Motivation

What are the criteria
of a good web application?
(open discussion)

Web Traffic

Is your web app used?

Google Analytics

You can analyze the aggregate statistics of your website (application) visitors easily using tools like Google Analytics (there are others) — live demonstration of the websites that Steven manage (esp VisuAlgo, of course)

Note: European cookie policy and general privacy policy

With such analysis, you can see whether your website (application) is growing/stale/declining and whether it reaches your target audience or not

It is your job to convert these insights into actions

i18n & l10n

Is your web app global?

Internationalization (i18n)

Definition of i18n: Things that you do in your web application to facilitates easy localization (l10n)

The term 'i18n' is synonymous with 'globalization'

Examples: Using Unicode character encoding (to handle special characters), putting ids in various HTML paragraph (p) elements for easier language customization, option to customize the display of date and time, currencies, etc

Localization (l10n)

Definition of l10n: Things that you do to take advantage of the i18n features of your web application

Examples: Providing content in specific locale, e.g. displaying the default English text into the user's own language (if using Laravel, see this), etc

Tips: ISO 639-1 describes two-letters language codes
(verbal explanation on subdomain vs using Laravel routes)

Domain Name

Is your web app name catchy?

What is in a name?

Juliet: "What's in a name?
That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

The real answer for a web application: Almost everything...

Tips for buying a Domain Name (not-so-live demo):

1. First... find a very good name (open discussion)
2. Pray that it has NOT been taken by someone else
3. If not taken, go and buy it (for a certain duration)
4. If taken (but you are rich), try to buy from current owner
5. Otherwise, repeat step 1

Social Media

Do users talk about your app?

Leveraging on Social Power

Tips:

1. Have social media buttons in your allowing easy sharing of your website (application) URL to user's social media account: Facebook like, Twitter tweet, soon: Mooder, etc.
2. Encourage (important) key people in your field to write a public blog about your application (good incoming link)
3. Does your website content is viral enough for people to willingly share the content (or write a review about it)?

SEO

Is your web app searchable?

Search Engine Optimization

Is it possible?

Open discussion about the indexing and ranking strategies of several top Internet Search Engines

Practical Steps

It is near impossible to 'cheat' to put your website as no 1 in TOP (and more than one) search engines, so we have to apply as many rules of thumbs as possible:

1. Improve your content, content is still the king
2. Use correct keywords
3. Put those important keywords in the static version, not in the dynamic version, of your page
4. Design fast website (app) and also mobile friendly
5. Use good domain name that already have critical keywords of your website (app)
6. Set correct html lang attribute (for a multi-lingual site)