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[gtrew Friend gtrewJoin date: November 2008Posts: 25Downloads:0Uploads:6 Thanks: 5]

#286912

MJ, Thanks for taking the time to reply.

<blockquote>Do you go to your car mechanic and ask him to teach you how to fix your car?</blockquote>

No, but it makes sense to be able to change the oil, headlight bulbs, tyres etc yourself.

<blockquote>Do you go to your doctor and ask him to teach you how to be a doctor?</blockquote>

No, but it’s wise to understand basic physiology, pharmacology, nutrition, etc. I then am in a position to give basic medical care, to, say, my kids. With a simple bit of education, I can also facilitate sickness prevention too.

<blockquote>Do you go to your lawyer and ask him to teach you how to be a lawyer?</blockquote>

No, but it helps to be aware of the law, both civil and criminal, this avoiding the certainty of being financially raped by such an individual.

<blockquote>Do you ask you home builder to teach you how to build a house?</blockquote>

No, but only an idiot would ask a home builder to build them a shelf, to replace some shingle or tiles. Basic knowledge of DIY is actually a wise thing to attain.

D<blockquote>o you ask your accountant how to do you accounting?</blockquote>

No, but I learn basic bookkeeping skills, and have asked my accountant, several times, for advice etc.

One more point. There are so many people, companies etc. that state they are ‘experts’ in the field of SEO. You wouldn’t get any old builder in to build your house. You wouldn’t go to any old lawyer to ask them to handle your legal affairs. You wouldn’t go to any old accountant to ask them to handle all of your financial matters. You wouldn’t even to go any old doctor when your life is at stake.

No, I don’t take offense at what you have said, but there is certainly an ‘edge’ to your response. I didn’t ask you to teach me all you know about SEO in a couple of hours. I just made a statement that, if I could afford it, I would probably ask a reputable professional to help with SEO. I would also like to think that the SEO specialist, that I hired, would be professional enough to give me certain advice that would help me to handle some of the basics myself.

I am a graphic designer, and am always happy to help a client ‘do things themselves,’ and not be so dependent on me. Many of these folks are more than capable of receiving advice and acting upon it. They also realize that they will never be able to learn all there is to know about graphic design in a couple of hours. I have people asking me to give them a few hours tuition to help them in the basics. If I took a leaf out of your book, I’d be burning them, and making them feel small, by using the same kind of analogies that you’ve used.

In an ideal world, I would purely concentrate on graphic design, as that is my strength. But, sometimes one has to delve into areas where one is uncomfortable, i.e. like CSS or SEO or Pre-press,or Actionscript. We can’t all be masters of everything, and I appreciate it must be annoying to you when people talk about your speciality in such a flippant way. I know very little about SEO, and am keen to learn a wee bit more about it. I’m also not in a position, during these challenging economic times, to sub-contract a professional to do an awesome SEO for me or one or two clients. If I had the dosh, I would certainly do so. The other challenge is knowing WHO to go to, as everyone and their dog seems to be all too ready to tell you that they are experts in that particular field. One look at my junk mail folder and the plethora of inane messages on my answer machine from so-called-experts, just makes you scratch your head in confusion.

I do appreciate your input, I really do, and the fact that you’ve taken time to look at my site when you are obviously a very busy person, really impressess me. Your input in the forums is also superb, so please keep up the good work. Maybe you could be just be a little less condescending in you dealing with SEO or website plebs like myself, would be the cherry on the cake.

[mj1256 Friend mj1256Join date: June 2007Posts: 1473Downloads:10Uploads:35 Thanks: 84 Thanked: 225 times in 118 posts]

#286916

my apologies, being condescending was not my intention and forum postings can tend to come off rather dry and brash. but yes, after years of this I do have an edge. It was not directed at you, but at the internet DIY world itself, I thought I had made that clear, but i guess I missed.

by the way, I have adobe photoshop and illustrator and such, and i know how to use them. But that does not make me a graphic artist. Try as I must, I just do not have an artistic eye. I used to think I could do it. It was a tough lesson for me to learn, that i must turn over to the pros the specific disciplines for which they are most skilled. I have learned that having an interest or even the software to do a task is nothing without talent and the artists or specialists individual experience and perspective. My utmost respect to you for having that gift that i could never achieve.

I’ve posted a lot of info about seo on the forum, all of which will help everyone. I also recommend the http://www.searchengineforums.com/ site for learning more on the subject.

My only warning to those that intend to teach themselves is this. The search engines have rules, break the rules, either by inexperience, Naiveté, or on purpose, and they will ban your site and kick your domain out of the index. Once that happens, it is difficult to get reinstated. I come across this all of the time as people only tend to try to get help after this happens. The risks of SEO are extremely high. Is having a domain name (URL) destroyed, worth that risk?

My intention is not to be condescending, but to make a few points to educate and help others so that they realize that the internet is not a DIY world where the inexperienced and underfunded can compete on the same level playing field as the experienced and funded. That is not to say that a lucky few will be or have been successful, but it is a really lucky few.

