Posted: 2.02.2012

This is an on-site salaried position, based in South Jordan, UT. Please do not contact us about outsourcing. And please no recruiters.

We are looking for a PHP developer that enjoys working on challenging projects in a vast array of industries. If you get bored maintaining only a hand full of the same old projects or are stuck in a position that has you pigeonholed into one genre, this position is for you. Imagine new clients and new challenges every month, finding clever solutions to all the interesting requirements clients think up. A career that will keep you progressing and learning on a daily basis.

Red Olive is a digital agency centrally located in South Jordan, Utah. We are a small, strong, and incredibly talented group of 10. In 12 years of business we have never had to advertise yet we stay fully booked. There is no top heavy corporate structure with big egos to contend with, just a talented team that genuinely enjoys what they do and who they work with. We offer a fun environment, competitive salaries, and benefits that most firms cannot.

NOTE: Red Olive cares about the health of it's employees and maintains a smoke free campus, smoking will not be permitted on the property.

Benefits

• Medical Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• Matching 401K
• Holiday Pay
• Vacation Pay

Requirements

• 3yrs experience with PHP and MySQL
• Experience with MVC
• Working knowledge of Web Services
• Working knowledge of HTML and JavaScript
• Familiarity with mobile web development (Android or iOS)

Job Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and implement a broad range of web and mobile based client tools including Content Management, Ecommerce and custom applications
• Ability to accurately specify timelines
• Attention to detail, We like to do it right the first time
• Work closely with UX developers and Design teams on large projects
• Know current XHTML and CSS standards

Site Development - Communicate with your Developer

When you pick a developer to build a website for your new company, ask them about title tags and meta descriptions. If it doesn't get discussed, this typically leads to 1 or 2 likely outcomes. First, the developer will often duplicate the homepage title tag across all your pages. This can really hinder your website's potential. This would be like a book where each chapter has the same title. Also, Google warns you of duplicate title tags in Web Master Tools. If Google is tracking it, you might want to make sure this isn't happening on your site. The second typical outcome of not asking about title tags, is the developer will likely wing it and write something quickly as they build out your pages. And as you can imagine, with this method, your results will vary.

So ask about title tags, and if the developer isn't going to do them properly, make sure you do some research and write them yourself. To be fair to developers, it takes a considerable amount of time and thought to write title tags and meta descriptions. And you shouldn't expect to have someone spend hours on this without specifically paying for it.

Create a Blog

Start posting to a blog. If you can't afford to pay for hosting or development for an "on-site" blog, create a posterous or tumblr blog. For starters, this helps you to build on your writing and creativity skills. Also, you can use the blog to support your website by writing up blog posts that add something extra to an existing page or topic on your main website. If you have a page on "Running Shoes" do a blog post about "Tips for breaking in Running Shoes." This supportive role of the blog can really help with SEO.

Don't Set it and Forget it

I have been doing SEO for almost 4 years and I will often have to revise the way I lay things out for a website, after the fact. Rarely do websites nail site organization and marketing at first launch. I've seen the addition of a strategically placed "contact" or "rfq" button double conversion rates. Keep finding ways to improve your website and increase conversion.

Example

Search: intitle:Utah SEO
Number of Results: 1,970,000
Population: 2,763,885

So for Utah, there are .71 Google results (that have "Utah" and "SEO" in the title tag) per person. So there are more people in Utah than results targeting "Utah SEO." For New Mexico, it appears there are about 8x more results targeting New Mexico SEO than there are people in the state. The "New Mexico" outlier could be explained by the potential for a large number of sites with title tags that are actually targeting just "Mexico" + "SEO" and perhaps "New" was being used in a different part of the page or title tag so it was flagged and added to the results.

Report Data

This is not a scientific report, as there are likely caveats to this method as some companies have more than 1 page with their state and SEO in the title tag. But you should still consider these potential duplicate pages from a single company as competition, as every page is competing for a top 10 spot in the search results. Another thing to keep in mind is that while some states may have fewer SEO pages per person compared to other states, it is not saying it would be more or less difficult in these states to rank top 10 for local SEO phrases. This report simply shows the number of Google results for the search: "intitle:[state] seo" per person in each state as of 01/17/12 based on 2010 Census data.

