Hi 
Is this a good place to start with asking for help with regards a responsive website template that I bought that isn’t really doing what I want with a gallery page specifically. I have a basic understanding of web design and have tweaked stuff within it to get what I want but I’ve been advised that there is a lot of unnecessary JS involved which isn’t helping especially if JS is disabled in a browser and that the general rule of building a site is to start with basic no JS and once it’s works as should, then JS is added as an enhancement to keep it SEO friendly.
I really like the layout and look of my site but I want it much less complicated and it’s so important to get the SEO compatibility right.
I’m hoping for some good advice and pointers to help me sort this out.
Sorry for the rambling 
I’m sure you can get some help and advice here, but we will need more specific information about your site and the problems you have with it.
This was generally how things were done. Though today javascript has become more important on the web, as sites become more complex and interactive, to the point of becoming on-line applications.
But for a basic website it isn’t really necessary. Certainly in regard to creating a responsive layout, CSS is so advanced now there should be very little need for JS to be involved.
@SamA74
Thanks so much for such a quick reply.
I’ll try and make this short.
Website is fpdp.uk and I very much like the layout. I have a background image and I like the way main image and nav buttons move up and down independently on the home page. The nav buttons don’t necessarily have to be rollover style but could stay.
When visiting each page using the nav buttons, I like the way each page swipes across but someone has made a comment that “some weird content swapping going on for each page rather than reloading a new page” which I’m assuming is aimed at that feature.
Everything seems to look and work ok on a mobile phone but not so good on my laptop or pc. I’ve changed layout of each of the pages by removing boxes that I didn’t need etc, but the biggest problem I have is the Gallery page, because the layout isn’t quite as I’d like it.
It didn’t start off looking like that, I wanted 2 rows of 3 boxes and got that, but wanted them centralised and I just can’t for love nor money figure out where I’m going wrong. Someone suggested flexbox but I wasn’t sure how to implement that.
Do I really need loads of JS and Bootstrap bits to achieve the above or can it really be done on a much simpler base ?
Thanks again
As @SamA74 said, your question is very generic.
What you say is true. If you start from scratch, you’ll want your website working without JS even if it functions in a very rudimentary way.
You do this for various reasons that go from helping people with disabiities that use assisting software to be able to navigate as well as SEO. Aftear all, a SEO robot works a bit like assistance software for blind people.
After that you add JS to make it easier to use, enhance the experience and for both aesthetic and practical reasons.
If you bought your template from a resputable designer/site, it is very likely that they already had this in mind. If anything because the majority of buyers think about SEO.
The only issue with buying a template is that they are thought for all kind of customers, from those who motenize their sites through ads to those who don’t. And sometimes the template is more complicated than what you need
@molona
I bought the template from templatemonster.
Agreed. At present, the site is inaccessible without JavaScript - no content available at all.
There is no reason that the site you referenced can’t be created without JavaScript except in a few places. If you are trying to learn I would recommend recreating the design using only html and css. Although I will say I don’t think the design is a shinning example in the first place. It looks like something out of the 2000s not a well down, modern site.
I removed the spaces of your url because it was annoying to get to it. There is no problem on posting a url if it is for a real reason, and there is not a second intention like trying to get traffic to your page or spam the forums.
Now, I quite understand why you like the design. It is clean, easy on the eye but somehow catching.
Templatemonster is a good site to buy templates but they have a bit of everything and, unfortunately, you never know what’s behind until you get it.
I would say that the major issue with this page is the menu, which is generated dynamically and therefore not accesible if you can’t use Javascript.
It is not the most complicated page in the world but definitively a challenge if you’re not experienced with bootstrap and JS.
The gallery appears to be using floats to place the thumbnails which is a pretty old-school way of doing it. I notice at some widths the thumb placement gets a bit uneven.
But flex is great for this kind of “tile” layout. It should not be too difficult to set up given that all the thumbs are the same size.
This is a good reference for flexbox.
Thank you @molona
I wasn’t sure of the forum rules and urls so thought it best, but thank you for clearing that up for me
Thank you also for your comments ref the design, it kind of symbolises many things about me, although I appreciate not everyone will get it and I hoped that wouldn’t be too much of an issue as it shouldn’t all be about me, it also has to appeal to the end user. It uses dark colours but I tried to counter that with light text and bright image thumbs etc to try and counter balance that.
With very modern sites, from a personal level, they can look a bit too clinical and involve a lot of scrolling to access everything on the pages which is why I opted for short pages with minimal but important content.
I have such little knowledge of JS & Bootstrap which is really going to be my stumbling block and will prob be the biggest source of my frustrations.
