http://bookmarkhosting.com
Tear it apart. What would you do differently?
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http://bookmarkhosting.com
Tear it apart. What would you do differently?
looks good bro - but that logo has to go - it really doesn't "fit" with the whole theme - if you know what I'm talking about. Also, those priices are a bit steep......
Well as most of you know, following the W3C standards is a big thing for me when it comes to web programming.
The design is clean, information is very accessible, the page is easy to navigate. But I wouldn't touch your web programming service with a thousand foot poll.
I've considered taking down the web development section for now because, well as you can see I don't have anything worth showing yet.
But again, I'm not catering typically to people like us because a lot of us scrounge for the best prices. Me on my hosting service if a user goes down I'll boost them back up temporarily. My prices and figures always allow for a considerable amount of free resources on the server to help more than just one struggling customer at once.
I've thought about lowering the prices but a fellow webhosting friend said that people will pay it if you provide a good service such as the ideas and generousity that I have. The web develompent section is kind of dry now but that's not what we're about -- we're hosting. We ALSO make websites for you if you want one but don't care to make one.
I don't expect to write something too large, in fact I probably wouldn't even want to at this point.
The logo...I'll photoshop something.
Where is your actual hosting physically located? Do you own the servers? What about the pipe? What happens if you exceed your monthly bandwidth?
hosting through WWM
I won't exceed bandwidth, accounts are capped, and I have a designated "full load" in mind. I will expand as needed until I no longer want to take public customers
WWM's response time is 30 minutes
Those prices are really steep man....might want to think about lowering 'em a bit to keep with the competition. Powweb hosting gives you 2 gigs of space, 5 gigs daily bandwidth for 7.77 a month...
yea the prices are steep. I pay 13$ monthly for a plan thats way better than your 40$ e-commerce. So , don't be greedy and think of reasonable prices ;)
People don't know you yet. They won't trust you untill they actually try your service , but then your steep prices would stop them from doing so and you'd get nothing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadow
I suggest that you start your business with very low prices and limited services, get used to it , see if you can handle it and whether people like it or not. After that you can increase your prices little by little while including more standard services.
You might also want to reconsider your design. Looking at your page's source code , you're not even using <html> , <head> and <body> tags. You didn't take care of other broswers either (see attachment) and you're using tables for your layout. So your pages need more work :)
Good luck :)
It is extremely bland and as others stated, you're not going ANYWHERE with those prices. I get better options for $9/mo. than your customers do for $40.
And when I see your logo I think "old style". I don't want to be thinking "old style" when I think of my web host.
For one I do have a couple changes in mine for the layout. I've been meaning to change the logo and the title message for each category(Welcome! for instance) and the font color it uses. I'm just not quite there yet. I threw up this new layout to replace a similar one that was far more dry looking. But my current customer and potential customers who see all my hobby projects(http://wisconsinsirens.com http://datadrops.com http://wisconsinsirens.com/forums) just say "super cool" on everything I show them. So they don't care too much what the site looks like and trusts me on the service I'll give when they go to sign up - IE: Your account is your account yes, but you actually have hidden disk space and bandwidth limits beyond what it say because I'll help you if you struggle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brain Cell
Which leads me to think if I ever want to get too big? I can make all these changes you guys suggest which make it seem like you want me to be a WWM wannabe, and can put my head in the game to grow to a respectably imitation size of them...but I don't know if I want to.
I prefer the design myself, but I will standardize it a bit more, and I plan on scratching the logo yet too. I will lower the prices a little bit, but not too far because...not to sound cocky, but I don't need the entire internet to trust me automatically yet. I'm working on that slowly. But I will drop prices a hair and increase specs a little too.
I don't put my website out there and just wait for people to magically sign up. I'm advertizing everywhere -- at the cprogramming.com links directory, eBay, message boards everywhere, friends. I talk to all my on-line friend friends, real life friends and family ..etc. So once I have a few people signed up(2 more with my current prices on plan 1 and im breaking even, i have another customer in the works) and people will see my list of customers who are happy, then they'll think a little differently.
While things fall into place for this, I have a $200/month budget a friend of mine has set up for me to run this(he wants this done and is completely OK with throwing away 200/month on it). So for now I'm obviously doing the smallest plan I can to work on building several customers with the plan 1 account mostly. 30/month is the current price.