State	Population - Census 2010	Google page Results for "intitle:state seo"	# of Results per person in state
alabama	4,779,736	2,040,000	0.43
alaska	710,231	1,370,000	1.93
arizona	6,392,017	2,120,000	0.33
arkansas	2,915,918	1,250,000	0.43
california	37,253,956	14,700,000	0.39
colorado	5,029,196	2,750,000	0.55
connecticut	3,574,097	1,110,000	0.31
delaware	897,934	692,000	0.77
florida	18,801,310	8,850,000	0.47
georgia	9,687,653	3,180,000	0.33
hawaii	1,360,301	1,770,000	1.30
idaho	1,567,582	983,000	0.63
illinois	12,830,632	5,380,000	0.42
indiana	6,483,802	1,900,000	0.29
iowa	3,046,355	1,510,000	0.50
kansas	2,853,118	1,890,000	0.66
kentucky	4,339,367	1,360,000	0.31
louisiana	4,533,372	1,100,000	0.24
maine	1,328,361	1,480,000	1.11
maryland	5,773,552	2,120,000	0.37
massachusetts	6,547,629	2,430,000	0.37
michigan	9,883,640	3,980,000	0.40
minnesota	5,303,925	2,580,000	0.49
mississippi	2,967,297	857,000	0.29
missouri	5,988,927	1,790,000	0.30
montana	989,415	1,570,000	1.59
nebraska	1,826,341	1,030,000	0.56
nevada	2,700,551	1,190,000	0.44
new hampshire	1,316,470	267,000	0.20
new jersey	8,791,894	27,600,000	3.14
new mexico	2,059,179	16,400,000	7.96
new york	19,378,102	41,800,000	2.16
north carolina	9,535,483	4,780,000	0.50
north dakota	672,591	97,900	0.15
ohio	11,536,504	4,360,000	0.38
oklahoma	3,751,351	1,730,000	0.46
oregon	3,831,074	2,050,000	0.54
pennsylvania	12,702,379	2,700,000	0.21
rhode island	1,052,567	38,800	0.04
south carolina	4,625,364	3,470,000	0.75
south dakota	814,180	93,300	0.11
tennessee	6,346,105	1,420,000	0.22
texas	25,145,561	11,800,000	0.47
utah	2,763,885	1,970,000	0.71
vermont	625,741	677,000	1.08
virginia	8,001,024	3,640,000	0.45
washington	6,724,540	7,190,000	1.07
west virginia	1,852,994	2,940,000	1.59
wisconsin	5,686,986	1,610,000	0.28
wyoming	563,626	620,000	1.10

Population data sources

Census and Wikipedia

Title Tag:

Tip: Choose a title tag that best describes the content on the page, while containing keywords or a category element to help search engines categorize your page.
Example: Utah Luxury Hotels | Salt Lake City | Red Olive Hotel
w3schools technical title tag usage information

Meta Description:

Tips: Completely read through your page before writing the meta description so your content is fresh on your mind. This will also help you check for spelling errors or parts of your writing that may not be clear. You might also notice you are too light on keywords. The idea is not to stuff a bunch of keywords in your writing, but rather, to make sure you flat aren't missing keywords and not using them at all. This happens more than you might think.

Go read what other companies in your industry are writing in their meta descriptions. See what you like or don't like about their descriptions, and then use this information to help guide the writing for your meta description. Think about what makes your service or product different from other companies and incorporate this into your meta description. Lastly make sure your meta description is on-topic and uses related words or some of the same words that were used in your title tag and page content. Congruency is good here.
w3schools technical meta description usage information

H1 Tag:

Tip: Reserve the use of 'h' tags for your page headings. Don't use h1 tags for links, buttons, or other elements that are not headings. There is tendency for developers to use h1 for various items across the page while trying to apply font size styles.
w3schools technical h tag usage information

P Tag:

Tip: I prefer to break up content using 'p' tags and not a bunch of 'br' tags. But go with your personal preference.
w3schools technical p tag usage information

A Tag:

