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Another website - please, could you review it?
Thread poster: Natalia Ulla
Natalia Ulla
Natalia Ulla  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 19:18
English to Spanish
Apr 20, 2015

Hi,

So I have finally polished my translation website, although I seem to find things to change/improve almost every day!

Would you have a look at it and tell me what you think? NU Translations


Things to note:

1. My portfolio is obviously way more extensive than shown in the website. However, so far I have only included projects that are visible on the web
... See more
Hi,

So I have finally polished my translation website, although I seem to find things to change/improve almost every day!

Would you have a look at it and tell me what you think? NU Translations


Things to note:

1. My portfolio is obviously way more extensive than shown in the website. However, so far I have only included projects that are visible on the web (Website, apps). How do you think I should include other projects, just by mentioning them? I wanted to make my portfolio highly visual, but I do not know how to include translations for documents I only have in Word format (for example) in that a visual way.

2. I have worked a lot on SEO. I have done all I can with my limited knowledge on this area. I did a lot of research (many days spent online on countless websites and tutorials). If you know about SEO and can comment on what I did, that would be helpful.

3. I made my own logo (I had to learn almost from scratch to do it!). Do you think it's appropriate? I wanted it to look sort of informal, but crisp and professional at the same time.

4. About my specialties: These are the subjects I have studied. But I do not have a lot of experience translating them as of yet (I am doing something about this!). Does it look bad that I specialise in certain subjects, yet my portfolio shows I did only translations outside my specialties? Things I am doing: Reading lots of Kudoz posts in my specialty fields, translating content related to my specialties pro bono (so far I have only found cinema related volunteer translations). Any ideas on what more I could be doing?


Thanks for your time, and please be kind, I am fragile!


Natalia Ulla
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Triston Goodwin
Triston Goodwin  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 12:18
Spanish to English
+ ...
I like it! Apr 20, 2015

Wix can be a lot more complicated than some of the other tools out there. I think you did a really good job with the layout and design ^_^

 
Rachel Waddington
Rachel Waddington  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:18
Dutch to English
+ ...
Looks great Apr 20, 2015

I think it looks really good and presents a professional image.

I did wonder about the keywords on the front page though - aren't your keywords supposed to be hidden in the code?


 
Natalia Ulla
Natalia Ulla  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 19:18
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
Keywords visible on purpose Apr 20, 2015

Hi Rachel,


Thanks for your comment.
Re: Keywords. I did some research and it looks like hiding keywords can actually work against your SEO. Apparently, according to the tutorials and Google itself, hiding keywords is considered like you are trying to "cheat" the system and google can spot you have hidden them and ban you (or make it worse for your site on Google search). It's something webmasters were doing a lot years ago and now it seems it's frowned upon by the web
... See more
Hi Rachel,


Thanks for your comment.
Re: Keywords. I did some research and it looks like hiding keywords can actually work against your SEO. Apparently, according to the tutorials and Google itself, hiding keywords is considered like you are trying to "cheat" the system and google can spot you have hidden them and ban you (or make it worse for your site on Google search). It's something webmasters were doing a lot years ago and now it seems it's frowned upon by the webmasters community and several search engines (Google, bing, etc...).

I got the idea of including visible keywords at the end of the pages (they are in all the pages, at the bottom) actually from Proz (the way they show visibly in our profiles here).

I know it looks sort of funny but I rather be upfront about it than be penalised for it.

I can always make them a tad smaller, if it looks too busy?

Side note: You mention "hidden in the code", actually a lot of these keywords are also in the meta tags, titles, alt text and other features included within the actual code. But since I am using an HTML5 site editor (wix), it did not let me add as many. That's why I decided to include all of them at the bottom of the pages.

Again, thanks and glad that you like the look!
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Rachel Waddington
Rachel Waddington  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:18
Dutch to English
+ ...
SEO Apr 20, 2015

Natalia Ulla wrote:
Re: Keywords. I did some research and it looks like hiding keywords can actually work against your SEO. Apparently, according to the tutorials and Google itself, hiding keywords is considered like you are trying to "cheat" the system and google can spot you have hidden them and ban you (or make it worse for your site on Google search). It's something webmasters were doing a lot years ago and now it seems it's frowned upon by the webmasters community and several search engines (Google, bing, etc...).

I got the idea of including visible keywords at the end of the pages (they are in all the pages, at the bottom) actually from Proz (the way they show visibly in our profiles here).

I know it looks sort of funny but I rather be upfront about it than be penalised for it.

