tnweb | Web Development Portfolio

For a majority of websites, most of their web traffic comes from search engines, therefore it is very important to know the right manner in which you can maximize your search engine rankings. Many website owners either neglect or simply are not really familiar with the best SEO practices. Here are six mistakes web developers should avoid when designing and programming their website.

Poor Web design
A website’s graphical design and navigation will affect its ability to retain website visitors and aid them in navigating your website. Search engines take into account a website’s bounce rate when determining its search engine rankings. A website’s design does not merely refer to the graphical element but also its hierachy structure. Search engines like to have URLs that are readable and filled with relevant keywords.

Steer clear from having php queries in URLs- they make it hard for search engine robots to crawl and they don’t do you any favours for the search terms you are trying to rank for. If you want to restrict search bots from accessing any areas of your site- such as error or restricted pages or tell search bots when to index your site remember to include a robots.txt file and a sitemap.xml file.

Overusing Graphics and Animations
Search engine robots navigate through your website’s source code and cannot read the content on graphics or animations. It is a good idea to avoid using an image in situations where a HTML text could be used instead. If you must have an image as a text, in a logo for example, remember to include that text in the ALT and TITLE (for Firefox) tags.

Websites that are primarily built on Flash cannot currently be read by search engine robots, therefore if you decide to incorporate flash into your website you need to make sure you accompany it with some HTML text. Another downside of having a graphics-heavy website is that search engines take into account the loading times of your web pages, which means your website may be penalized for loading too slowly.

Little or no Backlinks
Many websites rely primarily on search engines as their main source of traffic. If you website has little or no backlinks, your website will perform poorly in the search engine rankings. Search engines such as Google rely on mathematical algorithms that determine a site’s pagerank. If your website has many backlinks coming from other websites with a high pagerank, you can expect your website to perform fairly well depending on your competition.

Inproper use of Keywords
Before you input any content into your website, you must first do your research into your niche. Be specfic about what keywords that will suit your website. If your website is about your company or brand, remember to include those keywords that make up the brand or campany name.

You also need to be careful about what keywords you try to target, as some may already have a lot of competition. Try to target keywords that are well searched but have less competition. There are many online research tools to help you with this, one of which is Google’s Keyword Tool.

Insufficient use of HTML and Meta tags
Many website owners underestimate the role that HTML and meta tag play in search engine rankings. The HTML Title tag and Meta Description tag are the two most important on-page optimization techniques to help improve your search engine results page for particular keywords, while also helping visitors know what your site is about from a list of search engine results.

Use keywords in these tags that differentiate different pages from one another. Be selective in the keywords you try to target as this will determine which visitors enter your site.

Lack of New or Unique Content
Search engines like new and unique content. It is not a good idea to include duplicate content in your website as you may be penalized by the search engines. When writing content for you site, keep in mind not only the keywords that are relevant to your website, but also your website’s readers or customers.

Your approach should be that you are writing for your visitors, but also keeping in mind the search engines and keywords. It is always best to write you own content, however, if you choose to hire a writer, be very clear about the style, content and length that you require for your website.

If you have a WordPress blog and don’t know about using permalinks, then I will show you how easy it is to make your URL structure more SEO friendly in just a few short steps.

Firstly login to your administrative backend and look for the Settings header on the left sidebar. Underneath that should be a link to the ‘permalinks’ page. On the page you should see that under ‘Common Settings’, that the ‘default’ option is chosen. The example URL should have some php query at the end of it eg. ?php=123

If that is what your current link structure looks like on your WordPress blog, then I suggest you change it. By using the ‘Custom Structure’ option, you can change your URL structure to something far more SEO friendly. What I suggest you do is change it to /%postname% as shown below:

This will change your URLs to a structure like this:
http://domain.com/post-title for an individual post.

The reasoning behind this is that Search Engines such as Google DO place emphasis on URLs when deciding to rank a particular page for its keywords. So therefore, if you have a URL that includes the post title, then there is a good chance your post title contains keywords that you want to rank for. In turn, the Search Engines take this into account and you will likely rank higher for particular keywords than if you had an unreadable ‘php query’ URL structure.

This is certainly not to say that you should spam your Post titles with keywords, just remember to make them relevant to the content that you are writing about. If you want to take this even further and want to customize your permalink structure even more, then I suggest you check out this page, on the Official WordPress site.

When I first started learning about blogging and using WordPress I really didn’t really know what I was doing or how WordPress allowed me to install plugins that would of made my life so much easier. Now with a little bit more experience using WordPress, here are 5 essential WordPress plugins that will help all you WordPress Newbies kickstart your blogging experience and also a summary of why you should use them.

Before we start, remember that this list is for self-hosted WordPress blogs, not ones that are hosted on WordPress.com, which won’t allow you to install plugins.

1. Akismet – Akismet is essential if you want to protect your site from comment Spam, which is a big problem for many wordpress blogs. You might not think it will be a problem now, but when your site gains more traffic, spambots will also come.
   
