Thread: Please Critically Review

Hi Guys,

www.everybodytraining.com is my first draft. Issues I'm having are:

1. Business logo at top left of each page is not recognised by Internet Explorer, although no problems in Firefox or Opera. I've resized the logo in Photoshop and checked, checked and double checked that I've saved it as a .JPEG file? Please help to solve my SNAFU.

2. The twitter link in Opera gives me an error message: "Website does not permit its content to be displayed in a frame. It must be displayed in a seperate window. Load document in new window." It seems to work fine in Internet Explorer. How do I fix this bug?

3. We are located in Australia's glorious Sunshine Coast, so I was experimenting with the Yellow/Blue gradient background that you see in the Likotheque page. Would this look better than the clear background on all the other pages. Or would you suggest something else?

4. Is it important to have Meta Tags in all pages or just the home page. I've told our story in the pages and then tagged all the key words in the story. Any other tips for SEO for my site.

5. Design issues. I'm an amateur, but with a thick skin, so feel free to let rip and set the dogs onto me.

6. Any other suggestions.

Thanking you in anticipation.

Regards,

John

Ok, I've solved the logo problem by pasting the landscape version of the logo and redesigning the pages to a more traditional masthead style. Now the logo is recognised by Interenet Explorer.

However, the other problems remain when Internet Explorer is used with my website. The Privacy Policy Menu Bar and Facebook Like button are only visible when the user allows Internet Explorer to Unblock its restrictions on running scripts and Active X Controls.

In blocked mode the twitter badge comes out OK. But in Unblocked mode, it's reduced to a tiny red dot. As a crash through, to keep Internet Explorer happy, instead of using twitter's html code, I was thinking of doing the same as I did with my Wordpress link, videlicet: pasting the twitter badge onto the page and then linking the resultant image to the twitter page. Can anybody advise my if there is any danger, or disadvantage of using my proposed crash through and what are the benefits of pasting the html code obtained through twitter (which seems to make Internet Explorer crazy).

All the other questions in my original post are still valid.

Thanking you in anticipation of your kind help.

1. You might simplify things by using the all-in-one "share" tools offered by www.AddThis.com and easily pasting the code provided into a BlueVoda HTML Box available via the toolbar INSERT > ADVANCED > HTML .... (once the "Box" is visible on your page, double-click on it to reveal the pane wherein you paste in your code, just as you should have done with your Facebook "Like" button code).
* AddThis now includes a FB "Like" button and the direct-subscribe Twitter button along with the traditional "share" tools, as seen here. Much simpler and cleaner (your present tool is running off your page, distorting your page size/margins) ... and using these special instructions, can be easily duplicated upon your Wordpress installation at Wordpress.com so it seamlessly supports both web presences (supports, not compliments - explained below).

2. You should have created a Wordpress installation upon your domain free with one click via the Fantastico section in your hosting account's Control Panel rather than at Wordpress.com, to not only add SEO values to your domain, but also to maintain Domain continuity and navigational simplicity. Could have looked like www.EveryBodyTraining.com/blog instead ...

3. Simple optimization efforts should be implemented for every page of a website, either static (as a BlueVoda site) or dynamic (as is Wordpress). Each has common and singular methods, the simplest to point out are BV's ability to use H-Tags and WP's article tags. SEO is more accurately described as a strategy that is carefully crafted moreso than a method casually implemented .... it encompasses many aspects of relevancy and continuity. By having a blog hosted apart from your website, you merely created an 'outbound link' to a disparate construct rather than a symbiotic source of Domain validation and valuation: as things are now, you are risking SE sanctions arising from duplicated Content between the "sites."

4. From what I can see, you have no reason currently to consider using an iFrame, and would do yourself a favor losing the fascination with them completely. If, in fact, you have an element that would best be served displayed on your BlueVoda pages globally (such as a Menu/navigation feature), you should focus on the preferred (and stable) method of embedding code into the page itself by using the BV + PHP Single Page Menu method. This improper use of an iFrame is not only a likely source of browser dysfunction, but indicates a need for clarification of website building basics.

