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Reviews wanted! Perfect site don't sell...why?

Discussion in 'Websites' started by blackhat33, Jul 27, 2008.

  1. blackhat33

    blackhat33 Banned

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    #21
    Do you mean i need to redo/rewrite the text on the website?
     
    blackhat33, Jul 28, 2008 IP
  2. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

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    #22
    Sheesh, I should just start cutting and pasting this from every other review I've done today.

    Crappy little stripe fixed width layout, again for no fathomable reason since it's a hair too wide to be 800 friendly, but so narrow I end up with over a thousand pixels width doing nothing.

    Absurdly undersized fixed metric fonts - again useless to large font/120 dpi users who will dive for the zoom the moment they get to your page - assuming they don't say **** it and go somewhere else instead since there are plenty of websites that work just fine.

    Inconsistant spacing of the three 'orange border' boxes to the 'top features' section below looks more like a rendering error than intentional design. Relative lack of border graphics makes it look like something slapped together in minutes.

    Code - 80 validation errors means you do NOT have XHTML, you have gibberish. Again it's a miracle it renders properly in ANY browser. Code is meta tag happy for no good reason, uses 18 tables for a layout that even using tables for layout shouldn't need more than TWO, is knee-deep in divitus and classitus, with nested div's that don't even make SENSE. Seriously see this:

    <td><div align="center" class="menuWhite"><a href="index.php" class="menuWhite">Home</a></div></td>
            <td><div align="center"><img src="images/menusplit.gif" width="13" height="28" /></div></td>
            <td><div align="center" class="menuWhite"><a href="features.php" class="menuWhite">Features</a></div></td>
            <td><div align="center"><img src="images/menusplit.gif" width="13" height="28" /></div></td>
            <td><div align="center" class="menuWhite"><a href="software/BackUpNextSetup.exe" class="menuWhite">Download</a></div></td>
            <td><div align="center"><img src="images/menusplit.gif" width="13" height="28" /></div></td>		
            <td><div align="center" class="menuWhite"><a href="order.php" class="menuWhite">Buy Now</a></div></td>
            <td><div align="center"><img src="images/menusplit.gif" width="13" height="28" /></div></td>		
            <td><div align="center" class="menuWhite"><a href="reviews.php" class="menuWhite">Reviews</a></div></td>		
            <td><div align="center"><img src="images/menusplit.gif" width="13" height="28" /></div></td>
            <td><div align="center" class="menuWhite"><a href="ftp.php" class="menuWhite">FTP Space</a></div></td>		
            <td><div align="center"><img src="images/menusplit.gif" width="13" height="28" /></div></td>		
            <td><div align="center" class="menuWhite"><a href="mailto:support@backupnext.com" class="menuWhite">Help & Support</a></div></td>
    Code (markup):
    Miserable /FAIL/ at site coding. You can tell it's badly coded by the fact it's 17.8k of markup for 2.7k of content - there's no reason for that to be more than 6k tops. 60% or so of your code is wasteful bloat. (makes me wonder what the devil you even have 3k of CSS doing)

    The biggest thing biting you would be the lack of semantic markup and graceful degredation. Semantic markup is easy, it lowers maintennance AND operating costs, and for all intents and purposes it is instant SEO.

    Some SEO for this site - which would take a total rewrite BTW since there's nothing here for code that's salvagable - should really help too. You already have a decently optimized header, it's the document BODY that needs the further help.
     
    deathshadow, Jul 28, 2008 IP
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  3. blackhat33

    blackhat33 Banned

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    #23
    My personal opinion: you are too picky and exagerate to perfection.

    I agree 100% with what you said but this is not my concern now. Make XHTML websites and HTML clean code is wasting time since the purpose is to sell and go forward. You said it's looking fine in any browser....

    You are right about body optimization, I agree and maybe I will do it, but not like a priority.

    I will also consider to rewrite the content.

    Also, I agree with font width and nested divs but the inconsistant spacing of the three 'orange border' it's a question of taste.

    Thanks for your professional look. I will give you the reputation.
     
    blackhat33, Jul 28, 2008 IP
  4. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

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    #24
    Except that accessability issues cuts into your target audience - cross browser issues cut into your target audience - lack of SEO means poor listings in search engines meaning you aren't getting the target audience to the site in the first place. Maintaining the website to continue sales of the product or to update it should the product change takes more effort with bloated outdated code. Should someone else end up maintaining the site you have made more work for them since developers like myself would simply throw it out and start over. The page bloat increases operating costs by way of bandwidth and server requirements.

