Latest Requirements to Address SEO Problems

Some of the newest sophisticated requirements to address some SEOs complexities are listed below.

1.    Geotargeting - SEOs today need tools for geotargeting a Web site that help them overcome localization. Geotargeting refers to optimizing a site for local search so that it’s included in search results when users in a specific geographic location query its keywords. Localization is the norm now; you don’t even have to be signed in to Google to observe local search in action. If you query [drug rehab], for example, Google delivers local drug rehabilitation services within your geographic area. So if you’re trying to optimize a drug rehab Web site for a particular market area, how would you know whether the site is ranking in local searches without buying a plane ticket and going there yourself? You’d need a tool that lets you run a proxy search, so that no matter where you’re physically located, you can search as if you are in some other specified place. With a proxy search tool, you could be in California and run a search from Philadelphia, or even from another country like New Zealand or Peru. 

2.    Search engine choice - Google dominates the search market in the U.S., so SEOs typically focus their efforts on optimizing domestic Web sites for Google. But Google isn’t the only game in town. Especially when serving international clients, optimizing for the appropriate search engine, the one that’s most popular with the target audience, is critical. And there are literally hundreds of reputable search engines around the globe. Busy SEOs could use a way to switch from one engine to another efficiently, without having to navigate to separate URLs and open new tabs each time. 

3.    Browser/platform independence - Most of the plug-ins and other applications designed for search engine optimization are built for the Mozilla Firefox browser. But that creates an obstacle when you’re working with clients who only use Microsoft Internet Explorer. It’s difficult to show them your findings if they can’t see what you see. SEOs today need the flexibility of working in either Firefox or IE. For that matter, they need platform independence, too: the ideal tool should work just as well on a Macintosh computer as on a PC.

4.    Multi-language capability - Can your SEO tools produce reports in any language other than English? Probably not. But as Internet marketing becomes increasingly globalized, the need for multi-language support grows. Imagine using a tool that could present its interface in the language the user’s computer was set to by default. The language barrier would be gone, and anyone could use it. The ideal SEO tool would also output reports in multiple languages. You could run a report and view it in English while your client in Argentina viewed the same report in Spanish, and their business partner in Japan could be on the same phone call viewing it in Japanese.  

5.    On-page convenience - SEOs today are constantly juggling tasks. When they’re not tweaking Web pages directly, they’re running reports, viewing reports, building spreadsheets, reading RSS feeds, researching the latest developments, keeping up with social media buzz, posting tweets and comments, and more. One thing that helps their productivity is having their SEO tools and statistics at their fingertips while they work. As they run searches, it is helpful to see keyword statistics such as daily activity, demographics and cost per click right there, without leaving the search engine results page. Viewed results should present PageRank values, backlink counts, and other actionable data at a glance. As they move from Web page to Web page, site data should display in the browser, so they don’t have to go someplace else to find it.

Quoted from  Retooling the SEO Tool Belt| Changing search engine methods require updated SEO tools

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How to become a better Drupal developer in 5 steps

The purpose of this post is to provide a little bit of guidance to those Drupal developers who maybe are just beginning, or are at least still in the overwhelmed learning stages. The first thing I want to say, is that learning Drupal (at least for me) was not something that I considered to be easy. I was not at all accustomed to the idea of using hooks so it initially took me some time to learn how to develop for Drupal the right way. Let’s get started.

1. Resources are everything

Before undertaking any major journey, it is important that you have the right tools. You wouldn't try to fix a car without a set of wrenches, you wouldn't try to run a large company without advisors, and you definitely wouldn't take a canoe downstream without a paddle. The point is, you need to know what you are getting yourself into and prepare a little in advance if you want to make sure you don't spin yourselves in circles or drive yourself crazy trying to learn how to build Drupal Modules.

Here are some things that you should do before really diving in to Drupal development:

1. Make sure you have a development environment set up (LAMP/WAMP works nice, but there are other alternatives).
2. Create an account on Drupal.org
3. Determine if you want to start with Drupal 6 or Drupal 7 (this might depend on whether you are focusing on developing for existing sites, or building new sites).
4. Start looking through this - http://drupal.org/developing/modules
5. Bookmark http://api.drupal.org, you will probably need it

It is important that you also know where to go with questions. There are two places that I would recommend. The first is the #drupal or #drupal-support IRC channel (I am occasionally there as smthomas). This is probably the quickest way to get answers to your questions. However, I would recommend that you follow a few simple guidelines:

• Don't ask to ask a question, just ask
• Don't expect someone to be willing to discuss your questions for hours and then do it for you. Put in the research ahead of time and be willing to continue to do the work and research. We want to help, but not do things for you.
• Make sure to say thanks... A little thank you goes a long way
• After you become a Drupal ninja, make sure to pay it forward and help out others.

There may be more guidelines posted online somewhere but those are ones that I have heard/seen often. If you know anymore or have a link, feel free to drop it in the comments.

The other alternative for support would be the forums on Drupal.org. If you do post to the forums, make sure to follow up and let us know what solved your problem so others can benefit.

2. Finding the right balance

I find that good balance is important. I think it is a good idea to make sure you are comfortable building Drupal websites using core and contributed modules/themes from the Administration interface. This will ensure you can reuse existing modules as much as possible and don't have to rewrite the book every time you encounter a new problem. The process should almost always be to first search for an existing solution, and second to build your own. This will most likely save you the most time and make you as efficient as possible. This process also helps the quality of contributed modules get better over time.

