dbltoe:
Since being mentioned in the OP, I'll reiterate some things I've said in the past.
Should you move to version 1.#.#? Do you want the most current compliance with browsers, PHP, databases, CSS, HTML, accessibility, etc.? Does it make sense that at least some effort was made to improve the operation/compliance/optimization of the product? Certainly the developers didn't put the time in just to get more money from you when you upgrade. Maybe they'll run a special on 1.5.7c. What's 20% off of free?
As far as minifying, I recently found a site that is actually a little more accurate than W3C. beautifytools.com has a little bit of everything and more than you should ever need. I hesitate to point it out as you will probably want to use them all.:P
As DrByte alludes to, and I have pointed out before, there are many things that can be done in the beginning that are more productive than worrying about CSS minification. Load the software, enter categories, select/adjust images, add payment method, add shipping method if not free, sell. Little else is required to sell a product. Yet, we find those that refuse to open a store stocked with product until the decorations are up on the store wall. The cash register can be a fanny pack as far as sales are concerned. What is the goal? Best looking site or increase in sales?
A lot of effort went into making the responsive_classic template score nearly perfect 100s out of the box. It does get a lower score in Performance because the stylesheets are purposely separated to assist you in modifying your "look". Minifying the stylesheets (after a clone for backup) could easily give 1.5.7x a hundred across the board.
The biggest thing I see on your site is accessibility. It currently scores below 80 for your home page. One of them is form elements not having labels. Guess what? Fixed in 1.5.7. You wouldn't notice that it is the label for the search you are not showing on your site. Even if you hide something, it is often still generated and evaluated regardless if the final outcome is display:none. So, the search form you don't use is counting against you as well as some other hidden items with h tags in them. One of your accessibility hits is from h tags not logically progressing. Hiding an h2 tag while still using h3 and h4 OR using h1, h2, and h4 will get you a hit in accessibility.
Your biggest hit in accessibility is a result of making sure the site is as pretty as you want it. You have four contrast errors. Two of the main ones are your Home and Log In links.:( You talk about Chrome tools. Try the Validate Accessibility tool to see how it shows the contrast and h problems.
I hesitate to point this out as I don't really want to channel RodG but, I'm going to throw caution to the winds and once again try to steer you away from make it right to make it work. I've stated before that I thought you were jumping on your horse and riding off in every direction. Maybe now you are able to better see where I and DrByte are coming from.
I'll leave you with one last comment that, I believe, best illustrates where you are going astray. It also strengthens my point of looking at basics.
When looking at your site on the latest iPad mini in portrait, the login link area is almost completely covered by other information. Looking at the site on a recent iPhone (portrait) all looks fine except for a small blank square in the upper-left corner of the site. Initially, you'd think it is a check box but, that's not the case. What it actually is is the placeholder for another item you've chosen not to display. The British flag. I'm not sure about other phones but, the emulator I use for testing proudly displays the British flag for all to see.
If you were to simply put the right flag in the right place, you could maybe get rid of a lot on your main page that is keeping surfers from quickly finding product. Seems you like to stress the Australian part a bit.:P
You're what I refer to as the Subject Matter Expert (SME) and, rightfully, you should be. It's just that the SME is not always the best choice to develop the site. Too often we see either end of the spectrum. Either so much information that one can't absorb it all or so little that we are left wondering about the basics of the product.
Let's look at the Unique Artisan Designs Unique category. One thing that is NOT unique is the use of the word unique. The word is used fifteen times on that page alone. Four times with the * surroundings.:ohmy: Harmony is used 57 times on that page. At some point, the SEs are going to believe that unique AND harmony are actually commonplace.:no: Searching Google for harmony ball necklace results in over three million hits! You don't need an algorithm to figure that "uniqe" may be a stretch unless you can REALLY prove it. When you do this, what the SEs see is what used to be the SEO trick of putting lots of keywords in a product's description to "attract" the SEs attention. Even though the SEs don't weigh keywords like they used to, they still drop your rank for "stuffing". It's just not content they want to promote. As DrByte said, look at the competition. Ask ten friends and ten enemies to honestly evaluate your site. Actually judge your site by what they tell you. Do that as many times as possible.
On the same category page, use your Web Developer to disable images. That's what the SEs see when accessing your site. If the SE can make a determination of your site like that, why do you need to take up nearly 50% of every page with the logo?
I'll leave at this point and hope you will take it as constructive versus destructive.
Hello dbltoe,
Thank you very much for the time and effort you have put into responding with such great advice ... and again you are spot on, on every count.
