Several years ago I had the distinct privilege of founding Midwest PHP with Jonathan Sundquist. The goal was simple, to bring an affordable PHP conference to Minnesota and the midwest region.
Midwest PHP was created for one simple reason - there weren't a lot of alternatives, especially affordable ones. At the time, your choices were ZendCon in Silicon Valley, php[tek] in Chicago, or Northeast PHP in Boston. While Northeast PHP formed the blueprint of a community conference - it still required a flight and a costly hotel in Boston. I wanted something where local attendees, college students, and those just beginning in their PHP careers could go to learn, network, and become part of the PHP community.
Shortly after Midwest PHP was formed (originally we were using the name PHPFreeze - until Sundquist told me what a horrible idea it was), Adam Culp launched Sunshine PHP which has become one of the top community focused PHP conferences (but still requires that flight and hotel in Miami). Sundquist and I knew that any reasonable developer would still prefer to attend a conference in a blizzard than enjoy the beautiful Floridian weather (ok, that might not be it, but we still understood the need that existed).
After moving to California for my new job, Jonathan Sundquist continued to run Midwest PHP as more community conferences appeared. With his efforts, and the torch being passed to Mike Willbanks, Midwest PHP celebrated it's seventh consecutive year, becoming the longest continuously running PHP conference (if you go by formed date, if you go by actual conference date Sunshine PHP beats us out by a month).
A renewed focus
Because of the incredible work Jonathan and Mike have done, Midwest PHP has stood the test of time - and the peaks and valleys that come with any conference. With the shifts in the PHP community and the sad loss of several community conferences - we realized the need for Midwest PHP is more now than ever, and to meet that need we needed to reimagine the way the conference operated.
We also realized that the best way to make Midwest PHP accessible was to combine forces, creating a seamless partnership between Nomad PHP and Midwest PHP. Through this partnership we're not only able to stream the event to make it more accessible ($19.95/mo), but also expand the conference.
This year, taking place onApril 2-4, 2020 - Midwest PHP will bring together over 800 developers both in-person and virtually! Making this year truly unique, however, and staying with our purpose of helping new developers be part of the PHP community is abrand new, FREE, beginner track. I'm excited to say we will be giving away 200 tickets to those wishing to attend our Beginner or Learn PHP track!!!
We will also work to keep prices as low as possible as we offer our standard PHP tracks (Everyday PHP and PHP Performance & Security) starting at $250/ person, anda brand new enterprise track geared at developers facing challenges at unprecedented scale starting at $450/ person.
Last but not least, it is our goal with the help of our sponsors to include the workshop day as part of your ticket price - allowing you to get one day of in-depth training, and two more full days of sessions. On top of this, we're also excited to make the Nomad PHP and Nomad JS video libraries available for Standard and Enterprise attendees, providing over 220 additional virtual sessions on demand!
For sponsors
Sponsoring a conference is hard. We understand the challenge of gauging ROI, planning travel, and coordinating outreach. With the combined forces of Midwest PHP and Nomad PHP, we're able to offer sponsors unique plans that maximize their investment - while ensuring the funds go back into the event to create an amazing experience for our attendees.
Beyond Midwest PHP's goal to be the largest PHP conference this year - the included Nomad PHP advertising will help you reach a much larger and broader audience, allowing for follow up advertisements and consistent engagement with the PHP community.
You've built an amazing website, but how do you make sure people can find your site via search engines? In this article we cover 10 best practices to make sure your article not only stands out, but ranks well with search engines.
1. Take time to research keywords
To determine the best keywords for your site, you'll need to do some keyword research. This usually consists of combing through your competitors' sites for the keywords that are driving them the most traffic. There are several ways you can get started with keyword research. One recommended way is to create a spreadsheet with your competitors' sites listed and add keywords that you can copy and paste your competitors' keywords into Google's Keyword Tool and Google Webmaster Tools Keyword Analyzer tool. Analyze your competition's site's website titles to find out what keywords they are using tools such as Ahrefs, Moz, SpyFu, or SEMrush to find out what keywords others are using on your competitor's site.
2. Focus on your Title tag
This is the headline for every article. It needs to be bold and attention grabbing so it can catch the eye of potential users. Pick it somewhere around 60-90 characters to make sure it is displayed properly in search engines as well as readable in the browser tab. As you write your title, focus on the unique keywords your readers are likely to search for. Also make sure that the keywords you select are relevant to your page. Another good practice is to make the title tag and your header (h1) the same.
3. Carefully craft your H1, H2, H3 tags
Careful usage of header tags helps search engines identify keywords within your page. To get the best results from your header tags, use H1, H2, and H3 in order with keywords in your H2 and H3 headers that support your H1 tag. Remember, your H1 tag should mimic your title tag, whereas the H2 and H3 can expand and add additional context. You can also utilize multiple H2 and H3 tags, however be sure that these headers are supporting the H1 tag and relevant to the content on your page. Using irrelevant header keywords can actually work to your disadvantage.