Every piece of real estate on a website has a specific purpose assigned to it and the search engines search for specific uses of each location on a website or page. Follow the rules and give the search engines what they want, where they want it, and SEO actually becomes quite easy. Unfortunately,it never conforms to what the client wants on their website or where the client wants it. Thats why I worte my post on the four BBBB’s.

and you may want to check this out, I wrote it a long time ago and it needs updating, but it will give you a lot of information to go on with SEO. My Search Engine Optimization – SEO Skeleton article.

Again, my apologies.

[gtrew Friend gtrewJoin date: November 2008Posts: 25Downloads:0Uploads:6 Thanks: 5]

#286918

Thanks for your response – I appreciated what you said. I really don’t intend to teach myself SEO, other than the basics, and you, and Scotty, have been really helpful. I think that your site looks very tidy and is extremely easy on the eye and is very easy to navigate. So, to say that you don’t have an artistic eye, is not exactly true. I wish more websites looked at attractive as yours.

Most of my own work is heavily graphics based, and it would be an easy option for me to not have much to do with web design. I have just designed and laid out an entire magazine for a client and it was very graphic intensive work.. That kind of work is a piece of cake to me. Because folk like my work, they also want me to design them attractive websites, without realizing that it is a whole different ball game. I live in a pretty rural location in Nova Scotia (I’m a Brit who emigrated here 6 years ago) and the local competition re. graphic design is woeful (which, for me is wonderful). The big company in the area (graphic and wed design) churn out the ugliest, most boring websites I’ve ever seen, so if I can get a good grasp of web design basics, even though the code stuff doesn’t come naturally, it will put a few more meals on the table for my family. I have a number of people who want me to design them websites, and I have held them off until I have managed to grasp some more skills in this area. I love Joomla, and I hope that I can learn enough to be able to provide folk with a good, basic website that they can maintain themselves.

I don’t want to become an expert at web design or SEO, I just don’t wan to turn down work because of a lack of knowledge or confidence. I also don’t want to rip people off and mess up their sites by doing all the wrong things ‘under the bonnet (hood).’ So, I find this forum incredibly helpful. I also don’t want to ask incredibly stupid questions, so I apologize for my naivety, if I sometimes come across as asking durrr things that may seem obvious to most.

I may well find out more about your services in future, as I don’t want to bite of more than I can chew (which isn’t a lot at the moment 🙂 )

Once again, great job re. the help, advice, links etc. – it is very, very appreciated.

GT

[mj1256 Friend mj1256Join date: June 2007Posts: 1473Downloads:10Uploads:35 Thanks: 84 Thanked: 225 times in 118 posts]

#286928

<blockquote> I wish more websites looked at attractive as yours.</blockquote>

lets thank JA

[gtrew Friend gtrewJoin date: November 2008Posts: 25Downloads:0Uploads:6 Thanks: 5]

#286931

Your right, their templates are fantastic, and seem to be getting better each release.

[gtrew Friend gtrewJoin date: November 2008Posts: 25Downloads:0Uploads:6 Thanks: 5]

#286935

<em>@scotty 106608 wrote:</em><blockquote>

1. Click on ‘Menus’
2. Click on ‘Main Menu’ (or whatever one you want to change)
3. Click on ‘Home’ (or whatever one you want to change)
4. Click ‘Parameters (System)’ on the right of the page
5. Change the page title to whatever you want.
6. Click ‘Save’

</blockquote>

Thanks Scotty. I am aware that I am able to insert the page title using the Parameters etc. My problem is that I can do this for each page, but for my homepage, whatever I insert in the Parameters Page Title box, then appears on my Nav Button for “Home.” So, If I want the title of my page to say “Hello Fellow Bananas, I would like to Design a Magazine for you!” (Don’t worry, I don’t actually want the page title to say this) – I then enter this into the Page Title” box and……all the text then appears on my Home Button, underneath Home, which makes the page look a tad silly.

So, how can I insert the title of the page, so that the page reads “blah blah,” without the “blah blah” text appearing on the Home nav button??

Or, am I just being a banana?

[cornerstone Friend cornerstoneJoin date: March 2007Posts: 2Downloads:0Uploads:0 Thanked: 1 times in 2 posts]

#286941

I understand the issue completely. A few other threads have been based around the same thing.

You end up with 2 poor choices: either it repeats the menu name above it (which looks daft), or you’re forced to use the page title. The problem is that you would probably want something completely different written under the menu item from the page title, especially when one is much longer than the other.

Using 3rd party SEO (as suggested above) may work, but I tend to prefer to keep the naming of pages run by the core system.

In an ideal world, I think it’s better for the menu sub-headings to be set in the parameters.ini file like with a few other templates (that’s how Shape5 templates do it).

In terms of editing the template code to fix the problem, it’s all handled in Base.class.php

One option is simply to remove the subheadings from the template. That’s the option I went for. How to do that is described here in post 7:

http://www.joomlart.com/forums/topic/removing-menu-descriptions/

Then you can set your page titles properly again.

A more complicated option is to edit the code to fill it with data from another field instead of name. Some people have suggested using the ‘Alias’ field but I think that’s only viable with Joomla 1, not 1.5 because it puts dashes in there. It may be possible to set a field you’re not using (Author Alias perhaps) and pull it from there. That might separate it from the page title.

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