OK, trying to not break any rules etc. but I've got a slightly "odd" site review request I manage the web hosting company Doreo Hosting. We've had the same design for the site for about 18 months now. Since I assume most people here are in the market (or were in the market) for web hosting I figured it would be a good review base (not trying to sell anyone hosting here). I'd like you to review our website from the point of view of a potential client. I'm not that interested if you like our colors, if our HTML is prefect etc. (but I'll take feedback on that also). I'm really much more interested in the following: - Is the site easy to navigate - If you were looking for hosting can you find the information that you need to make a purchase decision - Is there too little or to much information - Is anything missing Thanks in advance and I'm looking forward to a lot of useful feedback.
IMHO, your site could turn away new non-internet savvy clients - like me I do not need Shared Webhosting or Reseller Webhosting etc. I just need a place where I can put my site, reliably & cheaply. I just want to know what your company has to offer UPFRONT. IMHO, you need to give your offer upfront like this co http://exabytes.com/ Or help first time users navigate by asking them do you know what you want or are still unsure like http://www.networksolutions.com/promotions/offers/hosting/wizard.jhtml is doing Or just list your prices like http://www.spry.com/ Anyway, that's how a non-tech-savvy me go about selecting my web hosting package.
iskandar, Thank you very much. Your points are exactly what my team has been discussing. We're not exactly sure "how" we are going to do it yet, but I'd like to get the most popular packages on the home page and change "shared hosting" to "web hosting" on the left nav. Someone who is looking for reseller hosting will understand that but "shared hosting" is a hosters term, not necessarly a consumers term.
ffeingol, What is your main audience? tech savvy visitors or newbies? I'd say pick one and then stick with it.
Skunker, Unfornately we're like most hosts. We attract both ewbies and experienced clients. We try to provide for both but it's a tad hard.
I picked my host for a number of reasons. 1 was they had access to cpanel for a dummy site of sorts. And I could see just what I was going to have access to once I purchased.
mipa jim, Thank you for the feedback. We do have flash tutorials for all of the major cpanel functions, but we've been working on a set of screen shots to people can "preview" easier. cpanel "demo" mode is just not safe, so we don't want to run that.
- Is the site easy to navigate I had no problems at all navigating. - If you were looking for hosting can you find the information that you need to make a purchase decision Everything I need to make a decision is included and easy to find. - Is there too little or to much information I noticed that most, if not all, of your pages have a PR 5. I don't know if this is particularly good for a web hosting company, but it's not all bad. But, I did a little research for the purposes of this reply and found that the #1 site for "Web hosting" (haven't they been for like...years?) is FortuneCity.com with a PR 8. And HostGator.com has a PR 7. So, there is room for improvement and though I have some ideas on that, it's off-topic. - Is anything missing Well, maybe...yes. I actually like the site. To me, it does everything it's supposed to do. I like the look ok, the feel maybe not so much. For some reason, it just feels like a rainy day. We all know that a rainy day can be a good thing, but not when analogizing a site. Especially if your object is to profit from providing a product or service. I think this rainy day feeling is in the overall design. Which, otherwise, is a fairly nice setup. But I, for one, need to be cheered up if I am going to be enticed to buy. For instance, compare your site to FortuneCity's and HostGator's. They are bright, cheery and colorful. They are in a better position psychologically to sell their services. Are you seeking these reviews because you are thinking of making a change after 18 months? Or are you asking because sales are lax? Or both? If the answer is yes, then redesign the site.
Atlantean, In a nutshell, we're asking for reviews because 18 months in the hosting industry is basically "forever" Sales etc. have been good and consistent, but the hosting industry is very competitive we we're looking how to make things fresh, interesting and of course modivate people to buy. A total site redesign is prob. not in the card at the moment but some change will take place. The website is only "part of the picture". We have a totally integrated look/feel from our billing / support system to our cpanel login and template. It's a whole lot of work to redesign all of that and we're just not ready for that yet. Thanks again for the feedback and feel free to PM me if you want about your PR ideas.