My Refreshed Sideline Needs Some Constructive Critisism

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gundar

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#151552 28-Aug-2014 20:43

Hi

Not really a startup, I have managed a stable hosting environment for a while now with leads generated on word of mouth or other forms of marketing, you can imagine that it would be odd a hosting company has gotten this far without a half decent web page! I am very technical and precise with no marketing flair at all so I would appreciate your constructive critisism towards my companies webpage so that I may employ a marketing type and have a list of things for that person to see to.

In particular, please can I get some feedback on packages on offer too, while popular and never having received a complaint for lack of service or functionality, it would be good to know that a market still exists for a decent robust back-end service for hosting.

jumpstart48.co.nz

Many thanks

Gund

networkn

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#1117556 28-Aug-2014 21:21

I'd recommend centring everything on your front page since it seems most of the page is that way any way. Also make your menu bar (home, products) stretch to cover the width so it looks even. Right now it looks odd. Put your company name in the middle too.

Supported Realistic Hosting Solutions, I think personally you should reword it. Business doesn't need the ' as it doesn't require plurality to make sense.

Your products page is straight forward enough but that is a LOT of text on a plain white background, I'd consider some form of colour alternation to improve readability, or have a "more" that expands beyond your basic 4-5 lines of critical information.

timmmay

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#1117564 28-Aug-2014 21:33

Strange graphic, haunting and off putting, depressing. Strange text "Try a supported hosting package that is designed to suit your business' needs.". It's not really clear that you're offering web hosting. SEO non-existent, put "web hosting" in the title and body of the page. Not sure products is the best label, try "hosting plans" or similar.

It says "web hosting" on the product page but what I think you're selling is a VPS service, based on the "root access". The plans are difficult to compare as different things are on different lines. Also not sure who your target read of the website is, engineers, or companies wanting packaged solution in which case you need to phrase things differently - make things simple.

To me the website doesn't communicate what you do clearly, it's not well written, it's not well laid out. I think this will put people off using you, not get them to use you. Looks like an attempted marketing website put together by an engineer.

I would:
- Write down concisely what you want to offer, and to who
- Hire someone with web graphic design skills
- Hire a copy writer who's experienced for web

l43a2

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#1117577 28-Aug-2014 21:37

the products page is very overwhelming with details. The Terms and Conditions can be on another page.

gundar

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#1117578 28-Aug-2014 21:40

Awesome feedback so far, thanks heaps!

gzt

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#1117599 28-Aug-2014 22:36

Overall it looks like the right amount of detail with a minimum of blurb. I like it.

Random feedback follows:

On the front page you have 'Practical', 'Functional', and 'Reliable' with icons. Based on the presentation and position I expected those to be active links and attempted to click (yeah i kind of knew they wouldn't be). It's not a big deal.

The lists on the products page provide an easy comparison. It's useful. But remember these are three different markets you have identified. To some extent these are all expandable minimum starter packages, it's just a good place to start discussion and the value you can offer in your minimum configuration.

Some of your best selling points for the services are buried in the detail for each product. If you hyperlinked to each heading from 'more details' maybe that would work better.

For example this is a key selling point for your service and no doubt the base of the value proposition you offer to your customers:

"This is not a scripted one-size-fits-all solution available elsewhere with hidden options and long term sign up. We will be manually effecting this work to ensure each client receives the attention they require and their web reputation and integrity are maintained, completely. The back end work; backups, virus scanning and pro-active maintenance are inclusive and additional services are available at preferential rates."

The contact page has no geographical information. Some kind of 'company' page in your menu to provide a bit of background about you (or the company) and your existing customers and the way you work with them would make a big difference to the feel of the site.

One blog entry states "Keep posted for news on what will be our pilot reference sites." and no further info. Also the blog has not been updated for a while. An active blog is a good idea, but having no blog is better than having an inactive one.

But don't take any of this too seriously, it's not broken. Imho minimum adding a 'company' page and some hyperlinks for the products would get it on the right track and keep the personality.

gundar

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#1117601 28-Aug-2014 22:51

gzt: ...But don't take any of this too seriously...

All good mate, has to be said and a great bunch of positive critisism has been reached tonight already, many thanks.

Samsung

Shop now on Samsung phones, tablets, TVs and more (affiliate link).

einsteinsboi

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#1123271 6-Sep-2014 17:36

Nice website. My thoughts are mainly around usability:

1. Website design looks clean and tidy, but if you look at what other hosting company websites look like - they have bold colours and images of servers. This is what people expect when they visit a hosting company page. People habitually scan pages and rely on images and other media to tell them they're in the right place; this is why similar services tend to have similar elements on their pages, because these act as visual cues for the website visitor. So I would definitely recommend adding photos of servers and other media that will immediately clue a site visitor that you're a hosting service. This is particularly crucial because your business name doesn't mention hosting, and the tagline is small and not immediately obvious.

2. I would recommend that you use a responsive design, it's just the way to go since the percentage of users browsing the internet and looking for services using tablets and phones has increased exponentially.

3. Move Terms and Conditions to its own page, that will declutter the one page.

4. On the page where you lay out your different offerings, use a comparison table where you include ticks and x's to denote what package contains what features. So have the list of features in the first column and then tick them off or x them off in the other columns depending on whether they're offered or not for that package. This is easier for a potential customer. Having to read all that text will put most people off.

5. You don't have the word Hosting on your title tag. You should have what you're using as your tagline "Managed ecommerce and hosting solutions" be in your title tag for SEO purposes.

Just a few thoughts :)

best wishes

<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/einsteinsboi">@einsteinsboi</a>

gundar

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#1123307 6-Sep-2014 19:48

Hi.

Thanks all for the feedback. I looked at a few options and found a designer who will do the work for me. I used Geekzone page as a reference and he has covered a lot of what has been mentioned here, the beta site that has been created is tidy, relevant and very polished.

I owe you all a beer if you're around or we meet at an IRL event.

Many thanks

Gund