8 BEST PHP FRAMEWORKS FOR DEVELOPING AGILE APPLICATIONS FASTER

Undoubtedly, PHP is one of the programming languages which is rocking the development world since the last few years due to its inherent flexibility and comparatively easier learning curve. But, developing perfect agile software applications in PHP has always been a challenging and time consuming task. 

However, if you consider using a framework, things will get much easier and faster. Building complex applications on PHP frameworks will allow you to reuse generic components and also add modules while creating things on a unified structural foundation. 

This not only ensures high-end scalability but keeps your code much organized and allows your software application to evolve with time while facilitating long-term maintenance by complying with latest application development standards. This way, you will be able to look upon the other important aspects of application development, like maintaining consistent functionality and focusing on sustainable high-quality code.

Also Read:  How to Choose the Best Ecommerce Website Design & Development Company

So, here I go with the 8 best PHP frameworks that will help you build agile applications with high-end interoperability, flexibility and robustness. 

1.     Laravel

Perfectly suited for all types of projects and even huge enterprise level applications, Laravel provides a solid foundation of well tested reliable code that works well on MySQL, Postgres, SQL Server and SQLite.

Basically, Laravel is a PHP web application framework that is built on top of several Symfony components and aims to facilitate complex web development by making tasks like authentication, routing, sessions and caching much easier with its expressive & elegant syntax. Besides providing easily accessible and most powerful tools to build large and robust applications, Laravel also comes with an inherently expressive migration system along with an inversion control container and integrated unit testing support. 

2.     Codeigniter

CodeIgniter is a powerful framework which is best suited to develop fully featured web applications in PHP. The best thing about this PHP framework is that it doesn’t require any configuration set up and also doesn’t impose any restrictive coding rules on the developer. Featuring a rich set of libraries, elegant toolkit, an extremely simple user interface and a logical structure; Codeigniter offers simplest solutions to the most complex application development requirements while being exceptionally fast. 

Being a designer, if you’re working on template files, Codeigniter is the one and only framework that can prove much more useful as it is based on MVC controller approach and thus allows for great separation between logic and presentation.

3.    CakePHP

CakePHP is a dynamic web application framework that comes packed with powerful features to let you to build sophisticated applications and prototypes rapidly using code generation features. From complex translations to database access; caching to validation and configuration to authentication; CakePHP has many features that are all built-in into the framework itself. 

So, you don’t need to break your head with complicated configurations. Just sync your database with the application framework and you're ready to go. To guide you through the application, CakePHP handles every aspect till the end. From providing a basic organizational structure to dealing with the user’s initial requests, filenames, database tables & final rendering of the webpage; the clean MVC architecture of this framework and built-in tools for validation and protection keeps your application absolutely safe and secure. 

4.     Symfony

Symfony is an all-powerful PHP application framework that significantly speeds up the development and maintenance work of your web application projects. The amazing thing about Symfony is that it doesn’t restrict you to the Symfony application development environment (naming conventions, classes, libraries and PHPUnit) and rather allows you to choose the software components that you want to use in your application. 

This makes Symfony the most flexible framework in terms of usability, scalability, maintainability and upgradability. Not just this, the framework also provides a set of prefabricated components that can be rapidly integrated into your web application so as to ensure you can work effectively to meet the complex requirements of even the most challenging projects.

Besides this, Symfony also gives you the freedom to choose between three versions based on the complexity of your application and project requirements – the complete version (Full Stack) in case you want a complex application; the Brick by Brick version to let you build your own framework according to the functionality needed, or the Microframework if you want to have a specific functionality in your projects.

             5.  Zend Framework 2

Zend Framework 2 is an open-source PHP application framework that constitutes powerful components in the form of a standard library that can be used for developing web applications using the object-oriented code. 

The framework also offers a highly robust supreme performance MVC implementation with an ability to extend easily and adapt to the needs of the complex project requirements through a modular base. Also, Zend Framework doesn’t bind you with any predefined constraints and you can implement anything the way you want to. 

6.     Phalcon

Phalcon is a fully-featured application development framework based on PHP 5 but implemented as a C extension. This is to ensure lower resource consumption and save processor time while delivering high performance. However, to build applications on this framework, you don’t need to learn and use the C programming Language unless you want to contribute to the Phalcon framework extensively and support it. 

Since Phalcon is loosely coupled and all the functionalities are exposed as PHP classes, you're free to use the full application framework or even specific modules as per your requirements. The best thing about Phalcon is - you can download and install it as a PHP module rather than extracting it to a separate directory unlike all other PHP frameworks which makes it a more flexible application framework. 

7.     Yii

Known for its powerful caching support and exclusively designed architecture that work efficiently even with Ajax, Yii is an all-powerful high-performance PHP application framework. From input validation to output filtering and SQL injection to Cross-site scripting prevention; Yii offers high-end security at its best. Based on the solid MVC architecture, the framework helps you develop clean code and model databases more efficiently.  

The framework also packages a set of validators that ensure safe collection of form inputs along with numerous other helper methods and cool widgets. Plus, there is extensive support for writing and running unit and functionality tests to offer efficient error handling. Since Yii is architecture in a way that it can work pretty well with third party code also, you can integrate the external data (data from other frameworks) also into your Yii powered application. 

8.     Aura

Aura is a PHP application framework that constitutes high quality code along with fully decoupled, standards-compliant and independent libraries. The framework takes full advantage of PHP5.4+. Each library is self-contained and is hence independently downloadable & can be integrated to use for application development. There are enough libraries to form a full framework and be used for application development. Featuring namespaces, well-tested functions, late static binding and short array syntax; Aura offers cutting edge functionalities that were not available in the older versions of PHP. 