In an ideal world, I’d get and pay someone to redo it as it should be and then I could just maintain and update as I go along, which wouldn’t generally be much content. I looked at fiverr but when you get 19000 results, it’s like…WHAT ??? where the hell do you start 
So I guess I am going to have to bite the bullet and create time to learn and do as much as I can, as quickly as I can.
@TechnoBear
That’s what I was afraid of 
@SamA74
Thanks so much, I’ll take a good look at that and try it out as it sounds an ideal solution based on what I want in order to keep the same style
@molona @SamA74 @TechnoBear
Good morning
I’m also running this all by another forum to try to get as many perspectives as possible in the hope it helps me understand what’s going on more and someone has come back with…
“If you care about SEO and ranking this theme isn’t very good.
Google likes lots of pages with lots of content all interlinked. Your site doesn’t have any of this. It’s also slow. Google scores you 35/100. Google expects scores of 85/100 and higher.
One of the main issues are all those images you use for layout.”
I’m not overly sure what that means and I’ve asked for clarification and was wondering what your thoughts were about it.
Thanks all
Whoever said that is right but that something that can be easily changed so I wouldn’t worry too much.
I’ll give you the short answer so you don’t have to read the whole thing and then I will disgrees to my heart’s conent 
The cheapest way to get a lot of traffic for free is to make search engines happy. Typically, this would mean adding a blog to your site. And consistency and regularity are key for this.
He also refers about everything about SEO and this goes from meta keywords, picture descriptions to image weight
The truth is that doing a website the right way, specially a site that has to sell, needs a lot of planning and thinking upfront. As well as any proper business. So much that it is easy to overthink and not take action!
Setting up a business (whether it is a physical business or an online business) means that you have to answer some questions.
You would start with what is your philosophy as a business or company
And while answers like “make everyone happy and earn lots of money” are OK, they are too generic.
You have to dig a bit deeper than that. Do you want to deliver hight quality products, or do you want to save the planet by using ecofriendly products, or do you want to give people exactly what they want, or create unique art, or make art affordable, or get out of the box…?
And I know that all of these sound good and you’ll say “Oh, but I want my business to do all that”. But one or two of these points, or maybe something completely different., will be more important to you than others.
That’s your philosohpy, your statement. Something that you will put in a short phrase when someone asks you what you do. “Oh, I do affordable t-shirts with unique art and eco-friendly materials” or “I do t-shirts for people with delicate skin that are both beautiful and practical because there is no stain that you can’t clean”
If you’re not creating a website to sell, your goal maybe something like “Helping other people to learn about making their own t-shirts” or “Making easy for people to contact me and reach me”
That wouldn’t mean that you cannot do all the rest. But your philosophy, your statement, is one of the things that defines both how you’re going to handle your business and what’s important for you and therefore the kind of customer you want to have.
Then, you set the goal you want to reach. It needs to be challenging enough to force you to put the effort but not so hard that you can’t see yourself reach it. It has to be something accountable, specific.
As an example, if you are creating a brand new business from scratch, and it is only you, your goal may be “I want to sell one t-shirt per day consistently withing 6 months” or “I want to sell a miinimum of $1,000 dollars per month in one year” or “getting 1,000 unique visits per month in one year” or “Having 10 persons per month to contact me”
Your main goal (you main have another one or two secondary goals, but not too many or you will not get anything done) will hint what your next step will be.
Once you have that, you need to do some reasearch: competition, customer base, etc. And decide if you want a physical store, an online store, both, and how everything is goint to be managed. Obviously, your goals will also depend on the type of business you build.
For any website, be it a business or not, the most important thing is content and organization.
So you need to think what kind of content you want to put up there, and how it should be organized so it is easy to find and it can be reached with the less number of clicks possible, how often it will be updated and new content added…
Also, before even building everything, you need to think about your marketing, from what type of advertising you will do to the costs of it: google ads, yahoo ads, local newspaper, local radio, nothing…
And then, you decide about design, colors, etc. And for these you think about what you like, what your customers, if you alread have them, would like to see, you think about accesibility, ease of use, user experience, etc.
I could go on forever.
Needless to say that if you have experience creating websites, or doing marketing, or whatever, certain steps will be easier.
So, as you can see, there’s a good deal of thought into creating a business even if it is online.
It may look a bit overwhelming but certain steps overlap. In one single step, you reach more than one goal.
As an example, when you organize your content well, you’re helping with user experience, ease of use, marketing and design.
In terms of marketing, it is well known that the cheapests and “easiest” way to get a good rank is creating fresh, new and frequent content because that’s what search engines love.
And that’s why may sites have blogs. Or vblogs. Or combination of both.
And then, this is a topic that I could talk forever.
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