Below is an excerpt from that blog post and you can read the entire article here:
A Baseline for Front-End Developers

Excerpt:

“Once upon a time, editing files, testing them locally (as best as we could, anyway), and then FTPing them to the server was the essential workflow of a front-end dev. We measured our mettle based on our ability to wrangle IE6 into submission or achieve pixel perfection across browsers. Many members of the community – myself included – lacked traditional programming experience. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript – usually in the form of jQuery – were self-taught skills.

Something has changed in the last couple of years. Maybe it’s the result of people starting to take front-end dev seriously, maybe it’s browser vendors mostly getting their shit together, or maybe it’s front-end devs – again, myself included – coming to see some well-established light about the process of software development.”

Kothrud.In Business Directory

Back in October 2011, we released our online business directory for local business owners, shop owners, professionals and freelancers to list their business through free or premium listings. The website also publishes articles about prominent places, personalities and events happening in and around Kothrud.

Kothrud Facebook Page

In November 2011, we launched our Facebook community page where newsfeed from the online directory along with news and links related to Kothrud are published on continuous basis. “Like” this page to get latest news and information about Kothrud area right in your Facebook stream.

Kothrud Microblogs on Twitter

As with Facebook, we also created a Twitter handle (@Kothrud_In) to share news, links and interesting things about Kothrud. We have also tied up with few Twitter news sharing accounts who retweets our posts on daily basis to share to an even bigger audience online.

Kothrud Daily – Online Newspaper

Along with social media and dedicated website, we have also created an online newspaper called Kothrud Daily which syndicates various news in and around Kothrud through Twitter posts and RSS feeds.

Roadmap

Kothrud has already been on the international map for being the fastest developing suburb in Asia. We want to take this one step further and have Kothrud connected like no other suburb in India. All businesses, events, news, jobs, real estate and happenings to be circulated and connected through internet and that is our goal for Kothrud… the Wired Kothrud!!!

In our not-so-perfect world, dreaming of Top 10 Google or other search engine ranking for a common keyword is like hoping to find a needle in a haystack. It just doesn’t work that way. There are far too many strings attached and spending your hard earned money on some “expert” who guarantees Top 10 ranking in a search engine is sure fire way to lose it.

Most small businesses rely on word-to-mouth marketing… a referral engine that speaks for itself, literally! Since anybody and everybody is getting online nowadays, it’s smart to have a simple yet effective checklist of sorts to get the most out of the online world. Following these basic steps can provide a steady increase in your business both in terms of quantity and quality of the leads generated on the Web…

Website

It starts with a professional website. An easy to remember domain name, a nicely done website both in terms of design and development (check out Resonate’s portfolio to get an idea), good quality content with keywords, and updated regularly are few of the things to be considered while building a website for your business.

Directory Listings & Backlinks

Very important from search engines point of view, quality backlinks from recognized sources and directory listing on good online directories is an old but still a very useful way of getting traffic back to your website.

Blogging

Updating your website by posting news about your company, industry or happenings can bring not only direct traffic from readers but is also a good way to bring your website high up in search rankings. You can either have a custom designed blog on your website (recommended) or have a blog from freely available services like WordPress.com or Blogger.com

Communities/Networks/Groups

There are communities, business networking groups and forums on every conceivable topic we can imagine. Joining and participating in these groups can build credibility, goodwill and build your network in turn bringing business through online referrals, recommendations and more. Websites like LinkedIn.com, Ning.com, Xing.com and many more are ideal for building business networks.

Social Media

A massively hyped media nowadays, it still has its merits of building a fan base and following through sharing your content like blog posts, website links and other relevant news. Creating and building a business profile on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking websites is as much important as building and maintaining your website.

May this Diwali and New Year bring Health, Prosperity and Peace in your life!

Listing is available both as FREE and as Featured Listing, and open to all including…

• Sole Proprietors, Partnerships and Private Limited Companies
• Shop Owners
• Professionals (doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, company secretaries)
• Agents (real estate, sales, excise, company formation, other Govt works)
• Home Based Business Owners
• Artists
• Contractors
• Freelancers (internet, design, fashion, etc)

Why Kothrud?

Kothrud has seen phenomenal growth over past 2 decades both in terms of population and development in business, real estate, educational institutes, IT companies and entertainment. Estimated 2 million people are part of this sprawling south-west suburb of Pune and it links Central Pune to the IT centers and Mumbai-Bangalore highway. Kothrud also links popular tourist and recreation areas like Mulshi, Lavasa, Tamhini Ghat with the inner parts of the city.

