Why is this site a flop?

Hi Ed,

"Ed Seedhouse" <eseedhouse (AT) shaw (DOT) ca> wrote in message

No, that's most definitely *not* the way to go. Splash screens are
spawn of satan and drive people away never to return. You need to serve
some of the real content of the site on that first page. Just don't try
to overload it. Leave some nice white space like the first page. Have
a nice big heading. Use 100% font sizing and em's for any different
font sizes. Decide what your site is for and focus it on that.

Aren't splash screens those awful opening pages, usually using Flash, that
can take 30 seconds or more to load, and that only have the one navigation
button 'enter'? Don't worry. I've come across enough of them to want to
avoid the whole concept. I agree - nasty.

I'm not sure what em's are just yet, but I agree that a bit of a taste of
what's inside the site would make good material for the opening page. I
haven't been able to come up with anything to replace my awful sales pitch
opener, but I'll keep at it until I come up with a reasonable looking and
compact foreshadowing of what's inside.

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.
--
http://www.review-a-gadget.com/
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vanluynm/

Hi Sherm,

"Sherm Pendley" <spamtrap (AT) dot-app (DOT) org> wrote

Focusing on text does is not the same as providing no graphics at all.
Some of
your most important early visitors are search engines, and they don't
"see"
graphics at all, just your text. Whatever text content you provide is also
what
blind visitors to your site will hear from their screen readers.

Some folks provide their "content" purely as images, and then try to
compensate
for the lack of real text with keywords and other lame "SEO" techniques.
That's
simply putting a band-aid on the symptom while ignoring the cause. If
relevant
keywords don't appear in your site's textual content, you should ask
yourself
why that is the case, instead of trying to "compensate" for that lack by
adding
them back in via HTML meta elements.

You're acting as if this is an either/or situation, when it's really not.
Text
*cannot* wait; it should come first. But, improving your site's appearance
need
not imply replacing text with images either - generally it's a matter of
adding
some images and/or styling your text with CSS.

It's a bit of a balancing act. We humans are very visual creatures, but
search
engines are effectively blind and ignore layout and design in favor of
indexing
pure HTML code. It's important to realize that providing good textual
content
and a nice appearance are not mutually exclusive goals, and that you do
need to
address both needs.

I've just gotten through telling my sister all about how important it is to
have keyword inclusive copy on the index page of her aquarists site for the
benefit of search engine rankings. And I've still got this silly sales pitch
that has no relevant keywords at all on my own site. Well it seems that
including some graphics on the opener has improved things considerable in
terms of reduced 3 second bail-outs. The next, and as equally important,
step I guess is to get the opening blurb sorted out. I just can't come up
with anything that either sounds or looks right just yet. I'll have to have
a look at a few more magazine covers, give it some more thought, and get
something up very soon for the search engines to digest.

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.
--
http://www.review-a-gadget.com/
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vanluynm/

In article
<45acff5f$0$27887$5a62ac22 (AT) per-qv1-newsreader-01 (DOT) iinet.net.au>,
"Murray R. Van Luyn" <vanluynm (AT) NOSPAM (DOT) iinet.net.au> wrote:

SUCCESS! Well a much improved website performance at least. Since adding a
toy robot face and some tiny toy images to fill up the blank space on the
opening page, things have improved.

As far as I can see, you don't actually mention that the site is about
toys?

Why not?

How about changing your title to:

Toys for young boys - review-a-gadget.com

You still don't have a h1 header to help search engines decide what your
site is about. Mention Airsoft toys.

Your left hand side menu doesn't work (actually doesn't even appear) in
any browser in which Javascript has been disabled. Some businesses block
javascript. Some people recommended switching it off when browsing
unknown sites. Some people switch it off to block annoying advertising.
Also, I am not sure search bots bother to follow Javascript only links.

--
http://www.ericlindsay.com

Eric Lindsay <NOwebmasterSPAM (AT) ericlindsay (DOT) com> writes:

Your left hand side menu doesn't work (actually doesn't even appear) in
any browser in which Javascript has been disabled. Some businesses block
javascript. Some people recommended switching it off when browsing
unknown sites. Some people switch it off to block annoying advertising.
Also, I am not sure search bots bother to follow Javascript only links.

Quite right, but the "site map" links at the bottom of the page lead to the
same pages. IMNSHO, this is a good example of using JavaScript correctly,
as an enhancement rather than as a requirement.

I would actually take it one step further, and in the JavaScript code add
a CSS attribute "display:none" to the div containing the site map. That would
leave the site map links visible for those who need them, while getting rid
of some unnecessary visual clutter for those who can use the menu.

sherm--

--
Web Hosting by West Virginians, for West Virginians: http://wv-www.net
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net

Hi Ed,

"Ed Seedhouse" <eseedhouse (AT) shaw (DOT) ca> wrote

To perhaps oversimplify, an "em" is the size of the current default
font. Which if you haven't changed it will, for normal text, be the
size of the user's preferred font, or at least the one he doesn't hate
so much to have figured out how to change it. So if you don't redefine
the user's prefered font size you are least likely to offend him by
making your page hard to read.

Ah yes. I've just been reading a very condensed introduction to CSS. They
just start using em's without giving any sort of explanation as to what they
are, but thanks to your description I think I understand them much better.

Fonts other than the user's prefered default are best used sparingly and
for effect. It's common to use a serif font like Georgia for headings,
for example. Best to stay away from serif fonts for general use though,
because on the sucky resolution of most computer monitors the little
serifs, meant to make the text easy to read by guiding the eye, actually
confuse the eye instead.

I agree, sans-serif fonts do look a lot nicer when you have a whole block of
copy to read off a monitor. I hadn't thought to use the serif fonts for much
larger heading text, but I'll give it a go now and see what sort of results
I get.

