athomas
New Member
For some reason, business is still very very slow. But I made a few changes. What's lacking?
http://www.brightfusehosting.com
http://www.brightfusehosting.com
A Few New Changes - Please Review
- Thread starter athomas
- Start date
zach
Member
Hello athomas,
It's been a while since I've posted, so I'll have to warm up here for a minute.
I’m not fully up to date about your last review thread. So I took the time to read through those post to ensure that I don't repeat any information that has already been stated, but I'll go ahead and apologize because I'm sure I will end up doing that.
First let me begin with saying that I have never considered the appearance of a website much of an importance, any site can survive or even thrive with a plain site similar to Google (successful less appealing web host include Pair Network, and FutureQuest). Appearance only plays a small role in the whole process of web design. So I'll begin with more technical issues instead of appearance issues.
You have issues with your title, and keyword tag. Your title tag currently has 83 characters; normally the maximum recommendation on a title tag is 80 characters. Also your keyword tag is currently running at 589 characters which normally a robot friendly site would have no more than 500 characters, but that's not the biggest issue with your keyword tag. The biggest issue with it is that your keywords are not very relevant to the content on the page - only 23% relevant.
You CANNOT just load the keyword tag with irrelevant keywords (Keyword Stuffing) and think that it will help you with search engine placement - in fact some search engines will hurt you for it. The key to getting that relevance number up is ensuring that your keywords appear a few times on that pages content.
I personal don't get too concerned with appearance; I do believe placement is important.
1. New Logo - A "B" is very unimaginative.
2. Add your login box to the homepage, for easy access for current customers.
3. Move your hosting plans to under the navigation panel.
4. Reduce your whitespace at the bottom where you have Our Promise, Now Announcing Adobe ColdFusion 8 Hosting, and What is Managed Hosting...
5. Add a forum, and live help chat... Users feel more comfortable when they know that help is right there.
6. Make users feel like they are getting a good deal.
You should also take the time to look at popular hosting sites to see what other features and appearance they offer.
Ultimately you have to understand that it doesn't matter if you had the best designed site in the world. When it comes to the internet the saying "If you build it, they will come" is not true. You need to take steps to market your site. You could call local businesses, hang flyers, and tell friends or family.
It's been a while since I've posted, so I'll have to warm up here for a minute.
I’m not fully up to date about your last review thread. So I took the time to read through those post to ensure that I don't repeat any information that has already been stated, but I'll go ahead and apologize because I'm sure I will end up doing that.
First let me begin with saying that I have never considered the appearance of a website much of an importance, any site can survive or even thrive with a plain site similar to Google (successful less appealing web host include Pair Network, and FutureQuest). Appearance only plays a small role in the whole process of web design. So I'll begin with more technical issues instead of appearance issues.
You have issues with your title, and keyword tag. Your title tag currently has 83 characters; normally the maximum recommendation on a title tag is 80 characters. Also your keyword tag is currently running at 589 characters which normally a robot friendly site would have no more than 500 characters, but that's not the biggest issue with your keyword tag. The biggest issue with it is that your keywords are not very relevant to the content on the page - only 23% relevant.
You CANNOT just load the keyword tag with irrelevant keywords (Keyword Stuffing) and think that it will help you with search engine placement - in fact some search engines will hurt you for it. The key to getting that relevance number up is ensuring that your keywords appear a few times on that pages content.
I personal don't get too concerned with appearance; I do believe placement is important.
1. New Logo - A "B" is very unimaginative.
2. Add your login box to the homepage, for easy access for current customers.
3. Move your hosting plans to under the navigation panel.
4. Reduce your whitespace at the bottom where you have Our Promise, Now Announcing Adobe ColdFusion 8 Hosting, and What is Managed Hosting...
5. Add a forum, and live help chat... Users feel more comfortable when they know that help is right there.
6. Make users feel like they are getting a good deal.
You should also take the time to look at popular hosting sites to see what other features and appearance they offer.
Ultimately you have to understand that it doesn't matter if you had the best designed site in the world. When it comes to the internet the saying "If you build it, they will come" is not true. You need to take steps to market your site. You could call local businesses, hang flyers, and tell friends or family.
I would say the design would play a big part in any site where people hand over their credit card number and pay for a service.
The site needs to say it is well established, there is a team behind it, it has the money to have a good design and good domain. Yes, I know people say these things dont matter, but in my opinion they definitiely do. The rules for normal sites and ecommerce sites are different in my opinion.
I think you have made a positive step so far as the name change of your business.
But yes, still lots of issues, like too much white space, the text within those boxes on my browser spills outside the boxes. The second row of half boxes does not look right at all.
The 50% off for lifetime , what does a picture of mountains have to do with web hosting?
You have two different fonts in parts of the site.
I would not list
your nameservers as
ns1.brightfusehosting.com
ns2.brightfusehosting.com
All the big hosting companies that do have datacenters use varying nameservers based on the server they are hosted
eg
ns57.brightfusehosting.com
ns58.brightfusehosting.com
In what is one of the most competitive industries on the internet, near enough is just not good enough, you need to exceed the mainstream professionals in terms of design if you are to stand a chance.
