News - The latest on Web Development, Joomla and SEO

Introducing SiteBuilder

2009-01-25T02:42:21Z

Salt River Graphics is proud to announce SiteBuilder, an online website builder with a content management syatem designed for those who need a quick and simple way to create and edit the pages on their website.

You don't need to download any software, so you can use any computer with internet access to control your content.

We're conviced that when you see how easy SiteBuilder is to use, you will want to sign up for a permanent account.

The Elevator Pitch

2009-01-25T02:40:29Z

This is from Marketing 101. Whatever it is you're trying to sell and no matter who you're trying to sell it to, you need to have a short description of your product or service that highlights the best features you have to offer. The term "Elevator Pitch" comes from the the amount of time you would have were you to share an elevator ride with a prospective client. Fifteen seconds would be the maximum time, and even then, its a long ride.

Here's and example:

HungryVermont.com is Restaurant Search Engine for the State of Vermont. We offer restaurants free listings and control over their information. Paying Restaurants get top placement in our search results and also get searchable menu items, which can be updated at will with our Menu Management System.

Random PHP Lesson 2

2009-01-25T02:37:18Z

READING INPUT FROM A FORM

$_POST

That's your new best friend (unless you use the GET method).

Let's assume that somebody has entered some text into a form you created on your initial HTML page, and that you named the 2 text fields "name" and "email".

The PHP page that is defined in the action of the form can print this info with this code:

echo "Hello $_POST[name]
";
echo "Your address is $_POST[email]";

Pretty simple. What's going on here is that when you send info in a form using the POST method, the information is stored in the $_POST SUPERGLOBAL, which in essence is really an associative array. There are two KEYS (name, email) and each one has one VALUE (Bob, eatme@aol.com). When the submit button was hit, the "action" told the server to go to the PHP page. Tagging along for the ride, is a little package called $_POST. When $_POST lands on the PHP page, you can ask him about the KEYS he has. He'll tell you the values associated with them. From there you can use them how you like. You could even have them be the default value of a text field in an additional form.

Random PHP Lesson 1

2009-01-25T02:34:56Z

CONVERTING CASE

Sometimes the entries in a database can be a little sloppy and inconsistent. One easy way to correct some of these mistakes is to control the case of the letters and words. Here are some of the common PHP functions used for this purpose:

strtoupper ( ) - converts all letters to upper case
strtolower ( ) - converts all letters to lower case
ucwords ( ) - Converts All The First Letters To Upper Case
ucfirst ( ) - Converts only the first letter of the string to upper case.

These can be used in combination like this:

$full_name = "THUSton HoweLL";
$full_name = ucwords(strlower($full_name));
echo $full_name;

prints: Thurston Howell

SEO with SRG

2008-12-28T20:34:25Z

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Simply put, it's optimizing your website to come out on the top of the lists of the major search engines when people search for something you provide. Whether it's information, products or services you provide the public, you want to increase your visibility. Good SEO dramatically increases traffic on your website and is much more cost efficient than traditional advertising. Even if you don't sell anything on your website, brand recognition alone makes SEO a smart business decision.

How Does SRG Do SEO?

The first thing that needs to be established is the target audience. Narrowing your target audience is a necessary step to make sure you are seen on the top of a very long list. Different sections or pages of your website can focus on different target audiences so there is no need to try to reach everybody with every page.

The second part is finding your keywords. Once we have established your target audience(s) and have some idea what they might find useful about your website, we can build your keyword list. When we have our list, we start checking out your competition...who's currently on, or near the top of the lists.

The next few things that we do depends in large part on the mission of the website. Whether it's commercial, informational or personal, dictates a great deal of the process. Plus I don't want to give away any trade secrets.

Do You Have An Example of SRG SEO?

Search for these on your favorite search engine:

burlington vt restaurants, burlington vt dining, brattleboro vt dining, montpelier vt restaurants, etc...

You most likely saw HungryVT.com and HungryBurlington.com on top or near the top.