New to this forum, looking for ideas...

[jacobskl]

I am looking for advice on my main site, www.PowerPointAnswers.com. I have a fairly stable base of regular visitors, but don't know if I am getting all that I can out of my site. I am open to any suggestions you might have.

As for the basic questions:
Is this site completed or under construction?
Completed, but content is added regularly.

Who is your target audience?
New and experienced PowerPoint users

How important is it for your site to rank well?
Fairly important. I know I am not the number one PowerPoint site, but would like to get more visitors (and more paying clients for the consulting and training work I do).

How important is usability?
Very - I have tried to make it easy to navigate the site.

What is the purpose of the site? (inform, sell, online community, support B&M business, contact info only, etc)
Answer PowerPoint questions. Provide custom solutions to those who don't feel like doing thier presentations themselves.

Do you want your code reviewed for errors or improvements?
Sure. Most of it is hand coded, based off of OpenOffice generated code, so suggestions are always welcome.

Do you want design suggestions?
Yes!

The site is currently formatted as follows:
- PHP includes for header, left and right column, and footer.
- Right column is currently empty. It was ads, but I need ideas of what to put there instead.
- Entire site is table based, with articles created as nested tables inside main structure table.

Anything else you want to know about the site? Ask me!

[aspwiz]

ok... I am not really an expert here but here are some basics you can do right away.

You should do the following to help increase you rankings.

remove all the meta information except 'keywords' and 'content-type
add a meta description as you currently do not have one
try and externalise all of your style info.. you have a heck of a lot of inline style and font tags


The above will move your all important content further toward the top of the page.

I know it aint much to go with, but I'm sure others will make other suggestions.

[jacobskl]

Thanks for the ideas.

I will take the extra meta tags out. I have often wondered which ones should be there and which shouldn't.

Can you explain the difference in use between the description tag and the content/keyword tags? I thought that because I have a descriptive title and the content and keywords I didn't need one.

The style information is a whole different issue, which maybe someone might have some ideas on. I do the basics of my HTML work in Open Office, then hand edit as needed. How do I expternalize the style information without having Open Office put it back in?

[aspwiz]

I think the answer is not to use openoffice (sorry to anyone here that swears by it).

Openoffice is a great application but not written to develop web sites.

If its of any use at all, I do all of my coding in notepad and use some dreamweaver scripts for rollovers, etc.

I would say the best way to go is to either learn HTML and CSS or pay a company to design your website or even just design the basics, ie. a template

I cannot really dive into great depths off CSS here but there are many resources out there that offer such advice.

Hope this gives you some direction.

[jacobskl]

Sorry about misleading you - I do know HTML and do my coding by hand in the text editor on my friendly home grown Linux web server. I only use Open Office to convert the content pages that come in from others as Word docs.

What I guess I should really be asking for is advice on a really good CSS resource. I know I need to convert the site to a CSS based site, but (honestly) have been too lazy to do so.

Thanks for the advice and the kick in the behind. Now I just need to find the time to get it done!

Kathy

[Blue]

Hi Kathy :hi: and welcome to the forums!

I'll make a few suggestions.

First, here is everything CSS: http://www.w3c.org

Next, here is an excellent reference point for CSS: http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/

Now I'll recommend a good CSS editor which I believe comes in free and paid versions (at least it used to): TopStyle (http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/)

OK, to answer your META tags question, you really only need the description, keywords, and http-equiv tags, and in that order.

The HTML TITLE tag is your site's main title and is what will appear in the top bar of browsers. It's an important tag in SEO in that keyphrases put there will be given a goodly amount of weight, especially if those same keyphrases are also found in your description tag, and prominently in the headers and body of your text.

The META description tag should be used to describe what your site is about, again using your SEO keyphrases (the ones in the TITLE tag). This tag will be used on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) as the site's description, IF, the SE doesn't use snippets of text from the body of your page.

The META keywords tag is only used by a handful of SE's anymore, but I still recommend it's use, repeating your SEO keyphrases.

****

Now some design suggestions:

There is not much delineation between the nav section (on the left) and the body of your page (the same could be said of the header section). I would suggest some form of separation, such as a vertical line, a different colored background, etc. This will help in usability.

In my view, your top header graphic is much too large. It detracts from the information on the page.

I would consider placing the "comments" (in the lower left column) in a much more conspicuous place. I think people place a goodly amount of weight on what others have said about a product or service or site.

I might consider re-arranging the layout of the four major sections of the home page (Articles, Hints and Tips, Ask The Expert, and Resources) into maybe two columns. Mainly to reduce the amount of scrolling and put more info directly in front of your site's visitors eyes. If you greatly reduce the header graphic, you'll free up a lot of room.

I hope this is helpful!

:cheers:

[jacobskl]

Originally posted by Blue

Now I'll recommend a good CSS editor which I believe comes in free and paid versions (at least it used to): TopStyle (http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/)


Love the idea of TopStyle... But do you know of an equivalantly good tool that runs under Linux?

[Kimberly9999]

Hi Kathy,
Good description on the meta info Blue, thanks. I wish dmoz would recognize the Description and leave it alone :(
Is it also true it helps if the <title> tag falls directly below the opening <head> tag?
I also agree with the design comments. I would place the two top sentances - "thank you for visiting..." and "Check out the new..." in the right nav. Also move the ppt search here (now is top right).
I would then have the 4 headers (Articles, Tips, Expert & resources) listed so all would be visible front and center. These could be targets to send users to "updated info" further down on the page, or to their own landing pages.) I would then know right away what all your site is offering.

This page - http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/dhtml_reference_entry.asp has lots of info. Click the link that reads CSS Attributes (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/entry.asp ) for the CSS stuff. Notes throughout these pages as well on the updates in IE 6.0.

My daughter is into ppt, I will pass your url along to her, you have some great info!
Good luck,
Kimberly

[Blue]

Love the idea of TopStyle... But do you know of an equivalantly good tool that runs under Linux? Sorry, no. I have no recommendations for a Linux CSS editor. However, this search (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=css+editor+for+linux) turned up a number of possibilities.

[jacobskl]

I have put together a prototype index page utilizing everyone's ideas. I haven't messed with going to CSS yet, these are just the design changes.

If you have time, please take a look at the
Newer Index Page (http://www.powerpointanswers.com/newerindex.html)
and let me know what you think. (Don't try the links, I don't think they work - I just did a wget on the index page and re-designed from there.) :confused: Oh - I also have to figure out why my white border is so big on the top of the page.

Why can't the page design (HTML, etc.) be as easy as writing the content?:rolleyes:

[Blue]

I think it looks much better! You're on your way.

A couple of suggestions if you don't mind....

Use a bit of a margin in the body content area, to put a few pixels of space between the nav column and the left/right justification of the body text. And the same goes with the left and right columns.

Center the header graphic and search box in the header, and the text in the footer, with the center column.

I like the fact that you moved up the "Comments", but in viewing it now, I think it gets in the way of the nav links. Maybe move it to the top of the right column and size it down a bit?

:cheers:

[jacobskl]

All righty - After a very hard couple of days, I have finally figured out the basics of using TopStyle on an existing site. I have translated my newindex file to basic CSS usage, and continued on with the style changes.

So, could people take another look at the page and let me know what you think? URL is:
http://www.powerpointanswers.com/newerindex.html

I do still have one very stubborn bug on the top of the page. The article entries in the center column use exactly the same HTML code, but the first one looks different than the other ones. Any ideas and suggestions are appreciated, as always.

I am also trying to decide if the new right hand column will work on pages other than the index. I am afraid that people will find the same content in that column on every page annoying. Opinions?

Thanks for any help you can provide!