Just suggestions and observations for your consideration.


BlueVoda Tutorial: Adding HTML to your Page (Banners, Share Tools, Scripts, etc…)

There's no sense comparing the PREVIEW ActiveX messages with anything browsers display with regard to an actual published page, unless this is really a Windows7 issue or one due to not configuring a default browser properly.

Thanks Vasili,

As befits an expert, your advice is so simple, yet so very practical. I've made the AddThis changes and it's playing out much better in IE.

The silly thing is that I stumbled onto AddThis and was playing around with it last June and had it bookmarked, but completely forgot about it when designing this website.

You use past tense when you wrote: "You should have created a Wordpress installation upon your domain ...." I hope I can still follow this suggestion or is it too late?

Pardon my ignorance, but are H tags different to the meta tags I've used for each page in Blue Voda. I see that you refer to H tags in many of your previous advices, but can't see a tutorial on their use.


Regards,
http://www.everybodytraining.com

John Molski

Originally Posted by jmolski

You use past tense when you wrote: "You should have created a Wordpress installation upon your domain ...." I hope I can still follow this suggestion or is it too late?
Pardon my ignorance, but are H tags different to the meta tags I've used for each page in Blue Voda. I see that you refer to H tags in many of your previous advices, but can't see a tutorial on their use.

Note the emphasis in the original post, and the following explanations to outline reasoning for the suggestion to create a Wordpress installation on your own Domain, in your own hosting account being far superior than creating one elsewhere (as you did at Wordpress.org). You can still duplicate your efforts by simply using the Fantastico section in your hosting account's cPanel to install Wordpress on your Domain (in your case, it's far easier to simply copy the same configurations onto a new installation). You don't yet have much to migrate over, so it will not be that big of a task to simply start from scratch using the same imported Theme.
An introduction to using Fantastico in cPanel
How to install WordPress via Fantastico in your control panel

In addition to simple META (Keywords, Description, Author) that BlueVoda allows you to implement, the specific use of H-Tags in BlueVoda helps to complete the better overall web builds, and to conform to performance expectations.
SEO TIP: Proper H-Meta Development & Techniques

Try to see clearly the big picture, so to make sense of how all the smallest of details fit together to produce the vision complete. In web building as in much of life, shortcuts are not only ill-advised, but often create consequences that can prove devastating.

Hi Vasili,

Very sorry to bother you again, but one answer leads to many more questions.

h1 ... h6 tags need their own, properly formatted text in their own textbox, with the appropriate scripts appended.

If I don't want these headings to actually appear to the user, could I place a textbox inside another textbox (much like a bookmark) and properly format the h texts, but in bold white font against a white background (so that these headings remain invisible to the reader)?

Would I be punished by search engines for doing this?

Regards,
http://www.everybodytraining.com
John

Originally Posted by jmolski

h1 ... h6 tags need their own, properly formatted text in their own textbox, with the appropriate scripts appended.
If I don't want these headings to actually appear to the user, could I place a textbox inside another textbox (much like a bookmark) and properly format the h texts, but in bold white font against a white background (so that these headings remain invisible to the reader)? Would I be punished by search engines for doing this?

Originally Posted by Vasili

In web building as in much of life, shortcuts are not only ill-advised, but often create consequences that can prove devastating.

Such a method is not permitted, as it is actually a form of "hidden text" which will result in severe sanctions from the bots and Search Engines and risks negative ranking and possible site de-listing.
Text on web pages must have at least 35% contrast to the background for visibility, be at least 6 pixels tall, and not be obscured by any other element, color, or object for it not to be analyzed as a Black Hat method which will eliminate any positive rankings and cause instead an instance to sanction.
You might gain some additional insight from my PDF: Black Hat SEO Methods to Avoid

You have discovered the first steps in the Art of SEO with regard to composing unique, compliant, converting, and organic Content: how to fulfill the requirements and still be natural whilst weaving in the relevancy of your Site Purpose effectively.