Blog

Improvement of Database Class & Code

Posted 27th April 2012 | Category: Web Development |

Security is of huge importance to us, which is one of the reasons we recently undertook a large upgrade of our framework to incorporate several extra security enhancements. This involved a wholesale review of the code and a lot of meetings to come up with the best way forward. We decided to move entirely to a class-based framework which has led to many varied improvements, some of which are explained below.

The class framework itself

We originally created our own code framework to afford us total control, flexibility and knowledge of every detail. As we offer bespoke website development this allows us to amend it to suit our clients’ needs easily and with no wasted effort. When it came to moving to a class-based framework there was no question of adopting a third party solution, so we decided to migrate the best bits of our old system to a pure Object Oriented framework whilst rewriting the remaining code from the ground up.

Initially this was quite a commitment for us in terms of time, but the investment has paid off and we are recouping time as bug fixing is reduced and code re-use significantly increased. This allows us to pass development savings onto our clients and to significantly cut development timescales. Essentially, our class-based code makes it a lot easier to build functionality once and then re-use it multiple times in several different scenarios with limited changes. Read more...

5 steps to pay-per-click (PPC) success

Posted 21st March 2012 | Category: Web Marketing |

So you've tried Google Adwords, written a few keywords and an advert, spent £50 or £100 or even £1000 and got nothing for it. Sound familiar? People often tell us Adwords doesn't work, but the harsh reality is you're probably doing it wrong.

Managed right, pay-per-click advertising is the perfect form of marketing because it appears at exactly the time your potential customer is looking for your service, and you only pay when someone looks at your website. The problem with Google Adwords is it's just too easy to use, and too easy to get wrong, but with these 5 simple pay-per-click tips you can make it work for almost any business.

1. Check the real search terms

Google does not just show your adverts to people putting the exact keywords you specify. It will also show it to people using words that have a similar meaning, or sentences that include the keyword within a different context. For example you might be advertising web design services and paying for people who are searching for web design jobs. Read more...

PHP Cookies Crumble

Posted 9th March 2012 | Category: Web Development |

We have recently updated our security and user log in code which meant updating a few pieces of cookie related PHP. In doing so, we came across a couple of minor anamolies that would have saved us a lot of time and frustration if we had been aware of them.

#1 - setcookie vs session_set_cookie_params parameter differences

The two function calls defined below on first glance appear very similar indeed. In fact if you ignore the first two parameters of the setcookie function they seem to all intents and purposes to be pretty much identical.

void session_set_cookie_params ( int $lifetime [, string $path [, string $domain [, bool $secure = false [, bool $httponly = false ]]]] ) Read more...

How to detect user scrolling behaviour with JavaScript

Posted 16th February 2012 | Category: Web Development |

Tracking user behaviour can help you tailor your website to users' needs and keep them on your site. We've developed a script to track how far down a page a user scrolls before navigating away from that page, which should be especially useful for websites with longer pages. If for example you found that hardly any users actually scrolled to the very bottom of your web page you may then decide to either condense your content or adjust it so more users are likely to view it.

What skills do I need to apply scroll detection?

• JavaScript
• MooTools framework
• PHP
• MySQL
• CSS
• HTML
• AJAX

What do I need to start tracking user scroll behaviour?

Before we start you will need to grab hold of the MooTools JavaScript framework Core and More files, the Date Picker files and the scroll tracking files which can be found here: Scroll Detection Files Read more...

Review your own SEO

Posted 12th January 2012 | Category: Web Marketing |

If you want to get more visitors from search engines but don't know where to start, we can help you find the opportunities for improvement. We also provide a free website review if you want us to do the work. This article will help you to make your website more relevant for search terms, increase links to your website, and improve the conversion of visitors to customers.

SEO (search engine optimisation) Review: Get the right search terms

When someone searches for your product or service online, your position is partly based on how that search term is used on your web pages. This is not just a case of including lots of search terms in every page, but making each page relevant for a particular search term or subject.

To get started, search Google for "site:www.yourdomain.com" and ask yourself: Read more...