This week in the digital world, we here at Red Shark Digital have learned a lot. From new frameworks to hidden gems of Wordpress, and even some cool new AdWords features, we have so much information to share with you all in the first blog of our Friday Frenzy series. Now let's get right into things!

Frameworks

Frameworks are basically a set of commonly written code that’s already been written for you, which saves you a ton of time. And when it comes to PHP frameworks, Laravel is the 800lb gorilla. Laravel separates all of your code into Models, Views, and Controllers, making it well organized and efficient, especially when you have several developers working on a single project.

This framework has a powerful templating engine that lets you use shortcuts for building out the web pages that hold the content from the database, features like “Object-Relational Mapping” that keep you from having to write pesky SQL queries, which can be a huge time sink when you’re trying to do even the most simple tasks. And with features like the “Artisan” command line tools, you have the ability to have Laravel automatically build out controllers and models for you.

Laravel is also open source, meaning it’s free and open to anyone who wants to use it, or even make improvements to the framework and the ecosystem surrounding it. And because of this, thousands of passionate developers from all over the world help to perfect the framework for future projects.

Now it’s easy to think that managing this could get out of hand, especially with keeping it updated. But once again, you’re covered. Laravel can be installed using something called “Composer” that is an extremely reliable dependency manager. It ensures you always have the most recent version of the framework whenever you start working on a new project.

Wordpress Mining: The Hidden Gems

WordPress, undoubtedly, has a huge market share. To date, it currently owns about 58.8% and has well over 20 million active websites powered by it. WordPress was originally developed to simply power blogs, but it has evolved tremendously into a complete web development platform that powers the likes of Forbes and The New York Times.

WordPress has tons of “hidden gems” not apparent to basic users, but has made this platform an invaluable tool in a developer’s toolbox. With WordPress, you have the ability to host any type of site. From simple “brochure sites” to large eCommerce and membership sites, it has the power to make them run smoothly. Now with the use of the API, you can power your mobile app simply by updating your WP site.

If you have an idea for a web app, I am almost 100% sure that it can be accomplished using WordPress as its platform. With Custom Post Types, Custom Themes, Custom Taxonomies, WP Cron Jobs, and the WP REST API, WP can do a lot more than it used to. We are on a journey to discover, unmask, and implement them all.

AdWords and Google Business Listings

One of the final cool things coming to the digital space is the integration of Google AdWords, into a business owner's Google My Business listing. While this may not seem super cool at first glance, having this option will actually make AdWords easily accessible for small business owners who may not be able to afford a full out marketing plan.

Integrating Google Business Listings and AdWords means that you could create ads directly from your listing without having to sort through all of the crazy AdWords features. Now the super awesome thing with this is that once the integration officially launches, there are rumors that advertisers would be able to create very specific localized ads that could show in business listings.

Unfortunately, this is just a rumor as of now, but you can bet that Red Shark Digital is on top of all of the new AdWords and can't wait to see when the integration will launch and to find out what benefits will exactly be available to advertisers.

Well, there ya have it! That has been this week in our Friday Frenzy! Be sure to check out our Friday Frenzy video series and if you need any help taking your business to the next level, contact us and we can make waves together!