For a more in-depth look please refer to the previous blog post here.
SEO, short for search engine optimization is a strategy to optimize web pages in order to increase their rankings in google search results. Google uses bots called spiders to crawl web pages online. These spider bots add and categorize pages based off of what content is relevant to particular search queries. They do this in order to give people the best results when they search for something online. Part of SEO involves keywords which is what is article is going to cover.
Keywords can be described as words or phrases that people search for. Many people utilize the ability to search by voice so often entire phrases can be considered common keywords. They are also used to describe the content found on a web page - such as a phrase to sum up the main idea of that content. Keywords are important because they help you target your audience and can drive more organic traffic to your site. By placing them in high attention areas it also allows for Google crawlers to easily identify the content of the page. Adding keywords should not be about bloating content with unrelated keywords as it is now penalized by Google.
Keyword research is a strategy to discover which terms people regularly utilize to search for information in their google search engine. Finding out which words that are commonly used can help with SEO rankings, marketing and content strategy. Having a great content strategy enables you to build content around a particular term that you know your audience is searching for. Keyword research should be a way to add value to your high quality content to increase organic traffic to your site.
These are short and are typically made of three words or less. These types of keywords are hard to identify intent so they do not typically convert well despite having a high search volume. Many short tail keywords are common and have a high competitive rate so it is harder to achieve a high ranking when using them.
These are keywords that are longer than three words. They are typically much more descriptive which means they have a specific search intent and leads to a low search volume but a high conversion rate. They tend to be less competitive as well since they are more specific.
This type of keyword is used to describe something that is trending and popular in the current moment. They tend to have a large search volume while they’re hot but will drop drastically once the hype has passed.
Like a tree that has leaves all year round evergreen keywords are always relevant and show very little change in their search volumes. They tend to be more specific and have a high conversion rate. These keywords have a moderate search volume and competitive rate for ranking. Despite their consistency note that content still needs to be updated regularly or eventually google will rank your page lower for not having fresh information.
Keywords that explain and describe products. They tend to be very specific and have a high conversion rate. Since they are more specific they have a low search volume and a low competitive rate.
These are created to target specific groups of searchers. They have a low search volume and low competitive rate but a high conversion rate.
Keywords that are used to target specific places such as cities or states. These are typically used by businesses who have brick and mortar establishments in order to describe where they are. Like customer defining keywords they have a low search volume and low competitive rate but a high conversion rate.
L.S.I stands for latent semantic keyword. These are keywords that closely relate to the main keyword. They are very specific and have a high conversion rate but a low search volume and competitive rate.
There are four categories for intent targeting keywords.
Now that you have a list of keywords put them to work. Keywords work best in a few different places.
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Wordpress is an open source content management system originally used to build blogs. The first version of Wordpress was made available in 2003 as a platform built on top of b2/cafelog. Since then it has expanded and is utilized by millions worldwide. While Wordpress the software is free there is more that goes into launching a Wordpress site that is not. For a real life example check out this article done by Codeable.
Wordpress might be free but there are a lot of hidden costs involved with launching and maintaining a site. Costs can be kept down by having a generic site but comes at the sacrifice of having a custom site built out to address unique requirements of the company.
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When starting out on your programming journey it might not be immediately obvious that you need to be familiar with the Terminal. This incredibly useful (and sometimes intimidating) tool allows you to have much more power than utilizing GUI's alone.
In this tutorial, I will cover what a terminal is, how to set up iTerm and then list some recommendations for getting familiar with the command line. Note that there are many different terminals and the most commonly used ones based off of their operating systems are these:
I'll be focusing on the Mac Terminal which is an application that allows you to enter commands in the command line. You can find it inside the Utilities folder. Another quick way to pull it up is to press Command + Space and type in "Terminal" inside the search bar.
Confused? It's okay! There are different types of users on your machine. Think of the root user as the super-powered user that can change ANYTHING on the system. A regular user doesn't have the same type of superpowers. The main takeaway? Be VERY cautious if you are in root.
When I started my programming journey part of the process of setting up my machine was to use iTerm 2. Another terminal emulator its comes packed full of extra features such as split panes, search, autocomplete, mouseless copy, paste history, instant replay, configurability, a plethora of beautiful colors and so much more! Check out a full list of features and their descriptions here.
brew cask install iterm2
And that's it! Or if you want to download it from their site go here and click on the big download button.
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When I first attempted to learn how to program I was very lucky to have an extremely smart and experienced developer set up my machine to get me started. Our first step was installing Homebrew.
