BrowserBugs

Cool updated original post, new paid section and fisicx addition ... cheers, we might keep spam down

Top tip. Get rid of the sidebars. Over 70% of all casual browsing is now done using a mobile phone - which means all your sidebars get pushed down to the bottom where nobody will see them.
And don't hide your maim menu. There is plenty of room on desktops and tablets to display in full. That being said. You don't need to use those CSS libraries, they are very dated and throw up a load of warning (use you W3C checker to see them).

I'd say 301 would be fine. As for big G if they know of or accidentally crawl the url then whatever they knew is now gone and the replacement is on Google Docs. If it's a fresh url then they didn't know about it anyway.

You domain name will have little affect SEO, the information your provide will.
I'd be looking for a domain name that's easy to spell out over the phone, something memorable and easy to remember.

The clue here is the content, there's no point in building mockups until you have a good idea what content your visitors need.
What I do first is write down known publishing channels or types of information I need, e.g. News, Products, Staff list etc. Then I dissect each channel and figure out what parts (i.e. custom fields) I need in each, so for a news story I may need headline, alternative headline, SEO values, summary, excerpt, primary image, date, story, related links, categories and so on. Once I know what parts are needed I can the start to mockup using the available parts.

I've never found a CDN that substantially improves performance. On one quite busy, image intensive, ecommerce  site the best we could get was by serving assets from a subdomain with files stored on the same server. That was a site with a primarily UK/EU audience, certainly if you have an international audience a CDN might be worthwhile - testing is key here so you can evaluate cost/performance.

if you're looking at site builders, have a look at Duda. if you're hand coding have a look at Tailwind css

I don't use WordPress, I'm a little old school and still build projects by hand, less is often more. WYSIWYG sort of died as fisicx says, there's too many screens to deal with. At the same time I'm not a fan of massive frameworks, overkill for many projects as they're designed to consider everything when you might only use 10% at best.
Where to jump back in will depend what level your html / css / js are, for example did you stop pre media queries? The process of code > upload > test still works, and yes many will say 'But I work at X big brand and only proper developers use Y...' but that's their bag, plain html / css works, simple and effective.

Sorry for the delay. Thing is with CLS is it's in the name, 'cumulative', as the dictionary says "increasing or increased in quantity, degree, or force by successive additions.". I'm not being sarcastic, what you're seeing is the 'successive additions' which creates that score, I've never found one thing that is the single culprit.
I've taken a look at the main site and the biggest thing that stands out is you have lots of images without specified dimensions, however I'm guessing that the logo is pretty important above the fold. Without any dimensions specified the browser will need to download the image file, get the dimensions, and then the 'space' can be used as specified by the css. This delay is a contribution to shift, it has a lot of steps until it knows the space.
By defining the width and height of the image, e.g. the logo 'native' size is 319px X 106px, and that it's an <img>, the browser then 'knows' what it's dealing with, so it can make space even before the image is downloaded. However by defining width and height we're no longer responsive, but we can fix that.
<div class="logo"> <img src="/img/logo.jpg?1565698935" alt="logo" width="319" height="106"> <a href="/" class="anchor-box"></a> </div> ... this will break the responsive, until we fix the image, an example;
.logo { width: 140px; } .logo img { max-width: 100%; height: auto; } What this does is says the the container is 140px, the image can only be the max width of the container, and the height is whatever it needs to be to match the width of the container. So now even before the logo has actually downloaded the browser now knows that it has a 319px X 106px that needs to be displayed 140px X 47px, so it can reserve space before the file has even finished downloading.
Fix all of those first and then see the CLS score. 
Hope this helps you in the right direction  

From an accessibility point of view yes, and to some degree it matters also for the search engines. H1 is the main heading of a given page, and for each section heading after it should be H2. And then, if a section has a sub-section it should use H3, and so on. This gives a document structure for both search engines and screen readers.
It's around this point that SEO types will jump in and say "It doesn't really matter, Google can figure it out" and to some degree their right, Google will take a stab at understanding your malformed mark up based on flimsy things like font size, but alas for screen readers it's not as simple. I've yet to find an SEO with a justifiable reason for making the headings all H1, or for example putting the logo in an H1 when it should be in a div. Until they have a valid reason stick to the semantics of headings, don't make Google and screen readers guess.
<h1>Main Heading</h1> <p>Some copy</p> <h2>Section 1</h2> <p>Some copy</p> <h2>Section 2</h2> <p>Some copy</p> <h2>Section 3</h2> <p>Some copy</p> <h3>Section 3: Sub-Section 1</h3> <p>Some copy</p> <h3>Section 3: Sub-Section 2</h3> <p>Some copy</p> <h2>Section 4</h2> <p>Some copy</p>  