   The default WordPress installation will normally come with the Akismet plugin, so there is no need to download the plugin. However you will need to get yourself an API key, which you can get here. You won’t have to pay a thing if you select the ‘personal site’ option down the bottom.
2. WordPress.com stats – Website statistics and visitor tracking is essential for every website, let alone a WordPress blog. One of the most convenient and reliable stats plugins I have ever used is the WordPress.com stats plugin. It provides live real-time statistics of things such as search engine terms, website referrers, top traffic pages and clicks.
   
   The minor inconvenience in installing this plugin is that you will need an API key which you can only get if you sign up for a WordPress.com account. You can sign up here.
   
   If you require more detailed stats such as visitor locations, then I recommend you sign up for a Google account and get Google Analytics. Get the code they provide you and place it in your blog’s footer template.
3. All in one SEO plugin – The All in One SEO plugin is the best WordPress plugin for SEO. It allows you to customize your Meta tags for each and every page and post, control indexing, URLs, error pages and a lot more. By creating this kind of flexibility, you can customize the way your pages appear in search engine results pages and also help you rank higher for particular keywords since your website will become more search engine friendly.
4. Contact Form 7 – In my opinion a Contact page is the most important page on any website. It is the one place where users can have access to you via mail. Sometimes though, it can also be an avenue for a lot of email spam. A simple and flexible solution is the Contact Form 7 plugin.
   
   It will protect your inbox from receiving spam by having a simple CAPTCHA code, while allowing you a lot of flexibility in how you will view your contact messages. I especially like the fact that the contact form incorporates AJAX, allowing on-page feedback. You can also modify the CSS, so your contact form blends in with the rest of your website.
5. YARPP (Yet Another Related Post Plugin) – This plugin allows your blog to show ‘related posts’ at the bottom of every post. This may not seem like a lot but it will improve the interactivity and functionality of your website. Visitors will more than likely click a link to a related post after they have read through your post. You will retain site visitors and decrease bounce rate.
   
   What makes the YARPP plugin the best of its kind is that it is both easy to configure and also extremely flexible. You can control the meaning of a ‘relevant post’ by content, title, tags, categories or even choose to exclude posts based on some of those factors. From there you can then configure how relevant a post needs to be in order to appear as a ‘related post’, based on its ‘YARPP match score’.
   
   You can see this plugin in action on my post about the Flash game, Causality (at the bottom of that post).

To install these plugins or any others, you will simply need to use a FTP client such as FileZilla, unzip the file, and place the plugin folder in this directory:

root directory/wp-content/plugins. The root directory will normally be the public_html folder (For Apache web servers).

If you’re lucky you can also try searching for your plugin on the plugins page (On the Add New link under the Plugins heading) in the WordPress administrative backend. If you can find the plugin you are looking for, then you can install it directly from there without using an FTP client or your web server control panel.

So finally we get to the last game on my list of Top 10 favourite Flash games, and this one is a cracker. Causality is a puzzle point and click game in which you have to kill stickmen (and women) without anyone noticing. To complete each level you have to initiate cause and effect usually in a particular order to kill each stickman successfully (or more than one at a time). There are many ways that the stick people can die as you will see when you play Causality.

Since the original Causality, which has become extremely popular, the creators have made 5(!) more Causality games, which is more than enough to cure your Causality cravings, at least for now:

• Causality
• Causality 2
• Causality 3
• Causality Road Rage
• Causality Halloween Horror
• Causality Turkey Terror

So there it is, my list of top 10 favourite Flash games. Tell me what you think. If you have missed any of the top 10 favourite Flash games posts you can find them all here.

« Previous: It’s Zombie Killing Time! – SAS Zombie Assault

OK this is the penultimate flash game in my list of Top 10 favourite Flash games. I think most people would be happy with this one because a lot of people dream of a zombie apocalypse one day where they will be able to blast the brains out of man-eating zombie with a shotgun. No? Hmmm, maybe that’s just me.

Anywho, this game is a heck of a lot of fun, even though it can get pretty difficult. In the game you play as a SAS soldier who is stuck in an abandoned building, defending himself against man-eating zombies. After each level, (called waves) you get to buy and upgrade weapons and also rebuild barricades.

There’s a sequel to this game – SAS Zombie Assault 2 and also its expansion package, SAS Zombie Assault 2: Insane Asylum. Before you get to those two, try out the original SAS Zombie Assault here.

Prepare to encounter a lot of blood in SAS Zombie Assault, hopefully not yours though.

« Previous: Can you become the Governor of Poker?

For those who love Texas Hold ‘em Poker, you’ll love Governor of Poker. The game is set in the Texas American Western and your goal is to win games of poker to get the money to eventually buy over the town. Out of all the Flash Poker games on the net, Governor of Poker is probably the best and most realistic. You can try out Governor of Poker here.

The flash version is the shortened version of the game, but you can purchase the full version if you want to. Or if you want to keep on playing for free then I suggest you check out Governor of Poker 2. Alternatively, if you want to play Hold ‘em Poker with other people online and with cyber money, then I suggest playing Texas Hold ‘em Poker on Yahoo Games. You’ll need a Yahoo account to play though.

