Methinks Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Hello all I would really like some advice on my site. I have been doing a lot of free designs for years just for the fun of it and to help out friends who wanted sites. When I found out I could get a reseller account for little more than I was paying for hosting my own sites I decided to do that. It has been a year and a half since I started and with around 30 customers at least I am not paying out of my own pocket. But I recently decided to try in earnest to make a go of this. My wife keeps falling out of her wheelchair and me being away for work a couple times she has had to wait as long as two hours for me to get home and pick her up during which time it began to rain. So in order to be home with her I really need to make this work. I have spent little to nothing in advertising but recently went to exactseek and did some keyword ads. Now I am getting hits that I wasnt getting before but they are not converting to sales. If anyone would like to look at my site and tell me what they feel I am doing wrong please do. You wont hurt my feelings and I figure who better to ask than those who have been successful. I just realized yesterday that a couple places are a little confusing on my site but dont want to make the changes till I am ready to change all the things I need to in order to drive more sales. I hope putting my address in here so you all can look isnt a violation of policy but I really could use the help. Thanks Jeff http://www.heavenlyhostnet.net 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeanClinton Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Honest advice? Get a new site.... the layout is all broken here in FF3.... I mean it's terrible. It lust looks like one of those pyramid scheme websites you see going around... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickendippers Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 I have to agree with Dean, a complete redesign is in order. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeMarque Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 Methinks Go here http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=56 and be patient; some really great designs are posted for very reasonable prices. Be sure they are coded and not just PSD files. If you haven't already, go here http://www.google.com/webmasters/ and signup. The google forums are especially useful. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
handsonwebhosting Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 Hey there, Similar to the other guys here - you'll need a revamp on the site. I do like the white space on the site, but there's almost too much. There's no contrasting colors so it makes it hard to go through. The Compare page seems to be the same as the Order page? Pick one For the compare, I understand you're listing everything on there, but putting it into a two column layout with checks and X's is easier to read. The home page is great for the amount of text you have on it, but from a viewer's perspective there's too much reading involved. Spread the info around to other pages. Live Help is a concern. You'll see more activity if you have the live chat icon on your page rather than a link to a page where there's 3 BIG BOXES that all say "offline". Are there times when the live help is ONLINE for Existing Users and OFFLINE for sales? Likely not -so drop the entire page and put a live help icon (online/offline) on all your pages. Meta Tags - gotta use them You have them on your MAIN page, but not on sub pages. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methinks Posted September 4, 2008 Author Share Posted September 4, 2008 Thanks for the help. I watched a lot of people come to check it out and I really appreciate it. As for the first response OH MY GOD! I had been as arrogant as microsoft I guess and used only their browser to view the site. After downloading another browser I went and saw what you were talking about. THANK YOU. I used a template to do my own site with and when I saw how bad it was I went to all the sites I have designed for customers and friends and fortunately none of them look this way. I did them myself with no template. Also for the info on the other forums it is very helpful and I have the google account just had not used the forums before. Handson Thanks so much for the more in depth look and you caught the place I was saying was a little confusing in the compare page and order page. I would like to either keep this design and as you suggest spruce it up a bit with some color or go with a completely different design. As for live help I had patterned that after another of the REALLY large hosts I had seen and will make those changes quickly as well. The help is usually online during the day I will make corrections to reflect that. Again I want to thank you all for so much help. One question if I may do you think I need to completely get rid of my design or will sprucing it up do what I am wanting? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAJI26 Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 You should use FF to preview your sites as you design them and then compare them in other browsers. But yah it looks good in IE5.5, 6, 7, and 8 but not in FF nor in Chrome. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