    Remember Marketing 101 - profit margin vs. sales - if you can increase profit PER sale it is often more effective than cutting into your budget to try and make more sales.
     
    deathshadow, Jul 29, 2008 IP
  5. blackhat33

    blackhat33 Banned

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    #25
    Thanks. It's worthing to think about. Can you tell me how you calculated the markup vs content ? I think it's some online tool?
     
    blackhat33, Jul 29, 2008 IP
  6. camp185

    camp185 Well-Known Member

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    #26
    Code does need major help. W3C data extractor could not pull up word one because the code was so bad. Outline for site? None. As far as font size, it should be set with em, not pixels. Take Deathshadows advice on that point. FF lets you change font size, but IE will not the way you have defined. Your text is small, and that is fine for those in the 30 years or younger bracket, but I doubt they spend their time backing up data. It should be larger just to match your audience.
     
    camp185, Jul 29, 2008 IP
  7. siberia77

    siberia77 Active Member

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    #27
    menu css breaks for me on clicking any link.
    needs screenshots & reviews as said. get some reviews from reputable sites too.
     
    siberia77, Jul 29, 2008 IP
  8. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

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    #28
    For the sizes of code and images I use the web developer toolbar in Firefox. Under "Information" there's a option "Document size" that will show you the size of the HTML file, as well as images, objects, scripts and style sheets - both how many and how big they are. It even shows you how big the file is compressed if your server is sending compressed, and how big the file is uncompressed.

    For the size of the content there are no real tools that do it automatically for you (there should be). To do this I visit the page in a browser, hit CTRL-A to select all, and paste it into a text editor. Boom, just the content of the page without the tags. I'm using Crimson Editor these days - which has a nice 'document>summary' page - though Notepad++, Win32pad, and most every text editor has a way to show you how big the document you've entered is.

    I use the following formula to do my 'estimates' on how big the HTML SHOULD be.

    1k+content*1.5+200 bytes per content image+300 bytes per flash embed.

    There are very few layouts that should exceed those numbers.

    Lemme show you what I mean, had I written a template fo the home page, the markup would have looked like this:

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
    <html
    	xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    	lang="en"
    	xml:lang="en"
    ><head>
    
    <meta
    	http-equiv="Content-Type"
    	content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"
    />
    
    <title>
    	Home - BackUp Next Software
    </title>
    
    <meta
    	name="description"
    	content="
    		Backup Next is a backup software that protects your important data.
    		Backup solutions: remote FTP backup service and online data storage.
    	"
    />
    
    <meta
    	name="keywords"
    	content="
    		backup, remote backup, backup software, ftp backup,
    		data backup, online data storage, backup exec
    	"
    />
    
    <meta
    	name="robots"
    	content="index,follow"
    />
    
    <meta
    	name="revisit-after"
    	content="7 Days"
    />
    
    <link
    	rel="shortcut icon"
    	href="/favicon.ico"
    	type="image/x-icon"
    />
    
    <link
    	rel="icon"
    	href="/favicon.ico"
    	type="image/x-icon"
    />
    
    <link
    	type="text/css"
    	rel="stylesheet"
    	href="screen.css"
    	media="screen,projection"
    />
    
    </head><body>
    
    <!--
    	Empty tags below are image sandbags, do not remove
    -->
    
    <div id="container">
    	<h1>
    		Back<b>Up</b> <strong>Next</strong>
    		<span></span>
    	</h1>
    
    	<ul id="mainMenu">
    		<li><a href="/home">Home</a></li>
    		<li><a href="/features">Features</a></li>
    		<li><a href="/download">Download</a></li>
    		<li><a href="/buynow">Buy Now</a></li>
    		<li><a href="/reviews">Reviews</a></li>
    		<li><a href="/ftpspace">FTP Space</a></li>
    		<li><a href="/help">Help &amp; Support</a></li>
    	</ul>
    