« Previous: Shoot the ropes, not me! – Gibbets

Gibbets is a great Flash game. The idea of the game is that you have innocent people who are hanging by a noose waiting for you to save them. You are kind of like William Tell and have to save these people by shooting the ropes, which can be a little difficult at first and can take some time to get your bearings just right.

The levels get harder and harder and you will have to take time to think about how you would complete them. There’s 30 levels in the original Gibbets, but if you’re good enough and have some free time on your hands then you should try out Gibbets 2 and Gibbets 2 Level Pack.

Be careful not to shoot the innocent people, even though you could be extremely tempted to, just for lols

The Gibbets games are quite lengthy for Flash game standards and require a bit of thinking about physics to complete. But if you’ve just aced it or like games that involve physics, a little bit of brains and have some time on your hands, then give these Flash games a try:

• Flaming Zombooka 2
• Zomblower
• Collapse It
• Soccer Balls

« Previous: Bloons Tower Defense – Dangerously Addictive.

I love Tower Defense games, they can be so much fun and also dangerously addictive. One of the best Tower Defense games is Bloons Tower Defense and its sequels – Bloons Tower Defense 2, 3 and 4. If you haven’t played Tower Defense games before, the idea is simple – You build towers that will defend you against invaders (in this case balloons, or bloons) at the start of each round.

When you begin the round, the invaders will follow the track or pathway to get to the other end. You will lose lives if you let an invader through. Once you lose all your lives, the game ends.

What makes Bloons Tower Defense original and tremendously fun is that your defenders or towers consist largely of monkey controlled shooters. Its a heck of a lot of fun, so check out Bloons Tower Defense and its sequels:

• Bloons Tower Defense
• Bloons Tower Defense 2
• Bloons Tower Defense 3
• Bloons Tower Defense 4

The creators at Bloons have made quite a few spinoff games unrelated to Tower Defense and you can check these out these Flash games and other Tower Defense games @ Gaming-District.com

« Previous: Go ahead and Jump! – Canabalt

OK so I really meant to make this post early considering the 2011 AFL season kicks off in a few short hours with Carlton and Richmond at the MCG. So without a further a due, here are my predictions for the 2011 AFL Premiership season:

Ladder

1. Collingwood
2. Western Bulldogs
3. St Kilda
4. Hawthorn
5. Geelong
6. Fremantle
7. Adelaide
8. Sydney
9. Carlton
10. Essendon
11. Melbourne
12. North Melbourne
13. Port Adelaide
14. West Coast
15. Richmond
16. Gold Coast
17. Brisbane

As much as it pains me to say, Collingwood will win back-to-back flags and my beloved West Coast Eagles will probably finish no higher than 14th. A summer of troubles won’t affect the Saints too much on field, while I think the Bulldogs will again be challenging.

The ‘Buddy’ led Hawks will finish fourth, while Adelaide will be the major improvers led by Kirk Tippett, Taylor Walker and Patrick Dangerfield. Sydney will squeeze into the eight, while Carlton and Essendon will just miss out.

As much as I hate Freo I think they willl comfortably make the eight while the aging Geelong will still be too good for most teams. Melbourne are about 12 months away from making the eight, while Gold Coast and Brisbane will battle it for the coveted wooden spoon and title of the first team to finish 17th.

Grand Final

Grand Final: Collingwood vs Western Bulldogs
Winner: Collingwood
North Smith Medal: Dane Swan

Medals & Awards

Brownlow Medal: A tie between Scott Pendlebury & Brendon Goddard
Coleman Medal: Buddy Franklin
AFLPA MVP: Buddy Franklin
Rising Star: David Swallow (Gold Coast)

Smokies for First time All Australian

Here are a list of players I think could potentially make All-Australian in 2011 for the first time:

• Scott Thompson (Adelaide)
• Taylor Walker (Adelaide)
• Ryan Griffin (Bulldogs)
• Shaun Higgins (Bulldogs)
• Jordan Russell (Carlton)
• Dale Thomas (Collingwood)
• David Mundy (Freo)
• Sam Mitchell (Hawthorn)
• Cyril Rioli (Hawthorn)
• Jack Grimes (Melbourne)
• Liam Jurrah (Melbourne)

Ok thats all for now, as for my predictions for tonight? Carlton by 25 points.

There’s few flash games where all you have to do is press one button for your hero to jump and still be an interesting game. Then there’s Canabalt, the hero from a mysterious city which is falling apart in some kind of apocalypse.

What really makes this game is the the ultra slick background music which sounds like a fusion from the Dark Knight and Inception soundtracks, creating an atmosphere full of danger and suspense. And of course the very cool retro graphics on a platform interface. What do you do when everything is falling around you? Well you might as well JUMP! Check it out here.

If you like retro platform games like Canabalt, but like it where you get to do more than just jump, then you should try Running Man 2 starring the one and only, Arnie.

« Previous: Walk the Line: Line Rider & other Line Games