Lightbox to show our sixteen most popular products
-
We wish to create a minimalist Lightbox (without flashy transitions) for our home page that displays a matrix of 4 x 4 images - sixteen in all.
Each image (approximately 240 wide x 360 high) needs to have its own descriptive text and a hyperlink to the appropriate page on our web site.
We are trying to identify a simple yet effective SEO friendly add-on that will allow us to quickly change the Lightbox on a daily basis.
Suggestions from the Moz community would be very welcome. Thanks
-
Hello Colin,
Since it sounds like you're not using any kind of CMS, and are coding an HTML/CSS site yourself, it will be a little more difficult to find an "app" to do this since most publicly available apps/plugins/widgets/modules are created for use in an existing CMS. There are some scripts out there built with JQuery that might work. Just Google "JQuery gallery" or "JQuery lightbox" to get started. If one doesn't have everything you want you should at least be able to get 90% of the way there, and can either tweak the code yourself or hire a developer to get the rest of the way there.
This one looks promising:
http://fancyapps.com/fancybox/Also check out:
http://www.intelliance.fr/jquery/imagebox/
http://www.pirolab.it/pirobox/
http://www.no-margin-for-errors.com/projects/prettyPhoto-jquery-lightbox-clone/It may also be possible for you to use one of the CMS-specific plugins with some tweaking. You could try out some of these on a free Wordpress site to test them. When you find the one you want you could try customizing the code yourself, or hiring a developer (having an existing plugin for him to see/use will save you money) to do it for you.
Good luck!
-
Thanks Dan
-
Colin
Gotcha - I am not sure of anything off hand that does this, but have asked any other Associates if they know of something.
-Dan
-
Hi Dan,
This is quite interesting. I have n't had time to fully investigate, but it is vital that the pop-up window has a hyperlink to the appropriate page.
What I was really hoping for was an 'app' that displays the sixteen images, has rollover functionality, and allows a visible text description of the image.
Thanks for your efforts and advice.
Colin
-
Hi Colin
Do you mean something like Slimbox? http://www.digitalia.be/software/slimbox2 - I wasn't sure if you intended to have all 16 photos visible at once in the box, or if you meant the user with go through them one by one?
-Dan
-
Hi Dan,
I am using using CCS / HTML, as can be seen at www.just-insulation.com and at http://ow.ly/oWy64.
The trouble is that I wish to replicate the simple existing presentation, yet keep it simple enough for a novice in our office to regularly update.
Our business is sell House Insulation ... not the sexiest thing in the world! All of the add-ins that I have encountered offer clever graphic solutions. However, I do not want to distract our visitors with flashy images that will detract from the functional presentation of information that we are trying to achieve.
Colin
-
Hi There! What CMS or platform are you using?
-Dan
-
Hi Matt,
I looked at the site as you suggested, but it doesn't seem to offer what I am attempting to create.
Trouble is, I am finding it difficult to define exactly what I am trying to achieve. On our welcome page we currently list our eighteen most popular products (using CCS / HTML) Visitors can then use the embedded links to navigate. http://www.just-insulation.com
Constantly updating the page is time consuming and requires a bit of care and understanding, so I was trying to find a solution that I could set up for a novice (not unlike myself) to update.
-
Thanks Matt, I shall investigate.
-
This really depends on your CMS, but I have had some experience with this in the past so might be able to help out. Firstly, I would recommend having a good think about going with the solution... lightboxes have become a lot harder to use from a user point of view since the uptake in mobile device usage. If you're using one, make sure that it's responsive.
Take a good look at this article before you do anything - http://www.businessol.com/blog_posts/seo-javascript-lightbox-js-content/. It explains the SEO implications of using lightboxes and also gives some examples of out-the-box solutions that can be used.
I have used the following plugin before that has worked well:
Hope this helps!
Matt
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Migrating educational resources for a SaaS product to an existing domain?
Odd situation I'm hoping some folks may have insight on. We have a product site and an educational site (two entirely separate domains). The educational site has: Existed for longer (24 years vs 13). Currently ranks for far more keywords and drives more traffic. Is an entirely separate brand from the product. Has historically driven sales to the product site (through email and onsite ads) but that channel has diminished over time. The product site Also has educational resources Is a more recognizable brand When prioritized resources here often drive far more revenue The Challenge
Branding | | pasware
Both sites cover very similar topics, making prioritization challenging and splits our topical focus. We are considering making the educational site our sole place for resources, migrating content from the product site, and rebranding the site to line up more closely with the product. Basically retain the domain, make it our sole focus for updates and new content, but align it with the strength of our more recognizable product. The Questions Does anyone have any experience with this type of rebrand where a separate domain is retained? Are we risking the loss of branded search queries in the process or some other risk? While potentially risking ranking/traffic loss would it make more sense to migrate all valuable content to the product site instead? Sorry for the long-winded questions here and appreciate any thoughts/ideas!0 -
Domain: Product brand or company brand?
