Have a look at my website please ?

[John Young]

Yep I will have to look at that...

 

[ecoleman]

you have something funky happening with your menu on the Portfolio page. Viewed on Chome and Safari

The Home Portfolio items are wonky and so are the other menu items when you hover over them

 

[Photodiva]

A couple of suggestions: There is a lot of unnecessary crap in the coding. Google indexes only about 100 lines of code and gives up. There's not a lot of 'meat' for the indexer because of all the stuff, it needs cleaning up. Also, updating the content regularly helps. Who did the site for you? What software was used? Looks remarkably microsoft-esque.

 

[John Young]

you have something funky happening with your menu on the Portfolio page. Viewed on Chome and Safari

The Home Portfolio items are wonky and so are the other menu items when you hover over them

Thank you for that - it was two menus on top of each other. I was messing with the site today and accidentally did it so appreciate you seeing that

 

[John Young]

A couple of suggestions: There is a lot of unnecessary crap in the coding. Google indexes only about 100 lines of code and gives up. There's not a lot of 'meat' for the indexer because of all the stuff, it needs cleaning up. Also, updating the content regularly helps. Who did the site for you? What software was used? Looks remarkably microsoft-esque.

I did it using Xara web designer - Just got it, seems good to use but as with all these WYSIWYG type programs the code is never going to be tidy

 

[Photodiva]

I did it using Xara web designer - Just got it, seems good to use but as with all these WYSIWYG type programs the code is never going to be tidy

Unfortunately, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing! this is an example of the rubbish:

<div class="Normal_Text Main_Page_Bottom_Quote" style="position: absolute; left:710px; top:1705px; width:430px; height:10px;">
<span class="xr_tc xr_kern Normal_Text Main_Page_Bottom_Quote" style="left: -9.43px; top: -17.75px; width: 456px;">Just a massive thank you from me and Jonny to </span>
<span class="xr_tc xr_kern Normal_Text Main_Page_Bottom_Quote" style="left: -8.68px; top: 9.76px; width: 455px;">you and your wife John for a fantastic service </span>
<span class="xr_tc xr_kern Normal_Text Main_Page_Bottom_Quote" style="left: -19.37px; top: 37.27px; width: 476px;">and photos of our special day couldn't have gotten </span>
<span class="xr_tc xr_kern Normal_Text Main_Page_Bottom_Quote" style="left: -0.99px; top: 64.79px; width: 432px;">a better photographer for quality and service.</span>
<span class="xr_tc xr_kern Normal_Text Main_Page_Bottom_Quote" style="left: 0.75px; top: 92.3px; width: 436px;">When I picked up my photos I was `waiting for </span>
<span class="xr_tc xr_kern Normal_Text Main_Page_Bottom_Quote" style="left: -16.28px; top: 119.82px; width: 470px;">them to be in a bag or something but no, John and </span>
<span class="xr_tc xr_kern Normal_Text Main_Page_Bottom_Quote" style="left: 0.46px; top: 147.33px; width: 436px;">Katie take the time to put them in a lovely box. </span>
<span class="xr_tc xr_kern Normal_Text Main_Page_Bottom_Quote" style="left: -19.68px; top: 174.85px; width: 477px;">Then when I opened the box the were wrapped up, </span>
<span class="xr_tc xr_kern Normal_Text Main_Page_Bottom_Quote" style="left: 75.65px; top: 202.36px; width: 279px;">little things like this mean a lot.`</span>
</div>

You can see all the nonsense just repeating and bloating the code. Reminds me of good ol' Frontpage!

 

[John Young]

Yeah I see - to be honest it could be me not just Xara as I am just starting to use it so maybe I can help clean that up a bit

But these kind of programs are never going to replace hand coding - I used to do some coding years back but over time I just drifted to using these programs and no do all the time

 

[Photodiva]

I think, with respect, its about getting to grips with Styles and how to use them properly. WYSIWYG is fine, but you need to clean up what's going on behind the scenes! Personally, I've stopped doing a lot of website building and put my own on Zenfolio. If I were doing weddings, there are loads of templates and ways to enhance your product for about £100 a year. Job done for me!!!

 

[John Young]

Yeah true.... I am on zenfolio to and use them for my blog. I used to have a WP blog attached to my site but I got loads of structured data errors so moved to zefolio and they have stopped

 

[dejongj]

Yeah true.... I am on zenfolio to and use them for my blog. I used to have a WP blog attached to my site but I got loads of structured data errors so moved to zefolio and they have stopped

It is not normal to get so many errors, definitely not the norm. Was it a free theme that you used? It could also be a dodgy plugin that was installed.

