Cliffnotes: 1.Have site coded from Photoshop file 2.Designer codes the homepage with no text and all images. http://method05.com/grout/ 3.Cusomter (me) complains and wants the text to be seen by search engines 4.Designer claims you can add "hidden text" with Joomla and that it won't be a problem to have the site entirely based on images. Confusion ensues... Hey guys, I'm having an issue with a site that is being coded. I had a site designed and I was given PSD files for the coder to use to put everything together. So I pick a designer and he recommended Joomla. He said that he could do my template in joomla no problem. So he did the site using Joomla and it wasn't an exact duplicate of my template. He said that with Joomla he couldn't replicate my site the same way as the pdf.... Sooo, he said that he could duplicate the same way if I really wanted to using html. So THEN he shows me the site which is at http://method05.com/grout/ Then I see the site is entirely based on images. So we have NO TEXT whatsoever. So I email him and ask if he's going to make the words text instead of images and this is the response I get: So I've already read a bunch about Joomla and SEO and this doesn't make any sense.... what does he mean you can add "hidden text".... I know you can add meta tags and title tags and keywords to Joomla but that is very limited... Thoughts? I'm not sure what to say to the coder...
First of all, it looks like you are dealing with a very amateur designer. You should NEVER have all of your content in the images. If he was a good designer then he would know how to slice a PSD and then program it so that you can have content that is indexable by the search engines. The only things that your designer could possibly be talking about when he says "hidden text" is putting content behind <noscript>, <meta>, and <title> tags. Which search engines may see, but even if they do, you would be a severe disadvantage because your keyword density would be all screwed up(lacking). The way he designed your site is the way I did it when I was a freshman in high school. Do not pay for that crap ass work. What's the purpose of a site if it's designed in such a way that you will never list high in the search engines, if you get listed AT ALL. Feel free to PM me if you have anymore questions. FYI: CSS, HTML, PHP, and AJAX are the key components of a killer website - You should steer clear of websites that are sliced(like your current one), or 100% flash.
That is really funny. So far i did not see any site full of images! I think this explains that this is obviously a wrong approach, especially if you care SEO.
Some text has to be there no matter what your site is about. If you have to add lots of images then make sure they all have an alt tag as well.
Having looked at the site, I can only conclude that your designer has no idea how to use css as there's nothing there that could not be done with any of the CMS type systems and still retain full text ability. I haven't worked with Joomla specifically but have done lots of work with Xoops which is similar and I would not consider a site like this to be difficult to replicate at all. With no actual content on the site, the meta tags are no help and he has not even bothered to use alt tags for all those graphics. Basically, I would say the guy doesn't know what he's talking about. -Mary
If I were you, I'd accidently bin the guys contact details and move on....quickly! I'm not a designer, but I could make that site with content. And also any designer that 'cuts up' a PSD in image ready, that's bad news, if you change the text to have more characters in it, 9/10 of the time, the design messes up eeeek!
Wow, you need a new web designer. He is talking rubbish. I code joomla sites for my living, and it wouldn't be too hard to recreate the pages using css styles and text etc. Plus i really would advise getting yourself open sef (gives you sef page urls plus a google sitemap generator)
Update, I talked with the coder and using the info I got here we ended up doing it right and now the whole thing runs off the content managment system... cool beans...thanks guys