I can always make them a tad smaller, if it looks too busy?

Side note: You mention "hidden in the code", actually a lot of these keywords are also in the meta tags, titles, alt text and other features included within the actual code. But since I am using an HTML5 site editor (wix), it did not let me add as many. That's why I decided to include all of them at the bottom of the pages.


I must admit I don't know a great deal about SEO, but my limited understanding is that lists of keywords like that have become less useful now anyway. They don't look especially obvious, it's just I don't recall seeing that on a website before (other than ProZ profiles).


 
Epameinondas Soufleros
Epameinondas Soufleros  Identity Verified
Greece
Local time: 20:18
Member (2008)
English to Greek
+ ...
About keywords Apr 20, 2015

The site looks pretty, but it has some 'dead' content, i.e. content that can't be selected with the mouse or seen by bots, crawlers and the like. This is what can have a negative impact on your search engine ranking. If bots don't see much real content on your pages, then they can't rank you.

Keywords like the ones you have entered won't help, especially if they are the same on every page of your website. This technique is very old and deprecated. Instead, you should use different
... See more
The site looks pretty, but it has some 'dead' content, i.e. content that can't be selected with the mouse or seen by bots, crawlers and the like. This is what can have a negative impact on your search engine ranking. If bots don't see much real content on your pages, then they can't rank you.

Keywords like the ones you have entered won't help, especially if they are the same on every page of your website. This technique is very old and deprecated. Instead, you should use different keywords for every page, using the various "meta" elements in the "head" section of your HTML code. Apart from that, your content should have one "h1" element on each page and then well-structured content that is accurately reflected in the "meta" elements.

I hope this helps.

[Edited at 2015-04-20 09:02 GMT]
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Natalia Ulla
Natalia Ulla  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 19:18
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
Dead content? Apr 20, 2015

Hi Epameinondas,

Could you elaborate on the "dead content". I don´t know what you are referring to. A lot of the "crap" in the source code is added automatically by Wix and I can´t do anything about it. Unfortunately, I can´t afford to pay for web space/hosting at the moment, so I had to use this free service. Other than that, the pages have the H1 heading, and the titles of each page are done thinking of SEO, as well as Alt text and images also for SEO purposes (and because they
... See more
Hi Epameinondas,

Could you elaborate on the "dead content". I don´t know what you are referring to. A lot of the "crap" in the source code is added automatically by Wix and I can´t do anything about it. Unfortunately, I can´t afford to pay for web space/hosting at the moment, so I had to use this free service. Other than that, the pages have the H1 heading, and the titles of each page are done thinking of SEO, as well as Alt text and images also for SEO purposes (and because they look nice!)

I didn´t know about the keywords, so I'll change those and spread them out a little across the pages. You seem to know this stuff so...

I thought I included meta tags in there... see, wix is limited, you cannot add code, it´s all done through menus. So I can´t control much.

If you think this is getting a little off-topic, you can contact me privately through here, and let me know about the dead content, please. I put a lot of work on the site and if I am doing something detrimental to its SEO I definitely want to know!

Thanks!
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Epameinondas Soufleros
Epameinondas Soufleros  Identity Verified
Greece
Local time: 20:18
Member (2008)
English to Greek
+ ...
Example of dead content Apr 20, 2015

What I mean by dead content is for example what appears on the "Testimonials" page. If you look at the source of the page (in Internet Explorer, right-click and select "View source"), you can't see the text of the testimonials. They are somehow emitted by JavaScript. But this way a search engine bot can't read these and index them. Essentially, the "Testimonials" page has no text content at all.

 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 19:18
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Screenshot Apr 20, 2015

Natalia Ulla wrote:
Would you have a look at it and tell me what you think? NU Translations


Your site assumes the user will have a wide screen, and I'm surprised that the horizontal scroll bar does not allow me to scroll the site to the left all the way:





[Edited at 2015-04-20 10:29 GMT]


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 15:18
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Food for thought Apr 20, 2015

By chance, we have taken exactly opposite directions.

While your site sends visitors to your Proz profile (where prospects may find thousands of other options), my Proz profile (assuming prospects found me there) sends visitors to specific pages on my web site, depending on what they want from me.

There should be pros and cons in each of these approaches, perhaps worth comparing.

I know a few colleagues who spent a lot in SEO. Some hired those "optimizators
... See more
By chance, we have taken exactly opposite directions.

While your site sends visitors to your Proz profile (where prospects may find thousands of other options), my Proz profile (assuming prospects found me there) sends visitors to specific pages on my web site, depending on what they want from me.

