Should I Use Aliases in my Configuration File?

It's a good idea to use aliases for the following two reasons:

1. User Friendly
1. It allows you to keep all your assembly references at the top and easily viewable, so you don't have to sift through all the registration tags to search for the references you need to add to the project, and
2. Better Error Display
1. You will get more useful errors should you reference the incorrect assembly or if you don't reference the assembly you are specifying in the configuration.

If you are using the registration tags to specify the full type names and assemblies, and one of them happens to be misspelt or you haven't referenced that project in your assembly, Unity will throw a very obscure message that will look like this: "FileLoadException was unhandled by user code. The given assembly name or codebase was invalid. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131047)"

This particular error sent me on a wild goose chase for a good few hours until I decided to use the alias tags. After which it broke immediately and indicated exactly the type that was giving the issues. It was coincidence in fact, since I wanted to clean up my code so that I could easily see all the references that I was using at the top as opposed to sifting through my reference tags. It was after I added in the references that the error it gave me was actually quite descriptive and not obscure like the previous one. In my case, it was a silly misspelling of the reference which would've taking me ages to figure out had I have persisted based on the current error message. In fact, in one post I read the guy actually downloaded the source code for unity and debugged it this way, obviously causing a huge delay in his project.

So it makes sense then to use aliases, as it cleans up your config file quite a bit and due to Unity appearing to resolve the aliases first, will give you a better error message should the type you referenced be unavailable/misspelt etc.

Hope this saves you guys some time. Let me know your thoughts.

Exactly what is SEO and SEM, and why should I worry about them?

Think of your site as a retail store, as more people visit your store, your chance of making a sale increases. It makes sense then that you want as many people entering your store as possible, or does it? If you get people that are not interested in your products, coming into your store, you aren’t likely to make too many sales. However, if you are able to attract people that are interested in your products, your potential for selling to them is huge.

But how do you get that potential customer into your store and not your competitors? Well, that’s the million dollar question. Now if you owned a physical retail store, the factors in attracting the right kind of customer are many, factors such as location, reputation and shop fitting come into play. Do you have a franchise? Are you in a mall? Is your store visually appealing and appropriate to your product offering?

Owning a website isn’t that dissimilar. The primary difference being that you have a virtual presence as opposed to a physical one. Adjusting the parameters and factors to build your online credibility to attract more potential, and targeted, visitors is the arena that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) are focussed on.

In short, SEO and SEM are more than the basic marketing you would do for a physical store to get business. Since you have a physical presence, by default you can be found by people passing by your store. On the net, however, there’s just no ways anyone can find you unless you actively work to get found.

Search Engine Optimization deals with actually making your site 'presentable' to the search engines whilst Search Engine Marketing deals with actively marketing your site using the major search engines marketing programs.

I'll be doing a series of articles on each of these to try and help you gain the most out of your SEO and SEM and avoid the common pitfalls that the average webmaster/business owner makes when trying to do this themselves.