Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
The site is framed, navigated by javascript pulldown menus, with "text" content on individual pages being gifs that are displayed only when you mouse over the corresponding (text graphic) hot spots. No text links at all. Hardly any text at all.
It's actually an elegant graphics design job, and the information, once you're on the site, is clearly presented, if you have javascript enabled and are curious enough to mouse over the hot spots... and it must have cost a lot of money to build.
I'm wondering... do I want to make a pitch to fix this, or should I remember the old saying about being careful what I wish for?
I don't see the harm in asking if they are happy with the traffic and visibility of the site. Does the site need to be visible on the SE's, or is it there purely for additional information when a brochure does not go into depth about the company?
If they are happy with the traffic, I would say don't bother pitching. If they say they wish they had more, BAM. You have the stage.
Good luck!
When a site is so poor, it doesn't need much for you to improve the traffic - even a few information pages will make a difference, you can pitch for more according to their budget.
I like the idea of making doorway/information pages under the guise of 'text only' or 'printer friendly' pages - seems to keep the customer happier for some reason.
The inquiry was for SEO, and I had to be honest and point out the impossibility of me personally accomplishing much with traditional SEO methods. Maybe someone else could, but my preference is to stay away from those areas. The owner evaluated what I'd said and indicated that they'd be doing a redesign, but there was no indication that they'd be investigating what is or isn't search engine friendly prior to a redesign. No redesign has ever been done.
There are other instances where I'd rather not, if it's evident that the site itself is unlikely to ever convert to sales. Some are like that.
>I realised they where pumping me
Even knowing and anticipating that it can and does happen, it's always hard to know how to deal with it when that starts to happen, which is too often. It's about the hardest thing to deal with.
No text links on this one. ;)
>>Then I realised they where pumping me<<
Ahh... that's a whole other problem... There are some great threads on proposals elsewhere on the board.
No, on this one I'd be initiating the discussion, and I'm just thinking out loud before I jump into the fray... about this kind of design and the culture clash that may happen when I address it. :(
Might work... I'm not sure, because over the years I've increasingly integrated doorways tightly into the sites I've done, so they're strongly integrated into the site structure. I haven't experimented with almost-orphan pages in a while.
I could probably built a bunch of "about" pages for each information area of the site. Linking would be something of a problem... right now there are no text links on this site, and no html links... They're all javascript. This is a techie designer's dream or nightmare, depending on how you look at it. Any ordinary linking would really jump out at you as a corruption of the design... and it is pretty.
There's also the home page... I always feel the home page should be well optimized, and this one doesn't have anything to optimize. I've even been known to use 100% frames, but the approach worries me more and more... I keep waiting for the axe to fall.
We'll just say that the only person amused by what I was trying to do was me.
Heh! Yes, I know exactly what you mean. DHTML is a great temptress.
