Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Some thoughts on modernizing the site design..

Reboot - 29-1-2018 at 10:39

Hi folks! I run a personal web site with a little bit of subject overlap to this site, and over the past few years I've redesigned it with the help of a proper internet marketing consultant. It's been an eye-opening experience; so many things that just didn't matter (or even exist) when I started my site are now very important.

Of note:

1. Encryption. SSL has become a site ranking criteria. That is to say, having your site traffic encrypted makes it more likely that Google will list your site as a search result. It's only going to get worse: Web browsers are moving in the direction of warning people that any site content that isn't secured by SSL is insecure. To that end, I would recommend redirecting all connections to HTTPS. These days every browser that isn't powered by rubbing sticks together can easily handle encrypted connections, so it's safe to let go of the backwards compatibility offered by non-encrypted pages.

2. Responsive design. That is to say, a site design that dynamically adjusts to different screen sizes (from desktop to tablet to phone.) After going to a responsive design, my site saw a huge increase in traffic and search rank and now gets 80%+ of its traffic from smart phones. Although SM probably wouldn't be as strongly affected (I think most serious science people are reading and posting from conventional computers), it's important to note that search results are now 'mobile first'; that is to say, how well a web site works on a phone affects it's ranking in search results even on regular PCs.

3. Cleaning up site design has also become a lot more important. The standards are higher now, and people's attention spans are shorter. Since the forum is the main feature of the site, I would make the Forum the home page and create a standard top navigation strip/panel that provides access to the different subsections (Wiki, Library, etc.) That way you get a consistent interface no matter where you are. Right now it's not obvious to a person who stumbles on the Wiki that the Forums exist (or vice versa.) I think people would get more use out of the site if everything it had to offer was more visibly accessible.

It might not seem like a priority to increase search ranking, but in a world drowning in crass commercialism, this is kind of a special site. I think it would be a good thing for more talented and like-minded people to find their way here. :-)

WangleSpong5000 - 17-2-2018 at 02:34

The SSL stuff is not my forte so I can't help you there.

But I can give you some advice regarding modernisation, device functionality, interface efficiency and aesthetics of design and few misc. pointers.

Firstly I should let you know I am not a professional computer programmer or web developer. I have hiowever been studying JavaScript and the React js framework for just over 18 months now. I know some back end stuff but it's the front end I have been studying. I friend of mine who has been a little ahead of me is now working in the industry for some of the biggest corporations in the field and we have support from long time devs who have taken an interest in helping us.

Basically if you want to code in this world you learn JavaScript. If you want to be a true computer programmer you learn a C based languages but programming and a web development are very very different things with different skill sets and goals.... And JavaScript in this day and age is everything... The frameworks are cutting edge and make web development more efficient, for both user client. These days device compatibility and functionality over every device is EVERYTHING.... I really can't stress that enough. These frameworks and other complimentary ones make this (rather difficult task) much easier....

Isomorphic JS is the way of the future... so yeah... I'd like to help. Let me know if you'd fancy having a chat abut it more .

Cheers ears,

Luke

NEMO-Chemistry - 17-2-2018 at 03:45

Actually google has been cheeky as fuck, you need to adopt AMP, which is a google product. Accelerated Mobile pages. Its a google standard for mobile phones, apparently it will have a large impact on your ranking.

Not sure I am comfortable with a search engine dictating what the web standard should be. Responsive is good enough for me, I am not going down the AMP road for now.

Since google launched penguin, rankings have been messed up anyway.

Reboot - 21-2-2018 at 11:22

My consultant tells me that AMP doesn't inherently affect search rank. What DOES happen is that load speeds affect search rank, and, if done properly, AMP can reduce load times, which helps your rank.

So, will going to AMP improve your SEO? It's very possible, but only because Google likes fast sites, not because they are artificially favoring that technology.

In the end, content is king. Above all else, site traffic from searches depends on how people respond to your content. If they go right back to their search and try another site, Google assumes that they didn't find what they wanted on your site and reduces your rank. On the other hand, if people stop their search on your site, that's a very strong indicator that your site is a 'good' search result and Google will tend to rank your site more highly over time.

When I say 'content', I don't mean just text. Site design, attractive graphics, etc. are all important parts of the whole. I talked an artist into letting me use a particularly nice painting of hers for the top image of one of my pages and over the past year the traffic to that one page has increased ten-fold.

(More broadly, updating the layout, going to a responsive design, and adding some high quality stock images has increased traffic to my site by about 500% over the past 18 months.)