Anyways, I'll change the logo, standardize the layout a bit more, but I'm keeping it. I don't want a layout like Brinkster's, MS's or WWM's. I don't want to appear or make people think I'm like that. I'm currently working on people who know a little, but don't know tons and just want some good hosting that won't jack them around, even if they have to pay a little bit more. And if they know they're getting it from someone they halfway know..well even better for them. Therefore I want that "small town friendly feel" and look to the site, but a hint of slimness in there too.
I wonder if I should increase the bandwidth too far on the same server that all the customers pull off from as I get bigger? Or if I should instead purchase another one to run new customers on at a certain point to relieve stress? That would make more sense wouldn't it?
I've only scanned most posts and none seem to say what I'm about to, so pardon me if any of it is repetative. Keep in mind, Shadow, that given your statement, "Tear it apart," I'm not being unacceptably rude, but straightforward and honest as you requested.
1) I don't think anyone with any sense would place much credence in the fidelity of your services. There are so many well-established companies that offer web hosting with much more for a much lesser charge. I looked at your site as an objective web browser and had two initial reactions: a) Thinking, "What is this guy gonna host my website off of the laptop in his mother's garage?"; b) Moving the little arrow up to the little 'x' in the corner of my browser. My suggestion is that you absolutely must make it more appealing and somehow offer a sense of professionalism and experience without leaving so many questions in a person's mind that they immediately click away from you. You should provide the feeling that there is a team of seasoned experts running things and not just some Schmoe trying to make a buck.
2) Are you joking with your grammar? The language (vocabulary) you use, typos, and misspellings make it look like a junior high school dropout designed your site. Some examples:
Our designs are always nothing but eye catching, appealing, and pleasant to look at.
"always nothing but?" Eye-catching, appealing, AND pleasant to look at?
Bookmark Hosting is in fact very picky about website layout templates.
"Picky?"
Our webhosting service runs off it's own server which is phenomenally stable.
It runs of it's own server?! Wow! And it's also "phenomenally" stable? That's reassuring!
Your account will be ran off our independant high-speed Linux server which has stringent virus scanning procedures.
The account will be "ran" off of a single "independant" server with "stringent" virus scanning "procedures?"
For a small fee(judged by work done) Bookmark Hosting will produce a website for you to use on your account.
You will get whatever you want really
simple but elegant, complex and technical, you name it you got it!
B&W Fan Page Here is an example of a webiste.
The list goes on and on. It is absolutely imperative that you use not only proper grammar (and yes, without any typos), but language that demonstrates you have an education. If you want help with it I would be willing to provide it for a small charge (PM me if you're at all interested). To reiterate, I am really not being an Ahole; I am just trying to stress how things need to change on your site. You can't sound like a know-nothing half-wit; it is all too apparent that you are just a dude trying to pretend he's got a lot more to offer than he actually does. You can make something good out of your site with the motivation you seem to have, but it's going to take a lot more than just motivation to do it successfully.
3) If you are going to demonstrate what great work your company can do to convince people to hire you, you're going to have to show some great work. That B&W Fan Page is so plain and simplistic, especially with the default text and overflowing empty space, but to top it off it looks awful when the background runs out and the default background color hasn't been set:
My suggestion is simple, do some research to find out what a "competitive hosting" would entail. ixwebhosting.com is a good example of a very competitive hoster. I could create my own web hosting through ix which would be cheaper then yours ;)
A lot of your reactions Lucky are some of what I would say myself when browsing the site. I'll admit there are some grammar issues I need to attend to, but for the most part as I've stated I'm not really targeting people would be as knowledgable as us to the point where we get this picky.
What I am interested in is those portability issues with things like the background color in the B&W layout. I need to change that! Also, I think I've fixed the dashed, dotted and solid line CSS attributes in the main part of the layout. I've put the HTML, head and body tags in...which is something I never do for my hobby projects cause I get lazy like that(hobby only, I'm changing it now :p).
Here's my thinking:
http://wwm.net
I don't like it really. I don't know why.
I LOVE the flat colors and thin lines look.