The site needs to say it is well established, there is a team behind it, it has the money to have a good design and good domain. Yes, I know people say these things dont matter, but in my opinion they definitiely do. The rules for normal sites and ecommerce sites are different in my opinion.
I think you have made a positive step so far as the name change of your business.
But yes, still lots of issues, like too much white space, the text within those boxes on my browser spills outside the boxes. The second row of half boxes does not look right at all.
The 50% off for lifetime , what does a picture of mountains have to do with web hosting?
You have two different fonts in parts of the site.
I would not list
your nameservers as
ns1.brightfusehosting.com
ns2.brightfusehosting.com
All the big hosting companies that do have datacenters use varying nameservers based on the server they are hosted
eg
ns57.brightfusehosting.com
ns58.brightfusehosting.com
In what is one of the most competitive industries on the internet, near enough is just not good enough, you need to exceed the mainstream professionals in terms of design if you are to stand a chance.
zach
Member
Well I was taking in account that he does offer a paid service. It has been shown time and time again that customization is the least important factor to be concerned about when attempting to achieve that "prefect" site. Users are more interested in ease of use, navigation, accessibility, and speed. You can look at both the Southern Illinois University (Pearson & Pearson 2008) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) studies, both have shown that those factors to be miles more important then customization when referring to sites that require you to pay for a service.
I would agree with you that he does need to make some changes to his current placement in order to make customers happy, but the average user or even the beginning internet user doesn't care to much about a pretty background. Don't get me wrong. I completely agree that he needs to make a lot of changes to his site before I would feel comfortable with doing business with him, but I don't think he has to make anything close to a Media Template to get customers.
I do believe what he needs to understand is once he gets a site that does follow good design standards that his business will still be slow. You can't expect to create a site, and then BOOM you have 50 customers. It requires you to step up and do some marketing on your part (local marketing is always good).
But to get on track with what changes in to be make to the design of the site. You need to take the time to study what other web hosting are offering appearance wise, your current site isn't very effective.
Using a JavaScript Navigation Bar? (Bad idea)
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zach
Member
You could begin to make changes to the site so we can continue to comment as you make adjustments.
JMCDesigner
Member
If you can work on some designs that make your website more interesting looking. It needs more visual appeal.
ImageProDesign
New Member
Not sure that you know that your Dedicated Servers and Reseller Hosting boxes have some positioning errors when viewed in Chrome.
Looks clean, but I agree with some of the others when they say that it could use a bit more pop though.
Good luck!
Looks clean, but I agree with some of the others when they say that it could use a bit more pop though.
Good luck!
zach
Member
I feel that we have given you a TON of information to help you improve your page. You just don't seem to want to take the information and apply it to your website.
If you need someone to give you a step by step guide or do all the work for you then maybe you should just pay a Web Developer.
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JMCDesigner
Member
Its hard to define 'pop' as its not a tangible thing. Its the way something looks, how something hits you when you look at a design. It's not really something you can systematically explain logically. Also it's a matter of individual taste. If you're having trouble giving your website more 'pop', you really need to develop your creative and visualisation skills more. Graphic Design Theory, use of colour, get ideas from what other websites look like. Find out what successful websites look like. Maybe google up "what makes good design?"
First off, I must agree with zach in that you have been given a lot of great feedback in this thread. What you do with this feedback is entirely up to you. No one is going to walk you through it step by step. If that is what you need, then buying a book might be simpler.
With that being said, I did take a look at your site and my very first impression isn't one that would inspire me to consider your company as my host. While the layout isn't bad by any means, you are competing in one of the most competitive industries on the web today. Looking at your Logo I instantly know that I am not dealing with an established business. You need to develop your companies identity and that starts with your Logo. As far as the layout itself is concerned, it could use a bit more of a modern touch. As it stands, it is clean and functional, but kind of reminds me of the type of sites we were putting together in the late 90's. While white space is a good thing, you have way to much of it. You don't want your users to have to scroll for information that could have easily been displayed in a more practical, user-friendly way. As someone else mentioned earlier, usability and accessibility are two key factors to look out for when designing a site.
With that being said, I did take a look at your site and my very first impression isn't one that would inspire me to consider your company as my host. While the layout isn't bad by any means, you are competing in one of the most competitive industries on the web today. Looking at your Logo I instantly know that I am not dealing with an established business. You need to develop your companies identity and that starts with your Logo. As far as the layout itself is concerned, it could use a bit more of a modern touch. As it stands, it is clean and functional, but kind of reminds me of the type of sites we were putting together in the late 90's. While white space is a good thing, you have way to much of it. You don't want your users to have to scroll for information that could have easily been displayed in a more practical, user-friendly way. As someone else mentioned earlier, usability and accessibility are two key factors to look out for when designing a site.