Another important aspect to being a good developer is understanding a little about the theme layer and how theming works. This is especially important if you are building modules that themers will be using and designing websites for. This does not mean you need to be a theme designer yourself (I am far from a website designer), but it does mean you should understand the concepts. This will help you become a better overall Drupal developer.

3. Contrib is your friend

As mentioned before, use existing modules whenever possible. However, make sure to take that a step farther by actually looking through the contributed modules that you are using. This is one of the best and quickest ways to learn how to develop. Don't be afraid to modify the code of these contributed modules and see what happens on your development sites. If you can look through and understand some of what is going on with contributed modules, it will put you in a much better place to begin writing your own.

4. Drupal Core... Look but don't hack

One of the most important things you need to know when developing for Drupal is that you should not modify the core Drupal code. Drupal is designed to be very flexible and almost anything you need to do can be done through the use of module hooks or theme overrides. There are some very very very rare times when modifying the Drupal code is needed, but even then, there are usually alternatives (If you are just getting started with Drupal, you probably have not found one of those situations).

Just because you should not modify the core Drupal code, does not mean you should not look through some of it. Knowing how Drupal is structured and how certain pieces of functionality work is very important as you begin becoming a good Drupal developer. This may not be the place you start, but it is definitely something you want to consider doing as you gain more experience.

5. Get Involved

When you begin to refine your Drupal skills, you should consider contributing back. The easiest way is to help in the Drupal forums or IRC channels. You can also help with Drupal documentation or helping with developing/testing patches for contributed modules. By helping others you are not only giving back to people who are in the early stages of their learning, but you are also reinforcing your learning. I have learned a lot of things about Drupal just by helping others try to solve a problem.

Summing it up

Learning Drupal module development is a long, fun, never-ending journey that is definitely worth traveling. If you got this far, it's time to stop reading and start learning some Drupal.

Comments, suggestions, or questions? Leave a comment! If you are stuck on something and want some help, you can also use the contact form and I will see what I can do to help you out.

Source: codekarate.com

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How to Set Up the Color Management System in Photoshop Elements 9

In Photoshop Elements, when it comes to color, the challenge isn’t understanding color theory or definitions, but matching the RGB color on your computer monitor as closely as possible to your output. Output can be a printout from a color printer or a screen view on a Web page.

To match color between your monitor and your output, you need to first calibrate your monitor and then choose a color workspace profile.

When you don't need to color calibrate

If you’re interested in sharing photos only onscreen (that is, on Web pages, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and so on) and you plan to leave the printing to others, you don’t need to bother with color correction and going through a maze of steps to get the color perfected.

The only consideration you need to make is your overall monitor brightness. If your monitor displays images darker or lighter than other computers viewing your images, then you need to understand how to adjust your overall monitor brightness.

Calibrating your monitor in Photoshop Elements

Your monitor needs to be calibrated to adjust the gamma and brightness, correct any color tints or colorcasts, and generally get your monitor to display, as precisely as possible, accurate colors on your output.

You can choose among a few tools to adjust monitor brightness. These tools range from a low-cost hardware device that sells for less than $100 to expensive calibration equipment of $3,000 or more — or you can skip the hardware and use tools provided by Mac OS X or Windows.

Gamma is the brightness of midlevel tones in an image. In technical terms, it’s a parameter that describes the shape of the transfer function for one or more stages in an imaging pipeline.

You might consider making one valuable purchase for creating a monitor profile: a hardware profiling system. On the low end, some affordable devices go a long way in helping you adjust your monitor brightness and color balance, with prices ranging from $60 to $100 U.S.

The best way to find a device that works for you is to search the Internet to find hardware descriptions, dealers, and costs. You’ll find items such as the ColorVision Spyder2express and Pantone Huey Monitor Color Correction, to name just a few.

On LCD monitors, you need to adjust the hardware controls to bring your monitor into a match for overall brightness with your photo prints. Be certain to run many test prints and match your prints against your monitor view to make the two as similar as possible.

Choosing a color workspace

After you adjust your monitor color by using a hardware profiling system, your next step is to choose your color workspace. In Elements, you have a choice between two workspace colors: either sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998). You access your color workspace settings by choosing Edit→Color Settings.

The options you have in the Color Settings dialog box include:

No Color Management: This choice turns off all color management. Don’t choose this option for any work you do in Elements. When using No Color Management, you need to work with files that have color profiles embedded in the photos. Most likely you won’t use these types of photos.

Always Optimize Colors for Computer Screens: Selecting this option sets your workspace to sRGB. sRGB color is used quite often for viewing images on your monitor. But this workspace often results in the best choice for color printing, too. Many color printers can output all the colors you can see in the sRGB workspace. In addition, many photo services, such as the Kodak EasyShare services, prefer this workspace color.

Always Optimize for Printing: Selecting this option sets your color workspace to Adobe RGB (1998). The color in this workspace has more available colors than you can see on your monitor. If you choose this workspace, be certain that your printer is capable of using all the colors in this color space.

Allow Me to Choose: When you choose this option, Elements prompts you for a profile assignment when you open images that contain no profile. This setting is handy if you work back and forth between screen and print images.


Source: http://www.dummies.com


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