Help with a new online directory.

[siteforsoreeyes]

Hi

I have been asked to produce an online directory with a difference, my main instruction was to produce a site, that is different from an other directory which has information that is easy to find and relevant to what the searcher was looking for.
This is where I need your help, I have quickly put something together on photoshop so nothing on the site is clickable, this is just purely a demonstration on layout and accessability, do not worry the site wont look as big and clumsey as it does now.
I need help with the catergories section and new ideas of what catergories to place into the site (the more the better).

Please like I say dont come back to me saying oh something is out of alignment or a spelling mistake etc remember I want feedback on the catergories and how you feel about the layout in general.

Thanks for all your help

Untitled Document

 

[Ruth Mills]

Looks nice. The layout of adverts makes me think of a board game.

What technologies are you going to use for the real thing?

 

[siteforsoreeyes]

Looks nice. The layout of adverts makes me think of a board game.

What technologies are you going to use for the real thing?

Was going down pure css route, um'ing and r'ing over using some flash but not to sure yet, going to start building next week when I have got a couple of other jobs finished off.

You already know the problems flash brings with seo. and obviously as you can see from the layout I will have a content issue with my <p> <h#> tags for the thorn in our sides "google" (outward links will be fine)

Need to think about it more because I could do some tricks to get the search engines to see content but I dont want them to think I am trying black hat tricks.

 

[Ruth Mills]

Was going down pure css route, um'ing and r'ing over using some flash but not to sure yet, going to start building next week when I have got a couple of other jobs finished off.

You already know the problems flash brings with seo. and obviously as you can see from the layout I will have a content issue with my <p> <h#> tags for the thorn in our sides "google" (outward links will be fine)

Need to think about it more because I could do some tricks to get the search engines to see content but I dont want them to think I am trying black hat tricks.

Ah right, I know what you mean, I wouldn't touch Flash if I can help it, haven't used Flash for anything yet anyway. You can get a lot of the fancy effects that Flash can do using Javascript anyway.

Am guessing you mean that the content will be primarily image-based for the ads, but Google prefers <p> and <h#> tags for reading textual content from, as opposed to the "alt" attribute on the image. So I am guessing that "black hat" tricks are a little dodgy, so perhaps having an <h1> tag on the page, but assigning it a CSS class which has the "display: none;" style. Although personally, I think that it would be quite justified to do that if you have an image for the main title of your page, for example, but still want Google to read the text for that from an <h1>. I guess an alternative way of doing it (avoiding "display: none;") would be to use CSS such that the <p> and <h#> occupies the same space on the screen as the image, but has a lower z-index and so will be hidden behind the image.

From a technology standpoint, I was also thinking more of what back-end technologies you would be using to render dynamic content, e.g. PHP, Java, or perhaps even Ruby on Rails or whatever. I'm firmly in the Java camp myself, but that's the primary language I've been using for the last 9 years.

 

[SunSpray]

Hi

I have been asked to produce an online directory with a difference, my main instruction was to produce a site, that is different from an other directory which has information that is easy to find and relevant to what the searcher was looking for.
This is where I need your help, I have quickly put something together on photoshop so nothing on the site is clickable, this is just purely a demonstration on layout and accessability, do not worry the site wont look as big and clumsey as it does now.
I need help with the catergories section and new ideas of what catergories to place into the site (the more the better).

Please like I say dont come back to me saying oh something is out of alignment or a spelling mistake etc remember I want feedback on the catergories and how you feel about the layout in general.

Thanks for all your help

Untitled Document

Hiya, just wondering who your target market is? I think that might determine the categories that peeps can suggest x

 

[Ruth Mills]

Hiya, just wondering who your target market is? I think that might determine the categories that peeps can suggest x

I'm guessing that the target market is salon professionals?