4. Avoid loading content with JavaScript
Despite it's popularity, JavaScript is not yet well supported by search engines and can mask important content. Progressive Web Apps in particular can suffer as key content is loaded after the page is spidered, or in the case of many search engines that do not yet index JavaScript not loaded at all. This is also the case for many social media sites, meaning that content loaded dynamically is not evaluated or pulled in, resulting in the default skeleton of your site being what shows up in search engines and in link previews.
5. Carefully name images
In the past search engines would evaluate your images based on their alt tag, however as more and more developers loaded irrelevant keywords into this hidden image text search engines instead added more emphasis to the actual name of the image itself. This means using generic image names such as 1.jpg can actually hurt your site ranking as search engines might be looking for seokeywords.jpg. Now, just because you're carefully naming your images with relevant keywords describing the image doesn't mean you should ignore the alt tag. Be sure to continue to include alt tags for older search engines, in the case the image doesn't load, and for accessibility (ie screen readers).
6. Work to improve your page load time
It’s not a secret that faster sites rank higher in search engines. Most search engines use the PageSpeed Index from Google to determine the speed of websites. One thing Google looks at is how fast images are loading. For this reason, we recommend taking a look at how long it takes for the first image to load on your site or even take advantage of lazy loading for non-critical images. You want images to be loading within 30 seconds at the absolute latest, before the user can actually click on the page. You also need to make sure that if you're using multiple images that they load as one group. Next, take a look at how long it takes to load a webpage. Are pages taking longer than three seconds to load on your site? You want to have pages that load fast for users, but your code and templates can easily be causing this to happen.
7. Optimize text throughout your page
Beyond your title tag, headers, and images it's important to work keywords into your standard content, while also working to avoid overloading keywords. To help prevent overloading and increase search engine rankings across multiple keywords you can use alternative phrases. In the case of "PHP training" an alternative phrase might be "PHP tutorials" or "PHP course." This both helps support the primary keyword, while also allowing the page to rank for these keywords as well. Remember to use the tools referenced above to find the keywords that are right for your site, and then work them in to natural sentences without forcing keywords or becoming overly repetitive. Also keep in mind, just as important as the content and keywords on the page are to search engines, how users engage with that content is also critical. If your page experience's high bounce rates or low engagement with the content, it is likely to be deprioritized by search engines, meaning a page highly optimized for search engines but not humans may enjoy a higher ranking, but only for a short time before it is heavily penalized.
8. Build your Domain and Page Authority
Domain and Page Authority are determined not just by the number of back-links (or sites linking to your domain or page), but also the quality of the sites and pages linking to you. One practice that has made obtaining a better DA or PA harder has been purchasing or acquiring bulk back-links. Note this practice is actually against Google's TOS and may result in your entire site being banned from their search results! Because of this practice, it's important to focus on high quality sites and work to get back-links naturally either through partnerships or syndicated content (such as blog posts). You can also check your DA here or using one of the many tools referenced above.
9. Take advantage of social media
Speaking of back-links, social media can be a powerful tool for increasing page visibility while also improving your search engine rankings! Remember, most social sites do not support or read JavaScript, so ensure your content is available on the page. If you do have a progressive web app with JavaScript loading your content, look into using Headless Chrome to render a JavaScript free version of your site for specific bots (note - the content MUST be the same content a user would see or your site may be blocked). There are also numerous tools to allow you to build the content via JavaScript on the server backend before passing it to your readers. To help get even more exposure, consider adding social share links or tools like AddThis.
10. Good SEO takes time
The truth is that there really aren't any special secrets or ingredients to ranking well in search engines (well not that Google has publicly shared). Instead it's about properly formatting your page, making sure it's readable to search engines, and providing content that your readers will engage with. As you provide more valuable content, and more people like and link to your content - your site's Domain Authority will gradually increase, giving your site and pages more powerful - resulting in a higher ranking.
To say that we have been hard at work here at Nomad PHP, or that I'm excited about these three announcements would be a tremendous understatement. Over the past several months, behind the scenes, we've been working to bring even more features and benefits to Nomad PHP - these have already included unlimited streaming of all past meetings and access to PHP Architect.
Available today, however, you'll also have access to online, live workshops - as well as soon have the ability to stream select PHP conferences live, and finally to prove the knowledge you have gained through our online certification.
Online, Live Workshops
Like our online meetings, we are excited to announce that available today you can participate in online, live, and interactive workshops. Our first workshop will feature Michael Stowe, author of Undisturbed REST: a guide to Designing the Perfect API as he demonstrates how to build the perfect API using modern technologies and techniques.