No, not that kind of homebrew 😅(Photo by Lance Anderson on Unsplash)
Homebrew is a package manager for OSX designed to make life easier. Package managers handle all the installation and dependency stuff for you. As a beginner, this was a vital lesson to be learned. Learning to program can sometimes look more like 70% configuration and about 30% coding. Especially in the beginning. So when I found out that there are tools out there to make the configuration easier I held on and praised the smarter people who came before me.
So before we dive into our little tutorial for Homebrew, let's talk about packages.
Not those kind of packages.. (Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash)
A package is a bundle of installable source code. If you wanted to download a package manually it can get a little tricky because sometimes there are dependencies (software that relies on other software to operate) that are needed for a successful installation. After the package has been successfully installed keeping it up to date manually can be difficult as well.
There are many different package managers some handle packages in binary form and some are source code based. There are system and language package managers as well.
Homebrew is "the missing package manager for macOS" since there is no built-in package manager for macOS. It's a free and open-source software package management system and was created by Max Howell. Homebrew makes it easy to install command line software and tools on a Mac.
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
brew doctor
For more information visit https://docs.brew.sh/ or use
brew man
Homebrew relies on a git repository that stores the formulaes to install various packages. In our examples Replace
brew search <name>
brew install <name>
brew remove <name>
brew cask search <name>
brew cask install <name>
brew cask uninstall <name>
brew update
brew outdated
brew upgrade
brew upgrade <name>
brew pin <name>
brew unpin <name>
brew cleanup <name>
brew cleanup
brew cleanup -n
brew uninstall --force <name>
brew --cache
Which is usually: ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew
ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall)"
An illustrated guide on that other kind of homebrew 🍻
This tutorial leaves out how to make your own formulas but it should be enough to get a basic understanding of why Homebrew is useful and how to get started. Cheers!
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Adding service workers to an Ember application is easy thanks to addons. To get started have an Ember app ready to go. For this tutorial, I followed the quickstart guides to get an Ember app up and running.
Checkout the quick start guides to get an app up and running (https://guides.emberjs.com/release/getting-started/quick-start/).
First, we need to serve up our application:
$ ember serve
and then go to http://localhost:4200/ in the browser
You'll know everything is working fine if you see the friendly tomster welcome page:
Now let's implement service worker support for offline caching by using the ember-service-worker addons:
is the base addon that registers a service worker with the browser.
caches the Ember app’s index.htmlfile.
caches an Ember app’s asset files. By default, it will cache anything in the /assets/ folder, but can be configured to cache additional assets.
resorts to a cached fallback version of a network response when a network request fails.
$ ember install ember-service-worker
$ ember install ember-service-worker-index
$ ember install ember-service-worker-asset-cache
$ ember install ember-service-worker-cache-fallback
These plugins will take care of caching the index.html page and any static assets. Now if you turn off your internet and try to refresh the page the app will still load!
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Say goodbye to the information age: it’s all about reputation now
Gloria Origgi an Italian philosopher and tenured senior researcher at CNRS discusses the paradigm shift in our relationship to knowledge.
From the ‘information age’, we are moving towards the ‘reputation age’.
Information will have value only if it is already filtered, evaluated and commented upon by others.
We are reliant on what are the inevitably biased judgments of other people, most of whom we do not know.
Be competent at reconstructing the reputational path of the piece of information in question.
Evaluate the intentions of those who circulated it.
Figure out the agendas of those authorities that leant it credibility.
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How 7 Companies are Using Push Notifications to Boost Engagement
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Mayank Pratap, a cofounder of EngineerBabu.com gives an approachable in-depth look at blockchain technology.
There’s a common misconception among people that Bitcoin and Blockchain are one and the same, however, that is not the case.
Blockchain can be described as a data structure that holds transactional records and while ensuring security, transparency, and decentralization.
Once an information is stored on a blockchain, it is extremely difficult to change or alter it.
Blockchains are decentralized in nature meaning that no single person or group holds the authority of the overall network
Interaction between two parties through a peer-to-peer model is easily accomplished without the requirement of any third party.
Blockchains are considered tamper-proof as any change in even one single block can be detected and addressed
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Jasmine Bina, a brand Strategist and CEO of Concept Bureau reflects on what makes a great strategist.
Great strategists:
Don't hold anything sacred. They doesn’t assign ‘good’ or ‘bad’ qualities to a shifting landscape.
Don’t ask who will win. They ask what the world will look like when the truths of today are false tomorrow.
Look for the emergence of common ‘truths’ which come in increments and over time.
Solve five problems with one solution.
Recognize that where people spend their time and attention is perhaps even more important than where they spend their money, because time and attention can never be earned the way another dollar can.
Never forget that everything changes. Everything we believe and do is fluid.
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This release includes React Native 0.57 which means ios WebView can now use WKWebView internally if you pass useWebKit={true}
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