Also Read: Android Apps Vs iOS Apps – Comparing the mobile applications developed on the two biggest mobile operating systems

Top 4 SEO Strategies to Optimize your Website for Greater Traffic

The web is growing more than ever, with more & more businesses launching a website to target customers online. Today, there is hardly any business owner who doesn’t have an online identity. But unfortunately, for a large number of business owners, getting a great website is just more than enough to fetch revenue online. However, what they fail to understand is the importance of getting their business discoverable on search engines, without which their online presence is worthless. That’s where the role of SEO comes in.  

What exactly is SEO??

Search Engine Optimization is basically a technique used by webmasters to optimize their website in order to gain organic search rankings on popular search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo for search queries made by people who want to avail any service, buy any product or simply seek some information on the web. 

The concept of search engine optimization is not new. In fact, it has been around since mid-1990s, when the first search engines were introduced. But earlier, since there were less no. of people opting to take their business online, the competition was considerably less and all webmasters had to do was to submit the address of a page, or URL to get their website indexed by search engines. But now the scenario is altogether different. With tonnes of websites flooding the web & competing for topmost rankings, the traditional SEO tactics don’t just work. To stand out amongst your competitors, you need to strategise a plan that proves successful in fetching good traffic for your website & eventually helps in raising money for your business.

If you’re still wondering what I’m talking about, let’s take an example, say, from the perspective of a person who searches the web to buy food online via Google. Probably, he or she will end up entering “buy food online” in a search query, or “buy food online in [some place]”. What exactly, Google return is only 10 organic results or some paid advertisements on the top & right of the page. But is there only 10-15 websites offering food online?? No, there are numerous. But do you think a person would really care to look past the first

 

page of Google?? 99% of the people won’t and make an order on the first page itself. Look, how important it is to be visible on the first page itself or else your investment in getting a beautiful website is just a sheer wastage of your hard earned money, valuable time & efforts. This is why everyone owning a business online must take SEO in account parallel to the website development. Again, one should completely avoid outsourcing the project to a digital marketing agency that still practices traditional SEO tactics that are outdated. Today SEO is more than just incorporating keywords & adding Meta tag information. Everyone does that. But intelligent SEO tactics is what that will distinguish you from the rest and make you stand out in the crowd of so many people having their online presence on the web.

While there are already some very well-know SEO strategies out there on the web, I tried to put forth some out-of-the-box SEO tactics that most of you might be missing while optimizing your website. Here we go with the top 4 techniques that can help bring more traffic to your website & eventually skyrocket your ROI. 

Strategy 1 – Use long-tail specific key-phrases instead of keywords

To target more impressions on your site & eventually avoid cut-throat competition, you need to research right keywords relating to your business. Incorporate key-phrases instead of keywords that people are likely to search for when they query something on the web.

For e.g If you own a clothing business that sells dresses for kids, the first keywords that pop up in your mind are “clothes” or “dresses”, which are too easy to have thought by your other competitors. Instead, you should opt for something which is very specific by putting yourself in the place of your customers who are likely to look for a product online. From the perspective of a potential customer, you will figure out that key-phrases like “buy clothes for kids” & “buy dresses for kids” will be more appropriate. Remember, keyword optimization is the first step & if you go wrong here itself, your online business will be dead. 

BONUS TIP - Research key-phrases relevant to your business & rightly to boost your visibility in search results

• Also Read: Latest Algorithm update by Google - Panda 4.1

Strategy 2- Periodically update fresh content on your website

Pleasing search engines is not that easy. You need to get fresh content for your website with appropriate placement of right & relevant keywords in perfect density. This is because website content is the most important thing that stands your chances of ranking higher in search engine results. Google values informative content that it feels can leave a good impact on people. Additionally, you can also set up a blog that brings traffic directly to your website by making a content calendar & regularly post informative content via engaging write-ups.

 Bonus Tip – Always get engaging content for your website that explains your offerings clearly & precisely keeping in mind the target audience.

Strategy 3 – Create a Sitemap for your online presence.

A sitemap is basically an HTML/XML webpage that lists all the pages on your site and is necessary to provide search engines with detailed information about the content of your website. Search engines crawl & index websites via programs called spiders to deliver content in response to search queries made by people on the web. Without a sitemap, indexation will be delayed & you’ll be invisible to the audience out there looking for you. So, all your SEO efforts will go in vain.

Bonus Tip – If you have a website on the most popular CMS – Wordpress, you can automatically get a sitemap created by installing a plug-in called Wordpress SEO by Yoast. 

• Also Read: Top 6 Most Popular Search Engines 

Strategy 4 – Include Social Media Signals to pull more traffic

Yes, you heard that right. Incorporation of social media signals via introducing widgets of popular networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc will earn you traffic on your website. This is what we usually call as – off page SEO , wherein you are using social networks to gain traffic via earned media.

 Benefits of social media integration are numerous. Some of which include – increased visibility, increased traffic, improved search engine ranking & the most important one is online reputation that will establish your niche amongst your prospective leads & customers.

Bonus Tip – Get beautiful social media widgets designed for your business & integrate them at appropriate positions in your website. Also, encourage people to share your content & build strong online relationships to educate them about your brand

To summarise, SEO is not a piece of cake that one can have so easily & gain top rankings overnight. It needs constant & considerable amount of effort to stick to the ethical SEO techniques and implement them intelligently. If your online presence is also invisible to your target audience, you can get professional services from Dean Infotech & drain all your worries on us. We have a panel of expert SEO professionals who’ll take care of your online business at competitive pricing.  

• Also Read: Ways in which you can Increase Traffic to your Website