 Poster: A snowHead
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@skimottaret, Out of interest what are you using to do the site in ?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Ug.
I guess you were after technical comments, but that's really not the issue . It looks like you discovered background-size:cover and reacted to it in the same way as people once did with <blink>. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I guess I'm saying I hate the design, an entirely subjective thing.
Well you did ask.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Chinese characters coming up on Chrome on Android. Not my tablet doesn't happen on other sites
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| philwig wrote: |
Ug.
I guess you were after technical comments, but that's really not the issue . It looks like you discovered background-size:cover and reacted to it in the same way as people once did with <blink>. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I guess I'm saying I hate the design, an entirely subjective thing.
Well you did ask. |
Sorry but I agree. That huge background image changing every couple of seconds. Horrible, horrible, horrible distraction from the business of the site, which is getting the user to checkout. I'd not be going to checkout, best case I'd be configuring Adblock to get rid of that image.
Guys, there's an army of professional designers out there and they aren't expensive. Hire one. Bloggers can indulge in whatever visual nightmare they like but you are trying to sell instruction here. Would anyone recommend receiving ski instruction from your mate who once read "The Dummy's Guide to Snowsports"?
Harsh I know. But fair. And you did ask.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I find the moving images distracting on my phone, but OK on a larger screen. Everything loads OK. I too always start my booking process from the diary, so the more pages on which the diary appears, the better (for me).
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Gaza, thanks fixed the colour change but unfortunately can't add a link
@Dave, yeah I see that as well and it has something to do with the link from the main site. If you click on the shop home button within the shop it loads the icons but the link doesn't, will need to check into that...
@katherine , have disabled the background on phones, will look into adding links to diary but not sure I will be able to do that.
When you say you always start from the diary is it this page you mean http://www.insideoutskiing.com/calendar.html ?
have turned off the slide show, any better?
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No, the little link under the pic to the right of your home page is where I start (fwiw). I don't mind the slide show, it's just too big on my (android) phone. 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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looks nice at first but if you look under the hood its a right old mess.
A few pointers.
1. Your SEO is terrible, look at the URLs for your pages:
http://insideoutskiing.com/sales2/index.php?route=product/category&path=60
for example, this should read more like:
http://insideoutskiing.com/skiing-clinics/london/learn-carving
you want your search terms in the URLS, this is hugely important. Your page title is also non descriptive. 'skills' what skills? who just types 'skills' into google and what are they expecting to find? Along the same lines you have no text in your meta description (after the title this is the second most important tag to use)
2., Id get rid of the images in the dropdown menus, they dont add anything and make it look a little messy.
3. Look at your code, its a little obvious youve done it on a CMS (open cart I think) and its bloating your code massivly, nearly every div has several styles attached to it and then styles hardcoded into them too. the point of having styles is so you dont repeat the same code over and over.
those are a few things that instantly stood out to me but Id imagine there are quite a few other issues too.
One thing Id bear in mind is that a web designer will be cheaper or similar cost to what you are charging per person per session. If your wasting your own time making the website wouldn't you be better off teaching sessions and putting that money to a professional web designer who will do the job better and faster than you are leaving you free to make the money to pay for it.
Not trying to be harsh just pointing out some facts as a professional
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I don't think the shop pages are the landing pages, so no real need to be fully optimised imho. I'd probably set the shop to noindex.
The normal site ranks pretty well already for a number of terms.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@medlington, thanks for having a look, as Little M says our main page is www.insideoutskiing.com and the shop is more transactional for customers so in a lot of ways Im not bothered about search results for the shop. Yup it is an opencart shop and I bought a popular theme that that works with the opencart data base and seems to be well supported. Summer is a little slow for us so the new shop was a learning project for me and was somewhat foisted on us in that Opencart had a major update to 2.0 and they stopped supporting the old version of shop software we were using so I had to update everything. A bit of wasted time for sure but learned a few new things..
@Little Martin, The 404 page that you pointed out http://insideoutskiing.com/sales2/catalog/view/theme/journal2/css/icons/fonts/journal-icons.woff I can't seem to fix, ftp'd up a fresh copy and it still comes up as an error. Might have to put in a support ticket on that
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@Weathercam, yup thats the one. the previous opencart theme we used wasn't compatible with the new version of opencart so had to redo it all..have only done a few mods myself basically replacing words dynamically (reward points to frequent skier points, Fax to Skiing Level , etc) and have turned off most of the Journal2 functionality. I did hack out some of the html we didn't use like newsletter sign up forms but all seems to work ok.
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FAQ