Right on the button, good digital designers who know css, html and js in their raw form are becoming hard to find. If nobody can remember the basics of the languages then things like WordPress would die. You're seeing it more and more in specialist job ads.

i'm a graphic designer but i've always been involved in the coding side as well as the print side. I made/coded my first site way back in 1998 and have gradually shifted more towards the digital side. Having said that i think there will always be a call for branding and a visual design language, of course the medium is different but the many of the key principles are the same. 

Moving into web design isn't necessarily giving up on print design, just expanding into new areas  I would suggest getting some idea of coding and how websites work at least on a basic level just because it helps to understand the medium you'll be working in and to liaise with devs (developers) but it's not really necessary to code to any great degree.

You can still be creative in digital

Sounds like you're a bit burnt out, that happens to all of us at some point.
I think you're right, traditional "print" graphic design has been waning since the dawn of the internet. Gutenberg changed things radically half a millenia ago, now digital has caused another radical shift.
Your options for web design (aka front end design) and UI/UX are really the same thing - a web "design" is a User Interface. Certainly as a graphics designer you'll have an eye for colour, proportions, typography etc. so that's a big plus. Couple that with learning about accessibility, usability, how HTML, CSS and Javascript work and you've got a start.
There will be a market for [good] digital designers for the foreseeable future I'm sure. As early internet pioneers and adopters approach retirement (there are a lot of them!) someone has to fill those gaps.

Hmmm, see with say Google Analytics, Search Console, My Business etc what I do for clients starting from scratch is make an email forwarder for something like ed@theirdomain.com. This means even if we part company they can still access and reset everything and just take me off the cc. The same for getty/shutterstock for where they got the stock images, or a postcode lookup that uses credits etc. Also handy as they can pay the bills and can never leave you out of pocket.

Most premium plugins now have an annual fee. The license belongs to the person who paid for it. They are not transferable.

Not quite, what I meant was if something is a one off fee then there is no ongoing cost. If however they need something in particular that in order to use requires an annual subscription then they should foot the cost. I don't actually deal with WordPress so cannot comment on how each plugin is paid for etc.
As @fisicx puts it, if they want stock images then they will have to be paid for due to licensing.

Hey Dan. Have a look through the source code, there's a lot of broken structure. Some examples;
There's no <head> section!! All html documents require the following;
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Elastothane Ltd - UK manufacturer of Polyurea</title> <!-- other head stuff --> </head> <body> <h1>Here's the body</h1> </body> </html> Also you've a lot of miss match and stray elements; so taking say the area you're asking about (line 281 - 356), I've indented and added a few notes.
<div> <div> <section id="ctb" class="wrapper style1"> <div id="stage2" style="max-width:100%"> <a title="Elastothane - British Manufacturers of Polyurea & Polyurethane Coatings" href="index.html"> <img src="images/chinook.jpg"> </a> <a title="Elastothane - British Manufacturers of Polyurea & Polyurethane Coatings" href="index.html"> <img src="images/wind.jpg"> </a> <a title="Elastothane - British Manufacturers of Polyurea & Polyurethane Coatings" href="index.html"> <img src="images/bund.jpg"> </a> <a title="Elastothane - British Manufacturers of Polyurea & Polyurethane Coatings" href="index.html"> <img src="images/ship.jpg"> </a> <a title="Elastothane - British Manufacturers of Polyurea & Polyurethane Coatings" href="index.html"> <img src="images/tanks.jpg"> </a> <a title="Elastothane - British Manufacturers of Polyurea & Polyurethane Coatings" href="index.html"> <img src="images/wicker.jpg"> </a> <a title="Elastothane - British Manufacturers of Polyurea & Polyurethane Coatings" href="index.html"> <img src="images/disney.jpg"> </a> <a title="Elastothane - British Manufacturers of Polyurea & Polyurethane Coatings" href=""> <img src="images/speakers.jpg"> </a> </div> </section> </header> <!-- You're closing a header that isn't open, should be closing </div> --> </section> <!-- You're closing a section whic is not open, should be </div> --> <!-- CTA --> <section id="ctb" class="wrapper style5"> <div class="container"> <!-- You open the container div --> <!-- Banner --> <header> <h1>Market leaders in 1:1 spray applied polyurea, polyurethane and hybrid coatings and linings, formulated to offer unrivalled performance in the most extreme applications and demanding environments. Proudly manufactured in Great Britain.</h1> </header> </div><!-- You were missing the closing </div> on the open container --> </section> <!-- Highlights --> By straitening out the basics I'm guessing it'll be easier to work out why it's breaking, but for the examples here what you're seeing is Chrome trying to fix your code.
Edit: Also forgot to say that you're using two instances of the same id="ctb", IDs must be unique, is you use it twice the a simple class will do.

