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
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Structured data: Star Rating not showing in SERP
I have marked up the website with all the necessary schema and tested and validated it on Google's structured data tool. I have requested for the site to be recrawled and indexed which was performed. It has been 3 weeks but the mark up is still not showing on search engine result pages and this is the longest delay I have experienced with schema mark up before it starts showing. Are there any reccomendations
Branding | | Marcus_Florist0 -
New Product. New Brand. Gmail/Authorship Questions. Need Advice.
I'm in the process of developing a new product and brand name and would like to create all the social media accounts (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc), including G+ and want it to have it's own Gmail ID like ABCXYZ@gmail.com, so I can set up all accounts using this Gmail ID and if needed down the road, have someone else help manage the accounts so they have that login and my my main Gmail login. My question is, does Google frown upon setting up new Gmail IDs under the same name "Patrick McCoy" as I have my name tied to my personal Gmail account and my company's Gmail account "whiteboardcreations@gmail" both with G+ pages and URLs of /+PatrickMcCoy1 and /+PatrickMcCoy2 respectively. I'd like to have Authorship associated with the new product website and also want the new product to have it's own G+ Business Page to post updates, info, etc., which is why I'm getting a little confused on how I'd do it the right way, What would you do or does it really matter... can my new Gmail account of ABCXYZ@gmail just be /+PatrickMcCoy3 which is associated to my new product/brand name? Thank you and look forward to the feedback!
Branding | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
Marketing for a new alternative solution (general keywords) and for it to show up under specific keyword searches
Hi Moz Community! I've run into a marketing dilemma for one of our customers that we provide SEO and internet marketing services to. Therefore, I need the help of you clever people! The company is a high-tech innovative biotechnology company, so instead of using their product as an example which might be confusing, I will represent the problem with "DVDs" and a new technology similar to Netflix. Customer wants to buy 500 Days of Summer DVD online and isn't aware of the new technology called 'Netflix' where we can stream it online instead of ordering it online. Netflix marketing team wants their website to show up alongside search results so when people search for 'buy 500 Days of Summer DVD', you will see Amazon, blah blah and at some point also see 'Netflix: Stream Instantly Online!' What is the best way to approach this? Micro (macro) site? Can I target 'DVD' and make the microsite use a direct match? Do I have to create a page for every single popular DVD in order for it to effectively rank? Any other clever solutions to this problem? Thanks everyone! Sheldon
Branding | | swzhai0 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Need a quick simple report comparing popularity of two brand names...
CURT Manufacturing compared to Reese Products. curtmfg.com and reeseprod.com Both sell towing and trailer hitch products. What is the best approach you can recommend using the Pro tools? I perform lightweight analytics using Google Analytics, and some keyword tools here, and also Majestic SEO and Compete - but not a pro and would LOVE it if someone can give me best course direction. Thank you, M Adelman
Branding | | CURT-20817
CURT Mfg.0 -
How do you get reviews from a local review site to show up in Places?
Does anyone have any experience with getting a local review site to show up when it is turning out tens of thousands of reviews on local companies in one specific industry (no not restaurants) (Insurance agents, etc.)? Is there a submission process for Google? Thanks mozzers
Branding | | RobertFisher0