Additional workshops will be announced as we continue, with a minimum of one workshop per quarter. These workshops will be part of your Nomad PHP subscription, and will be recorded for later viewing.
Nomad PHP Certification
With the many changes impacting the PHP ecosystem, we're proud to announce the ability to prove your knowledge with our online certification. Each certification is made up numerous, randomly selected questions to be completed within a specific time frame. Depending on the exam it may or may not be proctored, but all exams monitor user activity to ensure compliance.
To pass the exam, a passing grade (specified on each exam) must be completed for each section within the allotted time frame. Failure to complete or pass any section will result in a failing grade for the entire exam.
Upon completion, you will receive a digital certification with verification to post on LinkedIn or your website, as well as having your Nomad PHP updated to show the passed certification.
Initial certification exams will include PHP Developer Level I, PHP Engineer Level II, and API Specialist Level I. The PHP Developer exam will cover core components of PHP, the Engineer will cover a broad spectrum of topics including modern technologies, and the API Specialist will cover REST design and architecture practices.
All three exams will be available by January 31, 2019, and will be included with a Nomad PHP subscription.
Stream Select PHP Conferences Live
One of the primary goals of Nomad PHP is to bring the community together, and allow users all over the country to participate in conference level talks. What better way to do this than to bring community conferences online?
Like our traditional talks, these conferences and select conference sessions will be live-streamed as part of your Nomad PHP subscription, allowing you to participate in real-time with in-person conference attendees.
The first conference to be streamed will be DayCamp4Developers: Beyond Performance on January 18, 2018. Additional conferences to be streamed will be announced shortly.
Your support of Nomad PHP not only makes all the above possible, but allows Nomad PHP to continue to serve and give back the community. We're proud, that despite operating at a loss, to have already contributed over$4,000 to the PHP community in the last 5 months.
To learn more about the sponsorship and community opportunities we have available, please visit our Advertising section.
Other Ways to Support Nomad PHP
Of course, while financial support helps us keep afloat and do more for the community, there are even more, and just as important ways to support Nomad PHP. Please consider linking to Nomad PHP, or sharing the service with your friends.
At Nomad PHP our goal is to empower developers in building a habit of continuous learning - and that means we have a habit of continuous improvement ourselves. Here are just some of the things we've done this year (with much more coming down the road)!
Website Redesign
We've refreshed the look and feel of Nomad PHP to better emphasize the goal of Nomad PHP - to help developers build a habit of continuous learning and grow their careers. This includes numerous usability enhancements as well as a focus on our new book library, blogs, and certification in addition to virtual meetups, workshops, conferences, and on-demand videos.
Free Meetups
As technology has advanced, more and more meetups and usergroups are able to stream their local usergroup meetings.
As our goal has always been to make technology accessible, we are proud to provide free streaming technology for local user groups, and share local user group meetings on our live virtual meetup schedule.
Student and Professional subscribers will continue to have access to our monthly conference level Pro Talks, hands on virtual workshops, and live conference streams in addition to streams by local user groups.
As our mission has evolved from being the meetup for developers without a meetup group to building an inclusive community of PHP developers where you can network, grow your skills, and share your knowledge with others - we are excited to announce our new Free Tier.
To provide the best value, we've also restructured our plans to provide professional online meetings, workshops, and conference streaming to our Student Tier. This will allow students and new developers the chance to learn from the best speakers and top practioners and obtain entry level certifications at the best price possible.
However, with the addition of PHP Books and Magazines, and in order to provide the best value while keeping the Student plan affordable, new Student subscribers will not have access to the PHP Book and Magazine Library, or advanced certifications. These will now require a professional plan.
We're excited to announce that we have expanded our PHP library. In addition to the ability to read the latest issues of php[architect] magazine, Professional subscribers now have access to read PHP and web development books online.
We're excited to announce the availability of Chris Hartjes' bookThe Grumpy Programmer's Guide to Testing PHP Applications, as well as several titles from Notes for Professionals, andUndisturbed REST: a Guide to Designing the Perfect API.
More titles including exclusive titles will be made available for online reading soon.
We've received a lot of feedback on the blog writing process, and have upgraded several aspects of our blogging software. This includes the ability to save drafts prior to publishing, and the ability to upload, edit, and crop images and videos. We've also added some bug fixes for editing and writing code.
We're also excited to share that members with Student and Professional plans can now have their ownVLOG (video blog) with the ability to screencast/ record video from your webcam within the blog.
To see the most recent blog posts, or write your own, visit the Nomad PHP Blogs.