I used to think that quality, useful information was all that really mattered. But that's not how the internet works these days. Think like a marketer. Don't underestimate the value of putting some nice lipstick on your pig. :-) Even if you aren't trying to monetize a site, better search rank will bring more of the quality readers/members you want.

aga - 21-2-2018 at 11:38

People selling their SEO wares have always been wrong, even from the very beginning.

Google's vast $ wealth has partly been made because they constantly develop/change their ranking algorithms.

Unless you're part of their coding team, there is no way to know exactly how the rankings are determined.

Melgar - 21-2-2018 at 14:27

Quote: Originally posted by Reboot  
The standards are higher now, and people's attention spans are shorter.

...

It might not seem like a priority to increase search ranking, but in a world drowning in crass commercialism, this is kind of a special site. I think it would be a good thing for more talented and like-minded people to find their way here. :-)


Part of the reason that I like this site is that people with short attention spans have a hard time finding it.

*drops mic*

*picks mic back up*

However, I'm currently working on migrating the site's databases to phpBB, which is at least as old as XMB, but is actively maintained. It probably includes responsive design elements. I'm sure it does at least via an extension. Giving the site more of a theme seems like a good idea. An idea that I proposed, is to "make it look like it was designed in the 1890s, rather than the 1990s." Since a lot of the experimentation we do here relies on reactions that were discovered over 100 years ago, most of us have read a lot of really old chemistry journals, with their characteristic diagrams and fonts. The type of chemistry we do here is more along the lines of what was done a century ago, so it seemed appropriate. And the whole steampunk thing (combining 19th century styles with 21st century technology) is popular enough that there's probably a lot of stuff out there we could draw from if we wanted to.

Anyway, that's just my take on it. I wouldn't worry about SEO though. When people search for "extracting methylene chloride from paint stripper", it's not like we have a lot of competition. ;)

aga - 21-2-2018 at 14:51

SM already looks like something from the 1880s, at least to some people who are too young to remember when the internet and mobile phones did not exist.

I take issue with your statement about the Level of Chemistry displayed here.

At times it has been at the 'cutting edge'.

Not recently, granted, but probably will be again - depends what people are doing, and if they do it.

[Edited on 21-2-2018 by aga]

Reboot - 21-2-2018 at 15:17

Quote:
People selling their SEO wares have always been wrong, even from the very beginning.


I would generally agree that SEO 'consultants' tend to be cockroaches, but mine helped me take my site from ~350 visitors a day to about 1,500 a day in less than 18 months. Cost me about a grand, all in. (It was one of those things where an update was desperately needed and I was so clueless that the only good way forward was to either abandon the site or pay for some help. Sentimentality overruled financial prudence and I opted to save the site. :-)

It's an industry full of cockroaches and con artists, but a good SEO consultant can show you clear results.

aga - 21-2-2018 at 15:39

Yes, you can get results, although your own efforts could easily be as good.

For example:
a Bolt manufacturer in Halifax, England wants his company to be #1 on Google for the search term 'Best Bolts'

SEO 'consultant' makes it so, or at least gets paid for doing the obvious, hoping it works before the cheque expires.

Another bolt maker in Halifax, Canada asks to have his site #1 for 'Best Bolts'.

A user in the UK types in 'Best Bolts' and it could be random which one came up as #1 on the results, depending if they lived in the UK Halifax region.

Either way, the other guy will be #2 , right there on the same page.

Google's business model only works so well by making it a guessing game as to where your ad will appear, unless you Pay.

The entire SEO business could only ever exist because the users never can know how rankings on things like google are actually determined.

Highly likely that they make certain techniques work for a while and then suddenly stop working, just to keep the game rolling.

j_sum1 - 21-2-2018 at 16:39

AFAIK, Google uses AI for its ranking which means that no person actually knows what the ranking algorithms are. And even if someone did know, the situation is dynamic and so will regularly change. They will naturally set it to optimise profitability for themselves. And they will, it seems, make a token response to human complaints and issues but for the most part let the machines do that work -- human resourcing cannot possibly handle that workload. (Hence the arbitrary responses to YT strikes, claims and channel closures.)

For this site, even with a low-tech, outdated interface, it still tends to rank quite highly for certain kinds of searches. I think that is pretty impressive actually.

I like the idea of steampunking the appearance. If it looks a bit like Dalton or Arrhenius wrote it then ironically that could improve visitor retention and give some longevity and future-proofing to the site. It is also an aesthetic that I think would appeal to many of the regulars here.

JJay - 21-2-2018 at 17:29

I like how by default the color scheme uses black letters on a pale background. So many sites make an effort to look cool by putting white text on a black background, and switching back and forth repeatedly between light and dark backgrounds causes eyestrain.