Thanks again for the input Ed.

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.
--
http://www.review-a-gadget.com/
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vanluynm/

In article <m2tzyo3io4.fsf (AT) Sherm-Pendleys-Computer (DOT) local>,
Sherm Pendley <spamtrap (AT) dot-app (DOT) org> wrote:

Eric Lindsay <NOwebmasterSPAM (AT) ericlindsay (DOT) com> writes:

Your left hand side menu doesn't work (actually doesn't even appear) in
any browser in which Javascript has been disabled. Some businesses block
javascript. Some people recommended switching it off when browsing
unknown sites. Some people switch it off to block annoying advertising.
Also, I am not sure search bots bother to follow Javascript only links.

Quite right, but the "site map" links at the bottom of the page lead to the
same pages. IMNSHO, this is a good example of using JavaScript correctly,
as an enhancement rather than as a requirement.

However the sitemap items are below the fold. Browsing without
javascript, a person might enter the page, see no obvious navigation
near the top, and exit the page. Your next paragraph does cover that
situation, and suggests a solution.

Is the Javascript really being used correctly, as an enhancement? Maybe
I missed it, but I didn't see any rollover that couldn't be done with
CSS just as easily.

Now if it had been something like hiding part of contributed content
(like showing the first few lines of a review, and expanding to the full
review if clicked) then I could see arguing the javascript was an
enhancement.

I would actually take it one step further, and in the JavaScript code add
a CSS attribute "display:none" to the div containing the site map. That would
leave the site map links visible for those who need them, while getting rid
of some unnecessary visual clutter for those who can use the menu.

sherm--

That does seem like a reasonable idea. However I wonder whether search
engines are detecting use of display none, and penalising hiding of
multiple links? I don't think so, but they keep tuning their algorithms.

--
http://www.ericlindsay.com

Eric Lindsay <NOwebmasterSPAM (AT) ericlindsay (DOT) com> writes:

Is the Javascript really being used correctly, as an enhancement? Maybe
I missed it, but I didn't see any rollover that couldn't be done with
CSS just as easily.

True, but I think *some* credit is still due to the OP. Even if his effort
falls somewhat short of the ideal, the fact remains that he *did* at least
provide support for non-JS users. Far too many web authors don't.

I would actually take it one step further, and in the JavaScript code add
a CSS attribute "display:none" to the div containing the site map. That would
leave the site map links visible for those who need them, while getting rid
of some unnecessary visual clutter for those who can use the menu.

That does seem like a reasonable idea. However I wonder whether search
engines are detecting use of display none, and penalising hiding of
multiple links? I don't think so, but they keep tuning their algorithms.

It depends; if you're using JavaScript for the menu, then that same JavaScript
could also apply the display:none. Search engines, not being JS-aware (that I
know of) would never know that display:none is being used. (That would have
the disadvantage of the links being visible briefly, then disappearing when
the CSS is applied.)

On the other hand, a pure CSS menu could be built using the same link elements
that would appear on the bottom of the page in a non-CSS browser. That would,
I agree, be a better solution - you wouldn't have to worry about hiding one or
the other.

sherm--

--
Web Hosting by West Virginians, for West Virginians: http://wv-www.net
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net

Eric Lindsay wrote...

That does seem like a reasonable idea. However I wonder whether search
engines are detecting use of display none, and penalising hiding of
multiple links? I don't think so, but they keep tuning their algorithms.

That's a worrying thought. I have been using display:none at the top of
each page for links to Access Keys. Is there another way not to display
these?
--
Martin Clark

Martin Clark wrote:

That's a worrying thought. I have been using display:none at the
top of each page for links to Access Keys. Is there another way
not to display these?

See other comments in this sub-thread.

display:none can be set using javascript, like this:
document.getElementById('hidemediv').style.display = "none"



--
K A Nuttall
www.yammer.co.uk
Re-type the e-mail address how it sounds, remove .invalid

Hi Eric,

"Eric Lindsay" <NOwebmasterSPAM (AT) ericlindsay (DOT) com> wrote

How about changing your title to:

Toys for young boys - review-a-gadget.com

You still don't have a h1 header to help search engines decide what your
site is about. Mention Airsoft toys.

Thanks for that Eric. Yes I'm still trying to decide what sort of blurb I
should use on the opening page. You're right, it should give a much better
impression of what the site is about ie. toys. It had slipped my mind that
it would be very important to use a H1 tag in this blurb for the benefit of
search engines. Thanks for the reminder.

Your left hand side menu doesn't work (actually doesn't even appear) in
any browser in which Javascript has been disabled. Some businesses block
javascript. Some people recommended switching it off when browsing
unknown sites. Some people switch it off to block annoying advertising.
Also, I am not sure search bots bother to follow Javascript only links.

Yes, despite the groovy drop shadow and transition effects, there were a lot
of problems with the JavaScript menu. It didn't seem to position correctly
for the almost 30% of websurfers that I believe now use FireFox, and was
never going to appear for surfers with JavaScript turned off.

Never mind. The JavaScript menu has been replaced with a pure CSS version
adapted from Stu Nicholls' one at CSS Play.
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/flyoutt.html Thank you Stu. This was the best
behaved one I could find, and it doesn't use any JavaScript as pretty much
all the others seemed to.

Except for having yet to come up with an interesting opening blurb,
hopefully that's the majority of reasons why visitor's weren't getting past
the first page dealt with.

Now I just have to work out how to get relisted with Google, who seem to
have nailed me for one of my PageRank tricks overnight. It's okay, I
expected that. Gee, it all worked just fine with MSN.

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.
--
http://www.review-a-gadget.com/
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vanluynm/