My first CodeIgniter site launched! www.PremierLeagueShirts.com 2
I first mentioned CodeIgniter back in February 2007 as something that really excited me, but it took over a year and a half for me to actually use it!
Well, after a 2-day programming blitz, I launched my first CodeIgniter website yesterday. It’s hosted on the keyword domain www.PremierLeagueShirts.com and is an affiliate site targetting those looking for English Premier League jerseys. While still under heavy construction, the primary features are now available for use. The remaining changes will mostly be cosmetic and UI-related.
Here are some of the features that I programmed into www.PremierLeagueShirts.com:
- SEO-Friendly URLS -Â Each and every URL is search engine friendly. Take for example some of these URLS:
- Product Search – While still quite simplistic, will return a list of products which matches the user’s query.
- Completely Database-Driven: All content is stored in the Premier League Shirts database. No real-time webservice calls to the main affiliate site which may slow down page loads.
And what’s left to come?
- Improved GUI – Yes, the UI is plain. But my goal was to get the site out there and crawled by the major search engines. Now that that’s done, I’ll see what can be done about the look-and-feel of the site.
- Improved Search – The site search currently only looks at the Product Name, and not the Brand, Category, or Description. This will be looked into.
- Stats – Record what products are being looked at, what’s being searched for, and store that all in the database. Spit that out onto new pages on the site for further crawling by Google.
- Additional Content – What is on the site right now is strictly affiliate products and their descriptions. Obviously Google may not like that so much, so will have to look at additional sources of related content.
So, what do you think so far? Since this is my first forray into the world of CodeIgniter, I’m please with what I’ve accomplished over the last 2 days.
Hi Rory, I enjoyed your post and it inspired me to update my codeigniter – affiliate site with SEO friendly URLs. I like your stats idea especially and knowing what is being clicked on the most is key to understanding the demands from customers. Great work especially for 2 days time! How is the new site performing on the SERPs so far and have you made any other progress to report?
Hi Rory, thats really something considering the time you spent building the site! I’m actually about to start buliding another similar very simple product / category based site myself and was considering using codeigniter for it so your article helped to make up my mind. Is there any chance you would consider sharing the code and I would be happy to return the favour for the site I’m buliding?