The development and launch of Kothrud.In is also in a way a “Thank You” to this wonderful place where Resonate’s office is located.

How to List Your Business?

Visit http://www.kothrud.in and browse through various business categories. Click “Submit” and choose the type of listing you want (Free or Featured). Enter your business information and confirm your listing. Don’t forget to add your photo or business logo along with the website link (if any) and your Facebook page or profile link too. Once you submit all the info, the system will check the listing for its correctness and double-entries and will publish it shortly.

Listing your business on Kothrud.In will not only get you an additional link back to your website but also help you create a simple online presence for your local business.
So why wait? List your Kothrud based business NOW!

The early days of web design were like a play of colors more than anything else. Only few fonts were available for use, browsers had their own mind and the dial-ups were the order of the day. As technology advanced and provided more tools, and broadband began entering common households, the web design industry too marked a distinct shift in the way websites were designed.

Websites started to look more like DTP on steroids. Thanks to a image format called .GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), pages began to scream out loud with animated banners, icons and borders. Adobe’s Flash ver 4.0 and later changed the way animation was delivered on the Web. It quickly became the de-facto standard for creating animations, special effects and through its Actionscripting, even web based applications were built… although Flash websites had their own limitations with less Search Engine friendly content and Accessibility issues.

During the 90′s, larger websites went dynamic by database powered content instead of static HTML pages and this proved to be another turning point in the evolution of Web. With the arrival of open-source CMS like Joomla, Drupal and now WordPress, it has become very easy to build, deploy and maintain database driven CMS website where all the content is controlled by a back-end system accessed through a browser in a secure password protected area.

As an example of this changing face of web design over the years, let’s take the case of Yahoo. Most of us know Yahoo and had or still have an their email account. They have been around for almost beginning of time (Internet Time, that is) and just by looking at their website over the years can give us an idea of how drastically it has changed over past 2 decades or so… http://themetoday.com/2010/01/yahoo-homepage-over-the-years/

Today, a web designer has to take into consideration not only the creative aspect of the website, but accessibility, site architecture, search engine friendliness, usability (especially in ecommerce websites and web applications) and loading times.

With the release of HTML5 and CSS3, things appear lot brighter than ever before for web designers and developers. Everybody wants a website that is running on these 2 hot technologies but there still remain the same issues with browser compatibility and fallback. The biggest advantage of using HTML5 and CSS3 over other technologies like Flash or older HTML4 specs is its responsiveness to various devices like smartphones, tabs, etc. As more and more people access internet through their phones, pads and other devices, it becomes increasingly important for web designers and developers to keep abreast of the technology and build their client websites using latest tools and technology, yet still maintaining the backwards compatibility for users with older devices, computers and browsers.

Most of the business generated by local small businesses like shop owners, professionals, artists and freelancers is from word-to-mouth. Everybody knows about the internet, but most of them are just not bothered to get a decent domain, forget about having a website. For them the Internet and a Website is still a novelty. People from developed countries and large metro cities might not relate to this, but it is still a reality in many parts of the world including developing countries and cities.

It is indeed a challenge for marketing professionals and agencies to change this view and make small business owners understand how the power of internet, search engines and social media can bring business back to their door.

I’m Sapan Shah, principal and owner of Resonate Web Solutions who is into providing web design and development solutions to local businesses and associates from Pune, India as well as for international clients.

We’re launching a brand new website that provides detailed information about our services mainly in the following areas….

• Web Design and Development (PHP/MySQL)
• Custom WordPress powered Website Development
• Corporate Identity Solutions
• Online Marketing for Local Busines Owners & Professionals
• Moodle based E-learning

Resonate is also moving into launching its own own local area specific portal (web directory, classifieds, etc) providing a useful platform to market and enable small business owners to advertise their products/services online through free and premium listings.

I’ll be updating and maintaining this blog with news stories about small business, ways to promote your business, news about Resonate and web design industry in general. Subscribe to our RSS feeds from the box on the right to stay updated.

If you have any web design, development, online marketing or SEO related queries, do feel free to get in touch with us. You can also connect us on Twitter and Facebook.

Thanks,

Sapan Shah
Resonate Web Solutions