sitemap should be placed at the root of the site.

3. Optimization of the internal pages of the website

The last, but not least, element is the optimization of the internal pages. To do this, it is important to identify the sector of activity and the keywords associated with it.

You could use the keyword research tools to make it much easier for you.

These will show you the most popular topics on the web related to your industry.

Later, you'll want to create not only relevant pages related to your business but also add unique textual content to your main topic.

It is often enough for a few sentences in which we find a mix between long-tail keywords and more generic keywords that you have selected.