handsonwebhosting Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 Going with a new design or revamping the existing one is really going to come down to how attached you are to the existing design. Our own site at Hands-on has undergone MANY changes over the years. To have a look at them, check out http://www.archive.org. This may be a good thing to do for some of the larger hosting companies too so you can see the directions they changed (most times after a lot of money has been spent on marketing, trends and analysis of what works and doesn't work). On our own site, we're HUGE fans of CSS. It gets the page up and displayed to customers as fast as possible. Limited tables, and all images defined with sizes. When possible we use HEX Colors rather than an Image - again, speed is our big concern. I think you would be ok revamping the existing site (drop some of the top navigation buttons) and with a little more "clean look" and smaller borders on boxes etc you should be on the right track. My downfall with purchased templates (especially Template Monster) is basically the pages are designed with 5 navigation tabs in mind (hosting, home, contact, and two others). It can be difficult some times to integrate additional buttons. Definitly whatever you do, do not DELETE pages If anything, redirect them, or just restructure them. If google has already indexed your site, you want to keep those pages in google, so don't send google to a 404! Just point the pages to other more relevant pages, or restructure the page with links to other pages etc for visitors. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methinks Posted September 5, 2008 Author Share Posted September 5, 2008 Thanks for all the info guys. I have looked at so many designs the past couple days my eyeballs hurt. A friend who knows a lot more about coding is going to help me redesign the site. What I guess is my big concern now is that of the 40 or so clicks I got in three days from this ad I placed 37 of them were internet explorer browsers and so the design flaws would not have shown up for them. Yet I still did not get any new customers. Do you think that it is because of what I am offering or just the way I am presenting it in that it isn't exciting enough? Before we go through redoing the site or purchasing another design I would really like to have my ducks in a row. As I said I have put on the clients I have mostly as favors but am wanting to get very serious about it. And need to make as few mistakes as possible. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickendippers Posted September 5, 2008 Share Posted September 5, 2008 I think the main problem is that you don't have any prices on the homepage. If people can't get a quick overview of your plans on the homepage they aren't going to bother to dig deeper. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methinks Posted September 6, 2008 Author Share Posted September 6, 2008 Thanks I hadn't even noticed that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apollo1 Posted September 6, 2008 Share Posted September 6, 2008 Do you have 30 hosting or web design customers? Did you gain those clients through word of mouth, or did they somehow wind up at your site through searches? I am just trying to determine how things have worked out so far, because if you have 30 customer accounts that's actually pretty good for 1.5 yrs! (ie. you must be doing something right;)) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methinks Posted September 6, 2008 Author Share Posted September 6, 2008 I got one from a search but I had a different design then. I just recently went with this one. The rest came from word of mouth. Maybe I should put the old design back up till I find what I want. Probably the biggest reason I have the ones I do have is the customers I have I give a lot of support to especially in the beginning. Whenever someone signs up if they are not experienced I will spend a month with them helping them learn the system sometimes almost daily. And I have a couple customers who help do the same thing with newbies. Customer loyalty is 99.999% I have only lost one client and that was due to her dying. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apollo1 Posted September 7, 2008 Share Posted September 7, 2008 Sorry to hear about the one client. That's great you got those customers from word of mouth. It just goes to show that good quality service really does pay off. I too have got most of my customers from word of mouth as I don't advertise all that much. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
handsonwebhosting Posted September 7, 2008 Share Posted September 7, 2008 May want to send out a note to your existing customers and ask them what they would like to see on your site. This was something that we have done on many occasions and you'd be surprised at the number of people that send in responses for things that they'd like to see. Granted, some requests are just over the top and some are isolated, but you'll get a good feel from your customers that way. It also shows that you want to help make their experience with you easier. If they say put a support button on the main page, that might be something to do. Granted, if one says they want to see the weather when they go to your page, they're in the wrong place We had a customer that said for their user interface (after logging in) they wanted to see the weather and also track scores for MLB teams that they selected. Not exactly a suggestion we were looking for 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparky Posted September 8, 2008 Share Posted September 8, 2008 Have you found a new layout yet? Here are a few designs I could manage to do for you. http://tshosting.com.au/designs/ They are just images in a directory listing. I haven't had time to put them into a web page yet. PM if interested 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methinks Posted September 9, 2008 Author Share Posted September 9, 2008 Honestly they are all starting to look the same. I have been looking at designs for days. If you can code a design I would be very pleased to talk with you. my email is methinks@comcast.net 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methinks Posted September 19, 2008 Author Share Posted September 19, 2008 Thanks everyone for all the help and advice. Sparky a special thank you for the offer. I had one layout I was looking at, my wife actually picked it out because she said it was "pretty" ha ha ha. The things we do for the people who can smother us in our sleep ha ha ha. Anyway the design is up I am still adding pages and still updating pages but am happy with the overall appearance and have checked it in three browsers because I know now that I need to. You have all been so wonderful with advice that even if WHMCS were not its own selling point, the camaraderie in the forums would certainly do it. I also cut down on the variations of sites I am trying to promte as it seemed it just made it busy with no real use. Have a look and as always advice is coveted. Thanks Jeff 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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