    	<div class="ProductBox" id="backUpSoftware">
    		<div class="content">
    			<h2>Back<b>Up</b> <strong>Software</strong></h2>
    			<h3>Powerful Backup that is easy to do!</h3>
    			<p>
    				Remote data backup software - backup solution for desktop and
    				laptop computers, for your business or personal use.
    			</p>
    			<h4>Backup your Data Now!</h4>
    			<a href="/downloads/BackUpNextSetup.exe" class="download">
    				Download Now
    				<span></span>
    			</a>
    		<!-- .content --></div>
    		<div class="sideBar">
    			<div>
    				<h3>Upload Your Backups To FTP</h3>
    				<p>
    					Keep an online backup of your data to a remote location using
    					FTP. Keeping a backup of a backup can be a smart decision.
    				</p>
    			</div><div>
    				<h3>FREE Full Support</h3>
    				<p>
    					As a BackupNext user you are entitled to free customer support
    					even if you are using our BackUpNext trial backup software.
    				</p>
    			</div><div>
    				<h3>Schedule Backups! Backup on the go!!!</h3>
    				<p>
    					Never again worry about a system failure or corrupted data.
    					Backup your important files and upload to your FTP server on
    					schedule.
    				</p>
    			</div>
    		<!-- .sideBar --></div>
    	<!-- #backUpSoftware.productBox --></div>
    
    	<div class="productBox" id="backUpNext">
    		<div class="content">
    			<img
    				src="/images/boxshot.jpg"
    				width="185" height="210"
    				alt="BackUp Next product box"
    			/>
    			<h2>Back<b>Up</b> <strong>Next</strong> 2.3</h2>
    			<p>
    				Hard drive crashes, viruses and other data-erasing disasters can
    				happen anytime without warning. If you don't have backups you can
    				lose irreplaceable data like digital photos, business files, tax
    				records, and other important information.
    			</p><p>
    				It's not good enough to make backup copies of important files, you
    				need to place them in a different location than the original files.
    				That way, if your hard drive fails, you can retrieve your important
    				files from a network drive, backup drive or remote FTP backup account.
    			</p>
    		<!-- .content --></div>
    		<div class="sideBar">
    			<h3>Top Features</h3>
    			<ul>
    				<li>Reliable &amp; Secure Software</li>
    				<li>User Friendly Interface</li>
    				<li>Full Support for FTP upload</li>
    				<li>Support filters &amp; tokens</li>
    				<li>Can run scheduled backup</li>
    				<li>Support Incremental backups</li>
    				<li>Support command line options</li>
    				<li>Affordable price &amp; Vista compatible</li>
    			</ul>
    			<h4>Experience Peace of Mind Today!</h4>
    			<a href="/downloads/BackUpNextSetup.exe" class="download">
    				Download Now
    				<span></span>
    			</a>
    			<a href="/order" class="buy">
    				Buy Now
    				<span></span>
    			</a>
    		<!-- .sideBar --></div>
    	<!-- #backUpNext.productBox --></div>
    
    	<div class="featureBoxes">
    		<div>
    			<h2>Backup your important data</h2>
    			<p>
    				It's happen to you don't know where are your tax records? With
    				BackupNext Backup Software you can easily predefine a data
    				backup settings (in separate settings file) for My documents,
    				My pictures or Outlook Express emails.
    			</p>
    			<a href="/faq">Find out More</a>
    		</div><div>
    			<h2>Backup Music, Photos &amp; Videos</h2>
    			<p>
    				Protect your family digital memories from a fatal system failure.
    				Backup all those precious personal photos of your children growing
    				up, your mp3 files or personal videos. Backup Next is designed to
    				be an easy-to-use backup software.
    			</p>
    			<a href="/faq">Find out More</a>
    		</div><div>
    			<h2>Better safe than sorry</h2>
    			<p>
    				If your hard disk crashes, there's a good chance that all the data
    				on the disk has been lost forever. If you haven't got a copy, it's
    				gone. Simple as that. Use Backup Next software to backup your
    				important files: tax records, business product catalogs or
    				customers list.
    			</p>
    			<a href="/faq">Find out More</a>
    		</div>
    	<!-- .featureBoxes --></div>
    
    	<div id="footer">
    		<span>Copyright &copy; Loginet Solutions</span>
    		<ul>
    			<li class="first"><a href="/screenshots">Screenshots</a></li>
    			<li><a href="/faq">FAQ</a></li>
    			<li><a href="/download">Download</a></li>
    			<li><a href="/purchase">Purchase</a></li>
    			<li><a href="/support">Support</a></li>
    			<li><a href="/contact">Contact Us</a></li>
    		</ul>
    		<p>
    			Limitations: 4GB for the zip file, requires Java 1.5 or higher, no unzip option, 14 day trial
    		</p>
    	<!-- #footer --></div>
    
    <!-- #container --></div>
    
    </body></html>
    Code (markup):
    That's pretty much it for the exact layout you currently have - and is pretty much spot on for my guesstimate of 6k. Everything else that makes appearance goes in the CSS, which should be anywhere from 4 to 6k. Another K or so of markup might be added if it were switched to a fluid or semi-fluid layout (I'd probably go with the latter given the LACK of content on the page) as well as to compensate for dynamic sized fonts instead of the fixed metric fonts you are using now.