Pretty much http://datadrops.com which was a simlpe one page layout made by my friend only containing plain text in the left pain and right pain. The logo I put in as well then dropped the news into the left side and put the mini updates gimmick into the right side. I have a few other ideas for this but that is my favorite type of look.
> That B&W Fan Page is so plain and simplistic, especially with the default text and overflowing empty space
The background color I'll fix, but I'm thinking of taking that section down temporarily to prepare a few things to show people, though they will be on the basic side. I may have a news script in there, an e-mail form, etc. with some "fine and slim" looks to the fonts and colors.
I have a few layouts in the works and in mind that will use a lot of these CSS border attributes, some photoshop logos and charming color combinations but they will certainly have a flat colors and thin lines style with basically no gradients(i just don't like gradients much).
> You should provide the feeling that there is a team of seasoned experts running things and not just some Schmoe trying to make a buck.
I'm trying to balanace halfway inbetween these two. Like I said, I want to know what the hardcore portability problems are...but at the same time I'm not trying to generate 30 sign ups tomorrow.
I'm totally willing to generate most of my customers for now from "door to door" tactics(talking with people). But at the same time I want a layout that is standard and portable.
A lot of these things were rushed, so I came to you guys to "tear it apart" which is what you did. I want to do some small time web work for people who don't really want elaborate websites, but don't care to build one(IE: if there are too many scripts or databases involved, I'll turn them down and point them to someone else).
I have a few people in mind already and a small gathering of friends and family, church websites and things like that. Like I said, I'm building experience slowly through people who don't know what you guys do. So therefore I don't quite need this feel of "I'm WWM or Brinkster all on my own!" Yeah right! That's rediculous.
This isn't my main source of income.
> If you are going to demonstrate what great work your company can do to convince people to hire you
If I'm going to have a decent but not too advanced website to attract a smaller market all by myself(there is no company) is the correct wording. As said I will lower my prices and up the resources on those accounts.
Sounds like you're taking my comments well. Thanks for not freaking out.
I pretty much haven't commented (and don't plan to) on how the design of your website might be changed. It's clear that the design is how you want it to be and I don't presume you want to become a large corporation. All I'll say is that you should really give some thought to how you represent yourself to potential customers on your website. Even if all of your customers are your neighbors and family friends, you should never want to emit a feeling of unprofessionalism or a lack of expertise (again, I'm not talking about the design, but your language). Just keep that in mind. It will help succeed in this and all your ventures.
No offense but those "super cool" example work sites you have to show them arent anything to get excited about. Hell the one is just a free ez-install php based forum portal with the stock theme and logo.
Trusy me lucky, I can get pretty picky about grammar. In fact the spelling errors are the big thing for me. They are eye sores. In general on message boards though I, of course, let things slide and make mistakes. We all do -- I don't have time to spell check and hate spell checking board plug-ins. But you can usually undestand me quite well.
I just dislike people who appear to be foreign but are actually american.
Quite funny since I had so many errors? :D That site was rushed cause my friend said, "Do it now." so I threw up what I could. I've just been changing it as I go while having people who trust me support it.
For the wordings, I'm going to shorten things up a bit. I was tought in a small business communcation class that irrelevancy needs to be weeded out, but at the same time for me I will need to say a bit more because that's where my game is -- I have to sell myself.
I will be running tests and trying out new things with it and I do want to emit a since of professionalism when people surf on by the website, but right now that isn't top on the list(though I keep it in mind). I mean I will tend to all of your suggestions, but for the layout side of things I'm not going corporate. Look at data drops, look at cprogramming.com -- I'd buy an account from a layout like that, even if it costed a few more bucks and I was helping the person out. If I knew they'd take care of me I'd like that more.
I'm currently working with the offline layout to adjust prices to by the way.
> Hell the one is just a free ez-install php based forum portal with the stock theme and logo.
I didn't say I created the forum. I changed a few small things on it after I got it from phpBB hacks - which the board footer clearly states. Wait, on second thought, you need to change the profile settings to "sirens" to see the phpBB hacks logo I modified. The default layout for my board is the default phpBB layout.
I know this is an old thread, but I would use div layers instead of a tables for the site's layout.
no...
Yes...
Please read the rules...