Back to Basics: Optimizing Our Web Stack

We are always committed to delivering the internet’s best practice solutions that not only meet but exceed the expectations of our clients. Today, SEO Soul is excited to share a significant evolution in our technological journey – the transition from the Rails and Ruby web stack to the ever-popular JavaScript MEAN stack. While we acknowledge that we might be a bit late to this bandwagon, we’re confident that this change will bring substantial benefits to our projects and company offerings.

Why MEAN?

Our decision to switch to the MEAN stack – MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, and Node.js – was not made lightly. In order to make this transition, we have had to give up our training in Rails and Ruby, as well as abandoning any current Rails-based projects that were in planning and development. As a first principles based web and technology company, SEO Soul has decided to focus on JavaScript and related frameworks in order to align with the company’s values of training our employees with the most valuable skills and frameworks in our industry.

Enhanced Performance and Speed

The MEAN stack is renowned for its non-blocking architecture and efficient data handling capabilities. This means faster load times and a smoother user experience for users across Canada, ensuring your interactions with our digital experiences are seamless.

Full-Stack JavaScript

By unifying our development process under a single language, JavaScript, we can streamline our operations and improve collaboration among our development team. This not only accelerates project delivery but also ensures a more cohesive and robust final product.

Scalability for Local Growth

As businesses in Canada continue to expand, our solutions need to grow with them. The MEAN stack provides the flexibility and scalability necessary to support the evolving needs of our clients, ensuring we’re always ready to tackle new challenges.

Active Community and Continuous Improvement

The MEAN stack boasts a vibrant community that is constantly contributing to its evolution. By joining this community, we’re ensuring that our team stays at the forefront of technological advancements, bringing the latest innovations to Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary.

A Commitment to Excellence

While we might be adopting the MEAN stack later than some, this transition is part of our unwavering commitment to delivering excellence. We are excited about the possibilities this transition will unlock and are eager to implement new features and improvements that will directly benefit our clients and network of business owners. We believe that embracing the MEAN stack is a step forward in providing more responsive, scalable, and efficient solutions tailored to the unique needs of businesses across Canada.

We look forward to embarking on this new journey with you.

Back to Basics Pt. 2

Company Update

As we look towards the new year and put 2023 behind us, SEO Soul wants to provide an update on the on-going training and skills upgrade we are undergoing internally. Our first training announcement was in June 2021 in our Back to Basics: Our first principles approach to Web Development news post.

Since then, we have complete retrained all of our staff members with a first principles approach to web development. This involved, but was not limited to:

  • Learning about the history of the internet to better understand web 3.0 and web 4.0 concepts.
  • Learning how computers connect to a web server on the internet.
  • Understanding the different uses and requirements for various content mangement systems (CMS); such as WordPress, Jekyll, Shopify, and HubSpot.
  • Understanding the differences between email and web development.
  • Understanding semantic HTML elements.
  • Understanding functional HTML elements for CSS & JS functionality.
  • Understanding the different supported file types on the internet.
  • Understanding the connection between layout, design, and content.
  • Learning mobile-first responsive design strategies.
  • Understanding the needs and requirements for accessibility and web compliance.
  • Learning git version control.
  • Implementing development and staging environments across internal and external projects.
  • Understanding the different purposes of each part of a website (business, personal, blogs, ecommerce, etc.) and related functionality & design.

Looking Forward: A First Principles Approach to Web Design

Alongside the improvements we have made in addressing potential knowledge gaps for web development projects, we have also made great strides in understanding web UI/UX principles. We have updated the SEO Soul website to reflect our new design philosophy. This minimalist approach comes along with a focus on content, functionality, and aesthetics. Additionally, we want to focus on web accessibility for visually-impaired persons. We believe that everyone should be able to access services and products on the internet.

Custom Ghost Theme

Add Your Heading Text Here

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Add Your Heading Text Here

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Back to Basics Pt. 1

Company Announcement

Due to our current and temporary circumstances, we have chosen to focus on training and improving our primary staff’s web development skills; to maximize future productivity, stay up-to-date with the latest web standards, and fill in any gaps in our fundamentals.

This post will be the first in a multi-part ‘Back to Basics’ news series where we outline the education, training, and skills upgrade that SEO Soul is undertaking during the COVID-19 lockdown; as the country of Canada gradually begins to re-open and post-COVID. While learning new skills and growing in our industry, we aim to establish the foundations of our knowledge through inductive reasoning, and constantly building upon those principles.

As more web frameworks, libraries, and technologies become available to the general public, there is a growing gap between theory and its applications. Aside from programming fundamentals, a good starting point to understanding HTML is understanding what XML is and why it was created.