    In any case - valid XHTML 1.0 Strict, would work quite easily cross browser, would have graceful degredation images off, graceful degredation CSS off, would index better in search engines, etc, etc.
     
    deathshadow, Jul 30, 2008 IP
  9. SeoDump

    SeoDump Well-Known Member

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    #29
    design is Good but it seems site is not updating ... IN MY view .. add one News Update box there & ADD few news with software update & it'll show company is active
     
    SeoDump, Jul 30, 2008 IP
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  10. blackhat33

    blackhat33 Banned

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    #30
    good point. thanks.:)
     
    blackhat33, Jul 30, 2008 IP
  11. blackhat33

    blackhat33 Banned

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    #31
    What you mean by menu css breaks?
     
    blackhat33, Jul 30, 2008 IP
  12. blackhat33

    blackhat33 Banned

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    #32

    Thanks for the time you spend in this tread. I will do it one day. You finish by get me convinced it's not that bad to do a HTML optimization. It's take too much time but maybe it will be good for the website.
     
    blackhat33, Jul 30, 2008 IP
  13. Le4rner

    Le4rner Active Member

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    #33
    Design and layout are on point. I NEVER, and I mean NEVER see a page that validates on the web. Your markup is 100% vaild, YOur ySlow score is awesome. I would look at marketing and trust issues. The site is great in terms of layout and design. I have been in web design for 8 + years and I give the layout and design 6 out of 5. Yes 6 out of 5 because it is better than 99% of sites out there in terms of doing it right. It is incredibly rare to find a site that validates. Your css and javascript are handled properly too.
     
    Le4rner, Jul 30, 2008 IP
  14. blackhat33

    blackhat33 Banned

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    #34
    Many thanks for your comments. Not even yahoo.com or google.com are not xhtml valid. Wow!


    The index page validate now on xhtml. More to come.
    I changed the font to Verdana and use em in font-spacing css.
    Also, a contact page with address and a news box will be added.

    Is out there somebody who is capable to review the software? Or write a sale letter or a press release?

    Many thanks to everybody...
     
    blackhat33, Jul 31, 2008 IP
  15. dooop

    dooop Peon

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    #35
    mmmm, i'm confused. no comment ...
     
    dooop, Jul 31, 2008 IP
  16. blackhat33

    blackhat33 Banned

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    #36
    Is out there somebody who is capable to review the software? Or write a sale letter or a press release?
    Thanks
     
    blackhat33, Aug 1, 2008 IP
  17. jdkjdk

    jdkjdk Peon

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    #37
    For me that is one click too many - how many downloads do you get? Do you follow up when someone downloads? I don't want to give you my email address to get the prices and I'm more likely to give you a fake one.

    Maybe offer a free version for a limited time to get some buzz happening... if you can get traffic from a few blogs then you're more likely to get sales after people read real reviews.

    For me, I wouldn't buy your product as I have a PC and the chick looks likes she's on a Mac iBook (heh, small thing but it's what I see).

    Good luck with the SEO, I hope it helps :)
     
    jdkjdk, Aug 1, 2008 IP
  18. yenomc

    yenomc Peon

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    #38
    I think you have chosed a very good niche. Many of my friends approached me asking how to backup their systems.
    I see two problems here :
    1) Your domain name is very clumsy. If you do have a great product that works I would research and change the URL / Domain to something more appealing like names that mean to solve the problem.
    2) If your sales explode after tweaking...Are you prepared to handle support just by providing an email address ?
    Sometimes looking ahead and foreseeing possible clutters may be the difference between success and failure - Try to imagine all chaos scenarios ahead.

    Mark
     
    yenomc, Aug 1, 2008 IP
  19. The Peoples SEO

    The Peoples SEO Well-Known Member

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    #39
    Is your site unique ? There might be a lot of similar site's selling the same software...Sometimes people sell websites and have already sold hundreds of the same site..maybe try and change the theme...And put the money back guarantee on the homepage as people are always looking for signs of trust ..Not having it on your homepage probably turns visitors away..
     
    The Peoples SEO, Aug 1, 2008 IP
  20. TRUTH SEEKER

    TRUTH SEEKER Peon

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    #40
    Hi,

    Perhaps you need to write some interesting articles about backup and why it is necessary. Use case studies of those who lost valueable time and money by not backing up their work. Many have had nasty experiences in that regard.

    Thanks.
     
    TRUTH SEEKER, Aug 2, 2008 IP