Hey. I just posted a cool comparison of how my first and latest design works look like, to see how I have grown in 5 years. For me, It was such an interesting day to go through some of my older designs and see how effective self-learning can be in modern world. I hope that those who are in a phase of just starting things, It is a good motivation and example what time and effort can provide you. Of course, I have still a loooot of things to learn and go through, but sometimes you have to appreciate your small achievements and be proud of yourself even if there is still a lot of work and learning ahead.
If someone is interestend in my growth and progress, I can post more of my older works here, just let me know
Thanks for reading, have a nice day.
https://dribbble.com/shots/15136505-My-oldest-web-design-vs-My-latest-web-design

So what changed? That might offer a clue:
Are redirects in place for old > new URL's? Did content (text) change dramatically? How well does the site perform compared to the old site? In terms of page load speed etc. Apart from SEO are the sites visitors still able to complete their tasks easily? I've seen some redesigns that make usability/accessibility far worse that the original. Are the sites goals still being met?
Exactly this. No two tools will ever tell the same story. Any tool that provides any sort of analysis will only give you a broad/general picture.

What I find with local is the keyword tool with volumes in SEMrush is pretty cool for things like do more people want a 'car key replacement' than 'car key cutting', also good for questions around the topic. However when it location based it's ok to some degree, e.g. 'car key replacement birmingham' would be in there, but then you really need to use extrapolation to fill in the blanks.
All too often an SEO will say no one looks for 'car key replacement reigate' simply because their tools don't refine to that level, it's not in their dataset. But if people in Birmingham wants keys replacing I'm pretty sure the good folk of Reigate might need one replacing as well.

None of these tools will ever be accurate. They are a best guess for the more generic keywords and usually wildly inaccurate for anything more granular.
Use them as a comparison tool if you must. But don’t rely on the details.
If you are optimising for anything local or niche, don’t use them at all.

No need to disavow, Google is already ignoring the spammy links.
If the domain is cheap to register it’s no great loss if the experiment fails.

Hi all,
A quick(ish) introduction.
I've had a coding itch for a good few years now; my career started in infrastructure support some twenty something years ago but I've been working with development teams for the past few years (IT Operations, Service Delivery and Project Management).  I found myself without a job just before this Covid thing kicked off so for the first time have rather a lot of time on my hands.   No time like the present to contemplate a career change!
I've been working through some training on CodeCademy and Pluralsight covering HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP.  I've just about got my head around the first two but not so comfortable with the latter.  I'm in the early stages of working through some scenario based projects to put this stuff into practice.  
I could well be asking lots of questions!
Cheers,

For the certificate itself I cannot see the need of £340 to do anything. In their defence their fee might include updating all internal links to https, ensuring all pages correctly 301 to https etc. I've not used Umbraco so cannot comment on that bit.

Just want to make sure people don't get confused with this as I know your intention is to make sure the design scales down, but readers might mis-interpret it.
Don't take a mobile design and just adapt it.  A design should be created that works across all devices.  I've seen many terrible websites that only really considered mobile and the design just didn't make good use of larger devices.  For this reason I actually dislike the term "mobile first". Instead you want to consider all viewports right from the get go so no device size becomes an afterthought or secondary.