I work for a company with a very strong brand. We have a product with an even stronger brand. Right now, our product marketing pages look like this: https://www.company.com/product/.... I believe this leads to URL bloat, and I think we're probably missing some search rank on product-branded keywords that we would automatically get if, instead, our product marketing was here: https://www.product.com/.... An example of this structure is Colgate Palmolive (http://www.colgatepalmolive.com/en/us/corp), the makers of Colgate toothpaste (http://www.colgate.com/en/us/oc/). We already own both domains, but of course right now SEO rank is entirely owned by company.com. If we put product marketing at product.com, of course the company site can still link to the product site anywhere, and vice-versa, which means (I think) that both domains help each other out. But we wouldn't have to spend as much time worrying about the branded keyword in product content. I have found some posted opinion that tends to support my hunch here, but I haven't seen anything more concrete in support of it. Has anyone got direct experience with this question?
Branding | | hoosteeno0 -
Top level domains showing wrong meta tag des in different country
Hi Everyone I have 3 top level domains - and its showing up my meta tag description in USA and Australia search for my NEW ZEALAND meta tag description. Not sure whats going on, but now that im ranking for all top level domains in those countries it looks weird having a NZ in the Search when its a USA and AUSTRALIA domain name. See the attachments Cheers new
Branding | | edward-may0 -
Product Reviews
Any one have good strategies to get product reviews from customers? Whether general or specific to G+, Yelp, On Page, local review sites, etc? Thanks
Branding | | IOSC0 -
Online retailer has old product listing
A large online retailer in Europe used to sell a product that we sell in the US. They have not sold the product for more than a year but have not removed the item from their product listings. The price is marked down and the description says the product has been discontinued. They sell a very large number of items and have a high DA and this product listing ranks high in Google SERP. As you can imagine, this causes significant problems for us. Potential customers are given the wrong price and are also being told that the product has been discontinued. I have sent numerous requests to the retailer asking them to delete the product from their database with no success. Is it possible to send a notice to Google requesting that this product page be de-indexed? Any other suggestions? Best,
Branding | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
High authority brand expanding product line, domain question
Hi MOZers, I've been given a handy little domain puzzle to deal with and would love insight from the community. Here's the situation: We're retailers of one specific, big, nationally known product. Let's pretend it's the Snuggee (IT'S NOT). People search for it and buy it from our site, or from Amazon or other retailers that we distribute it to. We're about to expand to carry a bunch of related, but different products - so from a one-product brand to 5 or 6 different items, relating to different keyword searches. Imagine Snuggee people want to start selling a whole bunch of products that solve the same needs of warming the front of your body and making you look silly. The owners want to change the main domain from [specific product] to [name similar to specific product, but is more general]. What concerns me is how to handle the fame of the branded product in terms of domain names. Current domain, based on that product, has a ton of links and a decent age. Owners are thinking to redirect everything to fresh new unestablished domain. While I know 301s will pass most link value, it will also be a home page that will be about a bunch of products - not just that main known one. In fact, we're considering making a URL for each product as landing page, of which old famous product would be one of 5 or 6 pages. Two main options we're considering right now: Keep old domain as a doorway page featuring just old product, with same look and feel, and from which any links would point to the new domain. Try to keep this as ranking for top result for this search, which should be easy. Unify everything under new domain, with old product being featured on a separate page / subdirectory. Hope that new home page still can rank pretty well for our old product, even though it will be talking about other products now as well. What we'd stand to lose would be the SERP for old products featuring too many big box retailers that sell our stuff and take a chunk out of our margins. The goal is to help us become known for many things, while still being always the best search result for what we're already known for. Which of those two options seem best, or is there another I'm missing altogether? Thank you!
Branding | | advancedSemiotics0 -
Is having two websites that sell most of the same products a good idea?
Hi - Please read this in full before you answer. I currently own a website that sells kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities that match the kitchens. This website has been operational since Arpil 2009 and we have built good rankings over the past 3 years. The site is operated on the Volusion platform (my mistake from the beginning, but we're kind of stuck now). We are in the process of designing a new website on the Magento platform - everything will be 100% different from look, speed, the way our customers shop, content, product skus, etc. The original plan was to keep the same domain but implement 301 redirects for subpages (subpage urls would have to change) and shut down the Volusion site and transfer the domain name to the Magento site. Our current website does make money right now and we would hate to lose rankings (even if only temporarily) during the switch or have something go wrong. What I am now thinking is keeping our current website on Volusion where it is currently making money and having the new Magento site have a new name/domain. The sites would sell most of the same products (the Magento site would sell more types of vanities and accessories though). The two sites would have different email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses. Is it a bad idea to try and rank two websites selling pretty much the same thing? We have competitors out there that sell the same products as us, I would just prefer to compete with myself rather then someone else. Another issue is our name, one of our competitors names is extremely close to ours and we rank for pretty much all of the same keywords and customers get us mixed up all the time. This other site would have a different name (one that makes more sense). I want to make a decision that will not come back and bite us later. I know there are a lot of bigger sites that operate tons of niche sites, and of these website could eventually be similar to that. I really appreciate your help and guidance! Thanks
Branding | | tyler7560 -
Product Reviews
I have an ecommerce client who is willing to give a free product in return for a review of the product on their blog/site/etc.. Does anyone know of any sites where we can find these types of users?
Branding | | waqid0