Tip: Links and the anchor text for your link. Put 'a' tags around words that help the user quickly get an idea of what type of page or content that link points to. In other words, put 'a' tags around keywords or category phrases. It is also helpful to link call-to-action phrases. Be careful not to have the same word linked twice on a page and then send the user to two different places. This is confusing and probably not helpful for a search engine or user.
w3schools technical a tag usage information

URLs:

Tip: Try to create urls that are organized, contain categories or keywords. Don't create urls that are too simple or way too complex and strung out. Using overly simple urls, such as product.html, can really hurt your site's potential. Creating overly complex urls such as /ti55-red-running-shoes-12345.html aren't so great either. While this is better than the first example, because it includes information about the page, it is still kind of hard for the user to remember. Something like /shoes/red-running-shoes is probably a better start.

Navigation or Nav:

Tip: Don't be overly generic like this: Home, Products, About, Contact. A user should be able to figure out what type of company you are just by reading the text from your navigation.

If you are unfamiliar with what Search Engine Optimization is, it can be summarized by this definition:
Building quality traffic to your website through improved search engine rankings for keywords related to your company or services.

Some of the typical methods to increase search engine rankings include:

• Improving title tags, urls, and website content.
• Improving site coding for things such as decreased load times and creating a better user experience.
• Improving off-site presence by creating content that builds links, social media strategy, and blog participation.

Here are some SEO charts documenting keyword improvements we've made for some Utah companies. For the purposes of this post we have included mostly "Utah" related keywords. However, we do offer SEO for national based phrases, where there isn't a location element to the keyword.

Some work we've done for Utah Home Builders:

For a Utah Dermatologist:

Other Services:

National Phrases (without a local element in the targeted keywords):

Which one should we make a t-shirt into? 1. SketchBot, 2. 404Bot, or 3. Stylized Logo

VOTE ONLINE AT http://www.facebook.com/redolivedesign

[Show as slideshow]

1. Allow PC's to run 360 games, this would boost hardware sales.
2. Partner with a hardware company to develop a $600 retail desktop with a powerful video card to run app store games.
   Most pc's come with lousy video cards, and to upgrade, you typically have to buy a more powerful power supply as well. Replacing a power supply and video card just to play mid-range games = lame and expensive.
3. Try to work with hardware manufacturers to reduce bloatware on new machines.
4. Start shipping PC's with restore discs again. Trust me, people like restore discs.

GO FORTH AND DESIGN GREATNESS!

Construction began in 1995 on a building that would house a restaurant, gift shop and package liquor agency. On May 10, 1996, Switchback opened for business and has been taking care of park visitors ever since. Switchback’s special blend of customer care, quality and attention to detail truly set it apart.

[Show as slideshow]

@redoliveryan - @mentions are for talking to someone. These show up in your timeline, your followers see them, and they show up in your recipients @ mentions in-box, and people can search twitter for these.

To view tweets where people have mentioned you: login to twitter, click 'home' and then click '@mentions.'
Or go to search.twitter.com and search for @yourusername.

Examples:
You want to thank a customer: @redoliveryan thanks for your support.
You want to ask a question: @redoliveryan are title tags important?
You want to send a shout out: Shout out to @redoliveryan you rock!
You want to recommend something: @redolivedesign really did a great job on my site!
You want to mention people, and you want them to get it in their @ inbox: @redolivedesign and @redolivebrad did a great job.

#hashtags

#redoliveryan - #hashtags are for talking about something. These show up in your timeline, your followers see them, and people can search twitter for these.

To view hashtags of people talking about you or your industry, go to search.twitter.com and search #yourusername or #yourindustry.

Examples:
You are at a conference: #redoliveconf there will be a meet-up @dairyqueen in Sandy at 7pm on 08/07.
Another conference idea: Have conference attendees use a special conference hashtag, such as #redoliveconf, to comment or ask questions.
You want to participate in a trending topic: #myfavoritemovieis Dumb and Dumber. (If #myfavoritemoveis were trending). You can check for trending topics at search.twitter.com.
You want to talk about a company: #redolivedesign is the bomb!
You want to make up your own topic: If you want to follow my ideas, follow the hashtag #ryanideas

I hope this helps.