Instructions?

Hi Odinkinder,

Thanks for your feedback and you are absolutely right.
Sorry for the inconvenience that we haven’t provided any documentation yet. We are working on it and it will be out within few days.

I think you have figured it out how to set the corporate layout for the home page. If not you can follow the steps given below.
* Go to Appearance->Theme Options->Design Options->Home Page Layout Options
* Check on the “Corporate Layout” and click on Save all Changes.
* After you choose the “Corporate Layout”, you can add the corporate layout content from “Home Corporate Layout option” under “Advanced Options” Tab.
* After adding click on Save all Changes.

If you have any other confusion let us know. You can also email us from the contact form at themehorse.com for fast response. We will guide you in any problem until the documentation is not available.

Thanks for responding Sanjiv,

Yes, I did just what you said about twenty times and it did not work. It only worked after changing my front page settings from a “static page,” to “blog.” It did work then. I discovered this quite by accident while trying another theme in my development area.

I would like to see the “Corporate Layout” page template applicable to a static page instead of generated the way it is for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) reasons. With the way the page is being generated, there is no way to add an SEO description or key words to the page, this is the kiss of death for any hopes of getting the home page to rank well in the SERPs. Unless there is a static page, there is no way for a SEO plugin to apply descriptions and keywords. Without good SEO, the “Corporate Layout” is useless for business.

I would also like an option to have static text in place of the slider. Here is why, with a static text option, you could have descriptive text about the business, and then you could use anchor text to link to internal pages on the link subject, this is good SEO practice. You also need to be able to do the same with the text in the three boxes below, having descriptions with anchor text to the subject pages.

I understand you have just launched this theme, and, it is very beautiful, I am looking forward to seeing it evolve further. If you do not mind, I would like to keep the communication here so that others can learn from our conversations.

Thank you,

T.

Hi Odinkinder,

Yes, to use the “Corporate Layout”, front page settings should be set to “blog” instead “static page”. We have noted this point too and we will keep this in the documentation as well.

I really appreciate your feedback, we want such feedback to keep on coming. We would like to learn from everyone’s feedback which would help us to evolve. I would like to share some of my points in the lines below and get your views on the follow up conversation.

Here you have said “I would also like an option to have static text in place of the slider. Here is why, with a static text option, you could have descriptive text about the business, and then you could use anchor text to link to internal pages on the link subject, this is good SEO practice. “
In the home “Home’s Corporate Type Layout Options” under the “Advanced settings” tab. There are input field to enter the image, redirect link, title and description. Upload an image, Enter a title and description( you could add the title and some content of specific page) and give the link of that specific page in the redirect link. And then you could use SEO plugin and add keywords and description on that same page. This is for one featured box of the corporate layout, you could repeat the same for the other two featured box.

Similarly, if you want to use text instead of slider. Just use one post id in the slider option, don’t set the featured image for post id(so image will not be displayed). And use SEO plugin and add keywords and description on that same post.

Actually, you have raised good point and we are now thinking more effective ways to implement the “Corporate Layout” for better SEO. If we come up with more better ideas, we will surely implement them in the upcoming version updates of Clean Retina theme.

Hello Sanjiv,

I am talking about being able to add meta descriptions, keywords, and title bar keywords to the page, the former two not being visible, the last is visible at the top of the browser in the title bar. The “descriptions” you are talking about adding in the control panel are visible items, and are not the same thing.

Here are two of my sites with SEO meta descriptions, keywords, and keywords in the title bar: https://www.timage.com https://www.thebikersgarage.com

And, as for adding just one post in the slider in place of static text, that will not work. Have you ever heard of the SEO term “duplicate content?” That is having two pages with the exact same content on it on the same site, this is very bad for SEO, in fact, Google will penalize a site that has duplicate content. Google will ignore a slider with multiple excerpts, but not a single static slide.

If you will not make a single “Corporate Layout” page template, I would suggest you add the ability to add the meta description, keywords, and keywords in the title bar to the advanced control panel. Here is a site I used to manage with a theme that did just that, perhaps you could look at the underlying code to see how it was done. They have since mismanaged the site, but the theme is the same. https://www.talkofthetownatlanta.com

Thank you for the conversation, I hope I have provided you with some ideas.

Terry

Hi Terry,

Yes, you certainly have provided us some ideas.

We have taken your ideas into consideration. Making a “Corporate Layout” page template is certainly the best option. We will implement it in the upcoming updates, we also have to think about the backward compatibility so it will take some time.

If you have any other feedback and questions on anything about the theme, please do share. ??
And one more thing, we are preparing documentation of the theme. You can view it at here documentation. The work is still in progress.

Thanks.

Team Horse

Or, the more simple way of making the “Corporate Layout” page SEO friendly is do follow my suggestion to make extra fields in the “advanced” panel where the meta description, keywords can be added, and title can be changed. This would be much easier to implement, and there would be no concerns about backward compatibility. Look at the theme code in the Talk Of The Town site for ideas how to do that. I can tell you, your control panel and the one for that theme are very similar, most likely they work in similar ways.

Feedback is what open source is all about, new perspectives, and ideas being added to the original creation. This is how things grow and improve, that is why I wanted to have this discussion openly, perhaps someone will read the posts and give us new thoughts.

T.

Hi Odinkinder,

We are thinking of making Corporate Layout as page template.
It will be available in version 1.2.2.

Thanks for all your suggestions and conversation.

Regards,
Team Horse

Hi,

Corporate layout is now available as page template in version 1.2.3.
Thanks for all your suggestions.

Regards,
Team Horse