I have hesitated far too long to upgrade - I suppose it is because I have yet to do any upgrade in nearly 10 years that didn't stuff up and cause me grief. At the end of the day I just have to get on with it.
You're right, in an attempt to make my sites impacting I have chopped and changed the template, without really knowing what I was doing, to a point where no two sites are the same structure and none is smooth flowing - they're full of corruption.
Your comment about basics, as DrByte also suggested, is finally getting through to me (believe it or not) - the recent big algorithm update in October highlighted a term I read so much about years ago that I continued to swerve around when it suited me because I was focusing on appearance of my sites ... 'Content is King'. Dazzlerscliponearrings went from #2 in key searches to #6 overnight and has languished there, it is a reasonable site but critically it has very poor content of low quality, just 'filler' of reworked same old same old .... whilst Harmonyball.net.au, for years a good ranking site went to #1 accross all main search terms because it has a lot of authoratative content, a lot of 'unique' content (there is that word again) that competitors and bloggers are reworking for their content - the articles fill #1 slot followed by the site index.
Yet both sites suffer the same 'mike syndrome', corrupted templates and a lot of structural issues. Google, at least at this point, is putting less emphasis, or is more tolerant of, structural incorrectness (likely due to it and browser technology being able to cope with such things), than the basics ... and one key basic of quality content.
So I will take a fresh look at 1.5.7 'out of the box' and look to modify as little as is absolutely necessary (selling to women so it does need to have certain aesthetic appeal / impact) and concentrate on working on content.
..... and yes the Don Quixote tag is most appropriate. I have to work at shaking it off. :(
You raised the header tags issue - one that I have tried to solve without success;
a) depending on who you read on the subject using a h1 tag on the page is right or it is wrong - I choose to use h1 for the on-page title
b) then a h2 sub header
c) I use the editable centerbox plugin to add content blocks (main page mainly) and it will not allow the use of a h3 tag so as to follow the h tag order - I can insert a h3 tag but it shows up as invisible and just whitesapce on the page ... maybe I have to learn how to add text blocks on a page myself using html or css and not use the plugin.
b) I even stopped using a header in the centerbox and tried to change the h4 tags to h3 in the multi-lingual flexible footer headings to maintain an order but without joy - I can't figure it out.
This is something I should try to get sorted before building the page in 1.5.7 so as not to repeat the problem.
I am always receptive to and appreciative of the advice that you, and DrByte and others, are prepaed to give me. I do listen and absorb, it is just that it can take a while for me to set the wheels in motion.
So after I have re-built these two sites in 1.5.7 I would very much appreciate your critique.
cheers,
Mike
p.s. Just some general comment
I still do struggle with the issue of keyword density or keyword stuffing - the 'experts' have over the years come up with ratios of keyword(s) to total words in a piece of content beyond which you were guilty of excessive density and even stuffing. I watched a Google Webmaster session with John Meuller when the subject was raised - his response was along the lines that there is not ratio(s) and that as long as the content reads flowingly and sensibly to a human then it is likely ok - AI will likely have an influence one day. As you pointed out, I am an SME so in the case of Harmony Balls I do regard myself as an expert, an authority. The problem with writing authoratative content (that is designed to educate) is that it is almost impossible to write a 3000 word article without repeated use of the item being discussed ... except for content writers but then the article would be useless as an educational tool.
Believe me when I say the following has bamboozled me for a long time.
So using harmonyball.net.au as an example of keyword stuffing it flies in the face of convention or accepted SEO practice and yet Google recognizes the site as authorative ... believe me, puzzles the living daylights out of me. As does the number of internal links I use from 'every' product page - between 17-20 internal links (and 3-4 external links to Etsy on some pages), some to the same destination but different anchor text on a page of some 920 words - incidentally about 900 of those words are 'exactly' the same on every product page with only minimal variation describing the specifics of the model and even then that is dubious in that often it is reworked. It maybe adds weight to the theory that header tags are the prime indicator to Google and as long as the heading reflects the content then the H1 and H2 tags used for the content are what Google takes most notice of??
Needless to say I'm reticent to change the way I do this (not that I think you are suggesting I should).
The "unique" ... it is true and can be proven :smile:, albeit I figure you meant proven to Google? .... I actually do make some of these harmony ball products of my own design - I will take a look at those pages and maybe see if I can substitute 'unique' with some other descriptive that is suitable.
p.p.s. with the pandemic obtaining products being shipped from overseas is a real nightmare with the extreme restrictions we have on incoming international flights, customers have been waiting months instead of weeks - hence Australian based and stocked offerings are getting more attention than in previous times with the word Australia attached to search terms getting greater hits - hence pushing the Australian flag etc.