 

[smartbookings]

Hi

I have been asked to produce an online directory with a difference, my main instruction was to produce a site, that is different from an other directory which has information that is easy to find and relevant to what the searcher was looking for.
This is where I need your help, I have quickly put something together on photoshop so nothing on the site is clickable, this is just purely a demonstration on layout and accessability, do not worry the site wont look as big and clumsey as it does now.
I need help with the catergories section and new ideas of what catergories to place into the site (the more the better).

Please like I say dont come back to me saying oh something is out of alignment or a spelling mistake etc remember I want feedback on the catergories and how you feel about the layout in general.

Thanks for all your help

Untitled Document

Hi,

I think the categories would look better at the top of the page, also how about using ajax to change an image inside the square with more information about each listing... it would make the site less static but still wouldn't make accessibility suffer by using technology such as flash.

 

[siteforsoreeyes]

Ah right, I know what you mean, I wouldn't touch Flash if I can help it, haven't used Flash for anything yet anyway. You can get a lot of the fancy effects that Flash can do using Javascript anyway.

Am guessing you mean that the content will be primarily image-based for the ads, but Google prefers <p> and <h#> tags for reading textual content from, as opposed to the "alt" attribute on the image. So I am guessing that "black hat" tricks are a little dodgy, so perhaps having an <h1> tag on the page, but assigning it a CSS class which has the "display: none;" style. Although personally, I think that it would be quite justified to do that if you have an image for the main title of your page, for example, but still want Google to read the text for that from an <h1>. I guess an alternative way of doing it (avoiding "display: none;") would be to use CSS such that the <p> and <h#> occupies the same space on the screen as the image, but has a lower z-index and so will be hidden behind the image.

From a technology standpoint, I was also thinking more of what back-end technologies you would be using to render dynamic content, e.g. PHP, Java, or perhaps even Ruby on Rails or whatever. I'm firmly in the Java camp myself, but that's the primary language I've been using for the last 9 years.

Hi

Sorry my language is more voodoo php, like what java can do and use it in certain cases lightboxes etc but always afraid of the user having java turned off in their browser.
Not really into hiding text through css, stacking with z index is ok but its when you come to a screen viewer and the images are no longer there.And I dont want to start doing the -9999 hacks
The only way I can think of getting the content in is to have a small swf file which calls the content from a xml document, so search engine will see the content the user wont because as you know google wont read swf files so it wont have a clue the content is black on black.
No matter which way I do it I am cloaking at the end of the day and its only a matter of time that google will either be able to read swf files or understand css z.index and hidden text.

 

[Ruth Mills]

Ah, when I say Java, I'm referring to server side Java, not client side Java, e.g. applets.

So, for example, pulling stuff out of a relational database using Hibernate, and rendering the page content using Struts2, Tiles and JSP, and plumbing the whole shebang together using Spring.

 

[siteforsoreeyes]

Hi,

I think the categories would look better at the top of the page, also how about using ajax to change an image inside the square with more information about each listing... it would make the site less static but still wouldn't make accessibility suffer by using technology such as flash.

HI mate

Was thinking of using the space in the centre so when you rollover any of the images you will get a good description of the company.

See where you are coming from with the links at the top of the page as it helps google crawl, instead of seeing image after image and alt tags. It will see links BUT NOT CONTENT...arrrrrggggh

 

[Ruth Mills]

HI mate

Was thinking of using the space in the centre so when you rollover any of the images you will get a good description of the company.

See where you are coming from with the links at the top of the page as it helps google crawl, instead of seeing image after image and alt tags. It will see links BUT NOT CONTENT...arrrrrggggh

Aye, and even if you tried using absolute positioning in CSS, so that the main content comes before the links in the HTML, but when the page gets rendered, you see the links absolutely positioned at the top of the page, and the content below them - then it doesn't work in bloody IE6!!!

 

[*Ang*]

What on Earth are you lot on about :lol: I knew I should have steered clear when I saw the thread title :green: Interesting reading though...if I had half a clue :lol::lol::lol: