Local SEO - Do's and Don't in 2016 - #infographic

Would you say SEO or search engine optimization is an art or science?

It is more like science without the guarantee or accuracy of a scientific result. Why?

SEO has so many moving components that work one day may not work well the next.

For example, you may rank well for a given keyword one day and the next month a competitor might outrank you. Google updates, its ranking factors every now and then to make things more unpredictable.

From a local SEO perspective, to rank for local search results, there is definitely a few things you can do to give you the best chance. Maintaining the accuracy and consistency of NAP (Name, Address, and Phone) listings is one such easy win. Getting good customer reviews online and making sure your citations are consistent can all help. Optimizing your on-site SEO elements like, title, URL and images can all increase search rankings and visibility.

Local SEO is about providing unique content that serves the local area. Do not copy, paste content from one page to another and simply change the location for each page. A physical address and a local phone number for the location you are trying to rank can help boost your local SEO efforts.

For more local SEO tips and tricks check out this infographic by the team at AgencyPlatform.com.

by CENT M via Digital Information World

20 Material Design Resources

10 Tips for Reducing the Bounce Rate on Your WordPress Site

A 'Bounce Rate' is simply the percentage of users who visit your site and then navigate away after viewing just a single page.

You can make use of Google Analytics to determine the bounce rate of your site and therefore the percentage of users that are actually clicking away from your site after viewing only one page.

Bounce rate is an important consideration, not only in terms of user engagement and experience, but also SEO. If you're interested in the bounce rate from an SEO perspective, then it’s worth also having a read of The Top WordPress SEO Plugins Reviewed.

Bounce rate is a serious issue for many sites, but there are effective methods which can be employed to reduce it. Below, I’ll show you how to reduce bounce rate on your WordPress site with methods that really work.

Reducing Bounce Rate

Continue reading %10 Tips for Reducing the Bounce Rate on Your WordPress Site%

by Doyin Faith Kasumu via SitePoint

Mastering Save and Load Functionality in Unity 5

Thanks to Vincent Quarles for kindly helping to peer review this article. In this tutorial, we’ll finish the implementation of Save and Load functionality in our game. In the previous tutorial on Saving and Loading Player Game Data in Unity, we successfully saved and loaded player-related data such as statistics and inventory, but now we’ll […]

Continue reading %Mastering Save and Load Functionality in Unity 5%

by Zdravko Jakupec via SitePoint

Make Prototyping Less Painful With These Tips

Ask any software project manager about their project management techniques, and you’ll probably get lean or agile development as the answer. The philosophy that “an imperfect something is better than a perfect nothing” is a great way to get the ball rolling on complex projects, however, it’s also caused many programmers to ignore UX when building the foundations of their products.

UX used to be the divide between designers and developers, however, lean principles enable designers/UX professionals to keep pace with agile development cycles.

Lean Principles for UX Design

At a recent Stanford Igniters meetup, Laura Klein, author of UX for Lean Startups: Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design, gave a presentation on using data to improve product design processes. When you’re prototyping your products, you need to understand the what (quantitative data) and why (qualitative data) of user actions. The best way to develop your product is to create a series of problem solution hypothesis as you’re developing your products.

For example, if customers are leaving your checkout because they can’t find a promo code, you could try removing the field entirely. Why do this? Because you feel it will increase conversions.

Of course, if you’re wrong, this can result in a decrease in sales. By using A/B tests, funnel analysis, and repetitive qualitative analysis, you’ll have a better idea of the direction you should take.

Of course, there are a few limitations to these principals. Namely analyzing data isn’t going to:

• Replace your graphic design team
• Eliminate the importance of user feedback to refine your product
• Tell you what you should be building (i.e. indicate product-market fit)

Stop using wireframes

Back in the days of static websites, (well, slightly after the GeoCities era) wireframes were the definition of rapid prototyping. UX specialists simply sketched out designs, presented them to users, and then adjusted the designs based on user feedback. Over the past few years, web development has gone from simply creating pages in Dreamweaver to creating desktop-like applications which run in the browser.

The biggest drawbacks to wireframes include:

• Ambiguity: Since designers have to describe functionality rather than actually showing it, each user is going to have different interpretations of your product’s functionality.
• Death by documentation: The revision cycles of hand drawn wireframes drag out the design process and can lead to project termination.
• Switching modes: Converting a paper design to a digital layout can lead to unplanned changes. By doing all your work digitally, you can ensure that your proposed design is feasible.

Types of Prototypes

Low Fidelity

When you’re first starting out, low fidelity prototypes enable you to show concepts, design options, screen layouts, and other high-level components of your project. The primary advantages of this process are the emphasis on usability rather you being distracted by bells and whistles. Since the designs are done on paper, they’re easy to create, and you’re able to.

These prototypes can be created by anyone regardless of their technical expertise. Although simple, they allow you to gather precise insights from the target audience rather than you having to play guessing games to find their needs.

High Fidelity

High fidelity prototypes require a bit more time and effort, however, they ensure that different departments are on the same page. The interactivity of these prototypes enables you to have accurate research which isn’t matched by low fidelity prototyping.

Aside from helping with cost estimates, you’ll also be able to spot bottlenecks and user issues before you move too far in your project development processes. Frameworks such as Bootstrap and Origami can help make the process easier.

Improve your prototyping workflow

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Even after your project goes live, you’ll need to ensure your website is always meeting the needs of your visitors. Focus groups and user interviews can only provide a small sample of information. If you’re looking for an accurate picture of your website in action, Google Analytics provides valuable insights. The biggest value add from this process is being able to view user behavior flow across your website.

Whether you’re trying to see why users don’t complete your checkout, or you’re trying to see why conversions are low, Google Analytics can provide the insights you need to improve operations.

Continue reading %Make Prototyping Less Painful With These Tips%

by Charles Costa via SitePoint

How to Consume Laravel API with AngularJS

In part 1, we built our server part. Now we can build our client. We are going to use AngularJS to make a Single Page Application. We will use a very basic bootstrap template, built on the fly.

Planning

Our application will be made up of three screens.

• Login Screen: a simple login screen. The user will insert their email and password. If something goes wrong, an error will be shown. Otherwise, the user will be redirected to the Main Screen. They will also be able to click on a “Signup” link, to open the Signup Screen;
• Signup Screen: a simple signup screen, used to create a new account in the application. After specifying all the required data, the user will automatically log in;
• Main Screen: the main application screen. From here, the user will be able to get a list of their books, add new titles, and update and remove the existing ones;

Preparing a Basic Frontend Work Environment

We need to plan where we are placing our app. We can do as we like, but for this article series and for the sake of continuation, a very simple and “integrated” setup will do.

First we’ll create a basic Laravel Blade view, named index.blade.php, that will “host” the app. Frontend dependencies will be handled by Bower, which is already included in Homestead Improved. Another good reason to switch to VMs, if you have not already done so.

Let’s prepare our basic view. In the terminal, we go to the public folder of the project and type, in sequence:

bower install jquery bootstrap angular angular-route angular-local-storage restangular

Continue reading %How to Consume Laravel API with AngularJS%

by Francesco Malatesta via SitePoint

iOS Universal Links for a Seamless App User Experience

One of the more interesting features introduced with iOS 9 was Universal Links. Supporting this feature in your app allows any links to content on the web to be seamlessly opened in the app itself. If it isn’t present on the device, the system falls back to using Safari to open the link.

This is great for a variety of reasons :

• You don’t have to worry about URI schemes and documenting the supported routes/paths.
• It’s secure, because Apple requires the upload of a configuration file to your server (more on this later). Since you have control over this, there is little chance another app can associate itself with your links.
• The same link that routes to your web content can be used and parsed on your app. This makes sharing content easier.
• The fallback just works, which means you don’t have to worry about situations where the app might not be installed.

Continue reading %iOS Universal Links for a Seamless App User Experience%

by Arvindh Sukumar via SitePoint