Section page naming problem

[PatchworkRabbit]

There's probably a simple solution for this but I've futzed around with variables and whatnot and come up with nowt.

I have a set of products on MPP as they're all the same except colour and there's not much to say about them individually.

So as to not have too many products on one page, I've grouped them by the first letter of the colour (Apple, Amber, Adobe, etc). So, I have a section of sub-sections, by letter, a la:

http://www.patchwork-rabbit.co.uk/ac...works-6sf.html

To aid readability and avoid keyword stuffing, the sections are just called A, B, C etc.


However, this presents a problem with the product page:

http://www.patchwork-rabbit.co.uk/ac...e-works-A.html

in that it just says "A" when, ideally, I want it to say "Weeks Dye Works - A" because Weeks Dye Works is a strong search string. I used to hit quite well on Weeks Dye Works, but gone now.



So, is it better to have each section have WDW in the page title and accept that the main section page will have 26 "Weeks Dye Works" on it, or continue trying to figure out how to make it work with variables (before I waste too much more time on it :lol: )

[leehack]

For me i'd stick with the A approach, it makes alphabetical buying easier, but i'd also get rid of the colours you mention from such to such, i think that just adds confusion and people will know what they are doing. I'd probably get rid of the sample picture too, it adds no benefit and look to use images of the Alphabet's letters instead, this would enable a much cleaner look and more importantly show far more on screen without the need to scroll. There is nothing to stop you having page name and indeed page title having the keywords included though. You could even adopt this type of approach - http://www.heaven-spa.co.uk/acatalog...y-symptom.html

When you then get to the pages, i would definitely have the keywords in the section title on page. There's a number of ways of doing this, either having a variable that was checked to see if it had anything in it, if it did, it showed, if it didn't the normal one would be shown. You could even have it permanently included and just have "Weeks Dye Works Starting With - " in the variable, that could then proceed the real section title when you have added something in there, on all others it would just stay blank. You could also have a custom section listing layout where the text was already added and you just select it where appropriate.

I'd also look to grid your products with a single add to cart solution, something like on here - http://www.medsportgb.co.uk/acatalog...Dressings.html - but i'd also add a thumbnail (the swatch) for each entry and make it so that when hovered, a large version was shown.

I think that would be the perfect balance between SEO and more importantly your users, i think the current approach satisfies neither, or worded better could be improved vastly.

[Duncan Rounding]

If you named the sections as you would perfer with the full name you could then perhaps use a bit of php within Actinic to strip the wording from the front on the parent section.

[PatchworkRabbit]

As usual, excellent advice. Thanks so much both of you.

I'll take a moment to digest it and see what improvements I can make.

You guys really do make this so much easier

[PatchworkRabbit]

Lee, is that grid a built in (e.g. permutations) or plug in that displays different products or hand written?

Ta

[leehack]

It's neither, it's just using standard actinic functions in a slightly advanced way you could say. I think the main point is that you need to move to a more compact layout IMO, taking up less space and easier to use. Try the standard actinic compact layout, i think that will be a great start.

It's a fragment at the top and then each row of the table (grid) is a product.

[PatchworkRabbit]

More compact layout. Check.

I'll wander off and have a play.

Thanks so much! You guys really are the best

[PatchworkRabbit]

OK, first mod done:

http://www.patchwork-rabbit.co.uk/ac...works-6sf.html

I'm looking for some nice letter images to use to replace the thread images. When I nix the images, I'll removed the section page names, too.




I had a look at compact layout (compact layout using css is the only one I can see), but it's just the same as the current layout, but without an image, so that will take some more work than I thought so it'll have to wait a bit.

[pinbrook]

To aid usabity have you considered a single add to cart for your thread pages?

[PatchworkRabbit]

To aid usabity have you considered a single add to cart for your thread pages?

I have indeed, but wanted to get the threads displaying one line per product, first. I'd like to use CSS and not tables, but am a CSS newb, so it's taking some working out LOL

I can't see any brs in there, but keeps dropping things onto new lines, so it must be something to do with the width of the space as CSS alignment is all relative, right? I've set it as one column, but it's still squishing it all up. I'm sure it's something really obvious, once I've found the right bit of the documentation

Anywho, I'll figure it out. Thanks for the tips!

[leehack]

Get firefox and firebug, can see it on the fly then, no CSS'er can do without it.

[PatchworkRabbit]

LOL Was just doing that and it's still using tables despite the misleading "uses CSS not tables" description on the layout

So, after fiddling about with creating new nested layouts and whatnot, I've decided to bin all that and just create my own "thread with componenets" layout that uses tables like the example you showed me, Lee.

More coffee, back to the drawing board LOL

[leehack]

I don't use components, each row of the table is a product, so 4 rows in a table = 4 products in the section. Actinic does its list layouts as tables, it simply has to in order to provide an easy way to set the column counts, the rest is usually CSS, although i use CSS in the loosest form of the word. The list layout is the key to a lot of things, put down your pen for half hour and simply play and study the list layout, once you understand how they work and lay things out, you can do so much with them. You have product, section and fragment list layouts, master them and pages you didn't think were possible with actinic, suddenly become very easy in fact.

[Duncan Rounding]

I agree the list layouts are very powerful, they are something I used to shy away from for a long time. It's interesting that they been around for three years now but their usefulness is only recently taken centre stage.

[PatchworkRabbit]

I agree, Lee, it's just taking me some time to get the hang of it LOL The reason I use components here is simply because of the length of the thread. I can't see anyone wanting to buy a 5 yard skein AND a 1 yard length of the same colour at the same time

I've created a slightly modified version of the layout thus:

http://www.patchwork-rabbit.co.uk/ac...Weeks-U-W.html

with single add to cart button, which I think is a vast improvement, but still not as nice as the grid layout you showed me, which I still can't work out how to do You said there's a format that does it, but I'm still looking for it. I'll see it when I stop trying so hard, I'm sure. At the moment, I have a table with the right column headers (Colour, size, price, qty), but each cell of the table contains an entire product LOL Seriously, reading my posts must be like watching the Keystone cops develop a website

I'm quite pleased with myself because I broke it (would add multi products to cart, but no quantity or price) and then fixed it so I'm getting somewhere!

I shall keep playing with it to get the grid layout but I quite like this format for the short term (as I really, really must stop tinkering and get some more stock up there!) and may roll it out unless anyone can see any glaring problems.