Certification Updates
We've updated our certifications for better usability and readability. We've also reworked some of the code samples and questions in our Level 1 PHP Certification exam.
You can find our available exams, test your skills, and obtain your Nomad PHP certification here.
Team Management
Our new team manager allows you to easily add or remove team members with your Nomad PHP team subscription. You'll also find real time metrics on how your team is using Nomad PHP, who on your team is investing in their growth and streaming meetups, watching videos, reading books, and earning certifications, and the overall content value consumed by your team.
The Team Manager is available to new teams, and will be made available to existing team managers over the next several weeks.
2020 Roadmap
There's still plenty of more great things coming in 2020. Here are the items at the top of our list:
* Mobile app for offline viewing
* Desktop app for offline viewing
* Nomad PHP member only books
* PHP Level 2 Certification
* Interactive tutorials
* Better video support in blogs
* Ability to schedule blog posts
* Meeting software for local usergroups
* Improved plan management for subscribers Of course, what's most important to us is what's most important to you. Leave what you want to see on Nomad PHP in the comments below and if we're able to we'll get it added to our roadmap!
PHP is an incredibly powerful programming languaage, one that powers roughly 80% of the web! But it's also one of the easier languages to learn as you can see your changes in real time, without having to compile or wait for the code to repackage your app or website.
Defining a PHP script
To get started, create a file called "myfirstpage.php." You can actually call it anything you'd like, but the important part here is the extension: .php. This tells the server to treat this page as a PHP script.
Now let's go ahead and create a basic HTML page:
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello</title>
</head>
<body>
Hello
</body>
</html>
Go ahead and save your page and upload it to any host that supports PHP. Now visit your page and you should see a page that outputs "Hello."
Echo content
Now let's add some PHP code to our script. To signal the server to render PHP code we first open with the <?php tag, then we write our PHP code, and finally close it with the ?> tag. This is important as if we were creating an XML file and forgot to escape the opening XML tag which also has a question mark, we would run into a fatal error.
Now let's write some PHP code that tells the server to echo specific output. To echo or print the content on the page we can use the echo statement in our PHP code by placing the text we want to echo in single quotes and then end the command with a semi colon. Let's echo out "there!":
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello</title>
</head>
<body>
Hello <?php echo 'there!'; ?>
</body>
</html>
Now upload your script and test it on your webhost. You should now see "Hello there!" on your screen. Now this isn't as exciting since we could do the same thing in HTML without PHP, so let's create dynamic content based on the URL string.
Using $_GET
PHP allows you to interact with your visitors and handle incoming data. This means that you can use either the URL (querystring) or forms to retrieve user input. There are additional ways to access data as well, but we will not be covering those in this introduction.
In your browser, add the following to the end of your url: ?name=yourname The full URL should now look like myfirstpage.php?name=yourname
You'll notice when you visit this page nothing happens - so let's change that! To access the value of name in the querystring, we can use $_GET['name'] like so:
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello</title>
</head>
<body>
Hello <?php echo $_GET['name']; ?>
</body>
</html>
You'll notice that unlike the text "there!" that the GET is not in quotes - this is because this is a variable and by not placing it in quotes we're telling PHP to render this as a variable and not as text. If we leave the single quotes, instead of saying "Hello yourname" it would say "Hello $_GET['name']."
Using logic and defining variables
Along with getting user input, you can also create conditions to determine what content should be output. For example, we can determine whether or not to say "Good morning" or "Good evening" depending on the time, along with your name using the querystring.
To do this, we'll be using if, elseif, and else along with the PHP date() function. You can learn more about how to use different date formats to output the date here, but we'll be using the date() function to get back the hour of the day (based on the server's time) between 0 (midnight) and 23 (11pm). We'll then use greater than (>) to determine what to assign to our $time variable which we'll output with the user's name.
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
if(date("G") > 18) {
$time = 'evening';
} elseif (date("G") > 12) {
$time = 'afternoon';
} else {
$time = 'morning';
}
echo 'Good '.$time.' '.$_GET['name'];
?>
</body>
</html>
Now upload your script again to the web server and refresh the page. Depending on the time of the server you should see either Good morning, Good afternoon, or Good evening followed by your name.
If you get an error, or the page is blank, make sure you have closed all of your quotes and have a semicolon after your statements/ commands. Missing a quote or semicolon is one of the most common causes of PHP errors.
You may also receive an error if the timezone has not been set on your server. To resolve this (or change the timezone/ output of the script) try adding this line as the first line following the opening PHP bracket (<?php):
date_default_timezone_set('America/Los_Angeles');
With that you have created your first PHP script and have already taken advantage of many of the fundamentals used in every PHP program. While there is more to learn you are well on your way, and have a great start on defining variables, using user input, and taking advantage of PHP's built in functions.
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