Wordpress SEO Expert

Improve your Google ranking with 24-year experienced SEO professional Peter Mahoney

  • SEO Overhaul
  • SEO Campaign
  • WP Support
  • Blog
    • SEO Emails
  • Praise

Website display problems after SEO work?

February 23, 2021 by Peter Mahoney

Thanks for doing the SEO work. However, I noticed several unwanted changes throughout the site as follows:

  • There solid wide green line that runs through the top of the site, horizontally, and usually contains the page heading or some introductory text. There used to be a one line space underneath it before the main text begins – this has disappeared on nearly all pages. Please can you replace the one line space throughout the site – thanks.

Three other errors I have noticed so far:

  • On the meet the team page the order of people has changed.
  • On the services page – the order of services has changed.
  • On the front page the click through on the 4 orange buttons now leads to a 404 notice.

Peter, these mistakes are obviously a bit disappointing as I’ve just had to spend an hour going through the site checking on it. However, I realise mistakes can slip through so I’d be grateful if you could sort them as soon as you can.

Many thanks.

This is all a bit awkward – but actually my work didn’t affect this at all. In fact it can’t – it’s impossible for this work to impact the display of the site (the overwhelming changes it makes is in to ‘head’ section of a pages code which doesn’t impact layout. The only other things on a page are to add ‘alt’ and ‘title’ tags to the images on the site – which again doesn’t affect the display.

I do get asked this sort of thing maybe once a year. Typically it’s because people don’t always check their own websites very often – it’s only when they pay for work they look through it and find issues that in fact pre-date the work they’ve just had done. 🙂

Now, I’m not saying 100% that’s the issue, maybe something else in your theme, WordPress core, or a plugin coincidentally was updated (which can be an automatic process) recently.

I’m very au fait with WordPress, having been developing for it even before it was called WordPress. So no doubt I can help, but this is all unrelated to my work.

To help demonstrate that I’ve temporarily turned OFF everything I did. You’ll see the lack of white space is still on all your pages. I can probably fix that with a bit of CSS code for you – but again I can’t say this enough…it’s not related to my SEO work.

On the services page – the order of services has changed.
Looking at that for you, it seems the order has been reversed. Which suggests some programmatic error (in the code somehow).

It took a while to find the problem here. But ultimately in your theme is a file called:
template-parts/content-page-services.php

That’s what places those 6x services on the site. I had to edit that code to tell it to flip the order of the sections. Obviously this is not something I had any cause to touch during my work.

Now this doesn’t mean someone necessarily changed something in this template file – more likely a recent theme update caused the way it works to change and this code needed changing nto br brought in line with that.

One thing I can’t replicate though is the issue with the homepage orange buttons not working. They always worked for me, and still do? (Both when logged in, and not logged in using a private browsing window.)

Please do get back to me asap – as I say I’ve turned my work off currently so you can see it’s not changed the lack of white space at all.

But I was fortunately able to (over about 45 minutes) find and fix those issues with the ordering.

 

Peter Mahoney
WordPress SEO Expert

Filed Under: SEO Emails

Get FREE Wordpress SEO tips!

I send regular newsletters with WordPress SEO expert-level tips. Sign up to get them, along with my FREE e-book “Ongoing SEO Success”.

Did I mention they’re free!

Subscribe for free

Praise

I have over 2,500 5-star feedback reviews (and I’ve never received less than the full five.)

Here’s just one example, from Mike who runs Costello Entertainments:

Migration, Hosting, SEO and Speed Work on our new website all completed quickly and efficiently and Peter was most helpful in fixing an issue with a Popover on the site as well. If you’re thinking about asking Peter to do a job for you or hesitating, JUST DO IT! – He knows programming and the internet inside out, he’ll get the job done for you professionally, with a smile. I wish I could call a plumber or a tradesman to do the jobs I can’t do myself with the same level of confidence.
Read a lot more.

Recent Blogs

  • Thanks WordPress SEO expert for all your work.
    I feel like you are my guy for all my SEO. I did want to ask you if I need to get someone to write my Blog ...
  • Can the description show the Product Short Description
    Hi Peter SEO Expert :), Hope you’re doing well and having a good summer. Had this message from a client ...
  • Don’t just search for yourself!
    This is actually a stock answer I send people pretty often. I’m regularly asked about the difference ...
  • SEO doesn’t shouldn’t your site’s front-end
    On my SEO Emails section (where I share helpful responses to commonly asked queries) I recently shared a not ...

Legal

  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Disclaimer

Also read

  • Payment information

RSS

Peter Mahoney, WordPress SEO expert blog

Recent Posts

  • Thanks WordPress SEO expert for all your work.
  • Can the description show the Product Short Description
  • Don’t just search for yourself!
  • SEO doesn’t shouldn’t your site’s front-end
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) for SEO & Speed

© Copyright 2023 Wordpress SEO Expert · All Rights Reserved · Site by Peter Mahoney