There should be pros and cons in each of these approaches, perhaps worth comparing.

I know a few colleagues who spent a lot in SEO. Some hired those "optimizators" that bombard you with spam every other day. Others paid Google directly, and discovered that stopping this payment causes traffic to stop immediately.

I chose to gradually cram my web site with what I was led to consider "useful info" for translation prospects. Most of it was based on actual customer questions I had to answer over and over again.

I never spent a cent in any kind of paid SEO, expecting the content to work for me. It took a few years and, if I were farming out part of my demand, it would not be enough. However the most valuable content there, viz.:
- sworn translation in Brazil
- video translation for dubbing and subtitling in Brazil
- PDF files translation with DTP using Infix
... got quite high rankings on Google.

IMHO your degree/specialization in cinema could yield some positive results. You would be amazed how little clients - translation agencies included - know about film/video translation or localization. I have a hard time, every time, to guide them into realizing what they actually need or want.
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Angela Malik
Angela Malik  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:18
German to English
+ ...
Optimisation for mobile devices Apr 20, 2015

Hi Natalia,

This morning I had a look at your website from my smartphone (as I happened to be checking my email in bed) and the site looks incredibly busy and confusing. Given that mobile devices are so popular, I would suggest looking into optimising your site for mobile devices.


 
Natalia Ulla
Natalia Ulla  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 19:18
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
I see what you mean now Apr 20, 2015

Epameinondas Soufleros wrote:

What I mean by dead content is for example what appears on the "Testimonials" page. If you look at the source of the page (in Internet Explorer, right-click and select "View source"), you can't see the text of the testimonials. They are somehow emitted by JavaScript. But this way a search engine bot can't read these and index them. Essentially, the "Testimonials" page has no text content at all.


Yes, this is true. Thanks so much, I did not think of that! Basically these are screen grabs taken from actual feedback from my odesk profile odesk profile (there is also a link to my odesk profile on that same page). There were a lot of testimonials (70+) and I think it looked good as images. I do not want to change this look, so I think I might use the alt text and "hidden" image code to add this text in there... soon (a lot of work!)

Thanks for pointing that out. The other images on the site were used partially for SEO (keywords, etc...), but the ones in the Testimonials page were there to look pleasing to the eye. Of course, the content is not indexed or visible by crawlers... darn! Thanks a lot for your help.

I know HTML, but this website won't let me use it.. grrr. It's free, so what else can I ask for...


 
Natalia Ulla
Natalia Ulla  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 19:18
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
Sideways scrolling Apr 20, 2015

Samuel Murray wrote:

Natalia Ulla wrote:
Would you have a look at it and tell me what you think? NU Translations


Your site assumes the user will have a wide screen, and I'm surprised that the horizontal scroll bar does not allow me to scroll the site to the left all the way:


Thanks Samuel,

I built the website for "normal" screens. The website builder is online and it's quite limited. However, I will look into it. I made the website phone-friendly, but obviously is not enough...
I only have a laptop, so can not check other layouts on it, or how it looks on iPads and such, but I am sure there is an option on the builder to change the sideways scrolling.

Thanks so much, this is very helpful!


 
Natalia Ulla
Natalia Ulla  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 19:18
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
I thought I optimised it for mobile devices... Apr 20, 2015

Angela Rimmer wrote:

Hi Natalia,

This morning I had a look at your website from my smartphone (as I happened to be checking my email in bed) and the site looks incredibly busy and confusing. Given that mobile devices are so popular, I would suggest looking into optimising your site for mobile devices.


Thanks Angela,

The site is actually optimised for mobile devices. It's tricky because on the (free) site builder (quite limited!) I had to re-arrange just about everything to make it look good on mobiles. However, I made quite a few changes since then, and forgot to re-arrange it in the "mobile view" of the site builder.

I will look into it further, and have a look also on my android.

I am sure I can remove some stuff like the keywords and some images, without disturbing the "normal view". I don't like busy sites, they reek of desperation! I want mine to look clean and crisp, so thanks for the heads-up!


 
Epameinondas Soufleros
Epameinondas Soufleros  Identity Verified
Greece
Local time: 20:18
Member (2008)
English to Greek
+ ...
User-agent switcher Apr 20, 2015

You can easily check how your website will look on tablets, phones, and various operating systems by using a Firefox add-on called User-agent switcher. You don't need to have the actual devices yourself!

Give it a try and see.


 
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