I'd not blame Wordpress itself for it, it is very good for SEO.

 

[John Young]

It was a free theme yes.......

 

[dejongj]

That is probably why then A good theme writer will prevent these kind of issues, so much rubbish out there. Anyway regarding your current site.

As stated before I would seriously look at your use of styles; they are all over the place where you seem to be using h1 h2 for normal body text items and the way the page loads is with testimonials first.

The contrast of your testimonials versus the background is very which means that at current size it won't pass AA accessibility standards, therefore people with some form of visual impairment will find it near impossible to read. From a coding perspective it is horrible as well, each line has the style applied again and again? That is super inefficient.

In about us the header logo jumps down. Following the menu to the right from there it fully changes and doesn't give me an indication where I am. And then all of a sudden it takes me away from your domain to some other site with totally different styling. That comes across as very amateuristic/self-made in 2016, you could get away with that 15 years ago but really should avoid these days. I mean from a punters perspective it could be a turn off along the lines of that if you think that kind of presentation is good enough for your own brand/company, then how will you think your delivery be good enough for me.

Personally I would use your .co.uk domain and hire a professional to get this sorted.

 

[John Young]

That is probably why then A good theme writer will prevent these kind of issues, so much rubbish out there. Anyway regarding your current site.

As stated before I would seriously look at your use of styles; they are all over the place where you seem to be using h1 h2 for normal body text items and the way the page loads is with testimonials first.

The contrast of your testimonials versus the background is very which means that at current size it won't pass AA accessibility standards, therefore people with some form of visual impairment will find it near impossible to read. From a coding perspective it is horrible as well, each line has the style applied again and again? That is super inefficient.

In about us the header logo jumps down. Following the menu to the right from there it fully changes and doesn't give me an indication where I am. And then all of a sudden it takes me away from your domain to some other site with totally different styling. That comes across as very amateuristic/self-made in 2016, you could get away with that 15 years ago but really should avoid these days. I mean from a punters perspective it could be a turn off along the lines of that if you think that kind of presentation is good enough for your own brand/company, then how will you think your delivery be good enough for me.

Personally I would use your .co.uk domain and hire a professional to get this sorted.

OK thanks for the feedback - I will take a look at the styles but I am not sure what you mean with the "about us" page ?

So I assume you mean the nav bar does not indicate which page you are on ? I can look at making that stronger in the nav bar.

So following the menu to the right gives you the testimonials and you are taken to some other domain ? - That is not right

The only different domain I use is Zenfolio for my client area and blog and I agree they need more work to look like my site but I am changing it

 

[dejongj]

OK thanks for the feedback - I will take a look at the styles but I am not sure what you mean with the "about us" page ?

home page and portfolio are the same. So if you use portfolio menu, then switch to about us menu, then switch back again, and back again you can see the logo at the top of the page jumping about....

So I assume you mean the nav bar does not indicate which page you are on ? I can look at making that stronger in the nav bar.

Yes, but what make it more confusing is that the header changes dramatically. When you move home/portfolio/about us/testimonials the header is the same, then when you go to portraits you all of a sudden get a very different looking page, and then at packages and prices you are back again, but then at client area and blog you get taken somewhere totally different (well zenfolio but for a user it is like a different site). So not having the nav bar indicate where you are, and the changing headers make it really hard to track where you are.

Further more, something I just noticed, the window title differs from the menu option select; e.g. Testimonial in your menu, becomes testimonials. Then for Packages & Prices it becomes Prices and packages. It is little things like that that can add to the confusion and detract from the great product you are offering.

So following the menu to the right gives you the testimonials and you are taken to some other domain ? - That is not right

Menu options 'Client Area' and 'Blog' take me to a zenfolio domain with different header/menu structure. I would strongly suggest to just have that integrated.

The only different domain I use is Zenfolio for my client area and blog and I agree they need more work to look like my site but I am changing it

Personally I would really refrain from using a different domain for that, if you already have the domain name(s) and got this far I would just have that on the same domain and fully integrated. Same look but different domain can cause all sorts of issues; you would really want to have the new content linked to your own domain(s).

 

[John Young]

Ah right I see what you mean now.... Yes I agree it should all look the same and I thought I had sorted the logo out earlier....

I will look at integrating zenfolio into my site - I never knew you could do that and I might try again with wordpress on my domain with a better theme so less problems. To be honest zenfolio blog is a pain to post to

Thanks for all the feedback - much appreciated

 

[Phil V]

Just go for a quality theme where you get control and all the heartache goes away. The cost (in £) is tiny compared to the cost of getting it wrong (in time, SEO, and customer experience)