Please review JodoHost.com

Y

Yash

Bass
Our developer just finished the BETA version of our new site. Just do a hard refresh (crtl + r) at www.jodohost.com to see it

Need opinions. The more criticism, the better. There are alot of spacing problems and missing pages. If you discover anything, please list.

Thanks in advance
 
Looks great! Very professional. Did Drew do this? He seems to be good at website design. His site looks very nice.


Yash said:
Need opinions. The more criticism, the better. There are alot of spacing problems and missing pages. If you discover anything, please list.
Click to expand...
 
brawney said:
Looks great! Very professional. Did Drew do this? He seems to be good at website design. His site looks very nice.
Click to expand...

I did not do this. Yash decided to get someone else to do it (dont know why though).

Personaly i dont like it, i have an eye for details and i can see way to many flaws in it.
 
Drew, what flaws do you see? Personally I think it's great, except for a slight inconsistancy on one of the boxes and a little too much action on the page with the flash.

BTW, whose face is that?
 
Bliss said:
Drew, what flaws do you see? Personally I think it's great, except for a slight inconsistancy on one of the boxes and a little too much action on the page with the flash.

BTW, whose face is that?
Click to expand...

I already told Yash and i think he wants me to not say right now, so i wont.
 
Yash said:
Our developer just finished the BETA version of our new site. Just do a hard refresh (crtl + r) at www.jodohost.com to see it

Need opinions. The more criticism, the better. There are alot of spacing problems and missing pages. If you discover anything, please list.

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Looks good, can be made better.
Live Chat link at the top is blank pointing to
http://www.jodohost.com/#

I have not seen anyone coming live for past 30 days. Are you planning someone for live chat ? if not remove the link.


The "People's Host" tag line in the logo is too faint. Gives a feeling that company is half hearted. Make it bold or darker, try some better font.

"Making Technology affordable >>"

The >> is suggestive of that it is a link and you can click it to read more about it. which is not true.

Customer Testimonial : This should be a rotating Javascript with testimonial changing every 30 seconds. You had it once around 6 months back on your site and that was great.

Spacing issue in the following

Dec 26: New Reseller Packages!
Dec 26: Shared SSL now free!
Sept 11: Cold Fusion now free!
^
You may consider starting Dec with one additional space.

Consider offering 24 X 7 support. Your support is great and almost works 24 X 7. So why not make it official ?
Production ecommerce sites are reluctant to move too a host which does not provide 24 X 7 support.

Cheers
 
Yash said:
Need opinions. The more criticism, the better. There are alot of spacing problems and missing pages. If you discover anything, please list.
Click to expand...

You asked for comments and review of the site, I've got a laundry list for ya :D

- The JodoHost logo looks like it's been rendered as a JPG. If you're going to flasherize the site, then by all means that needs to be cleaned up and not so dithered. Also, link the logo back to the home page. I don't care that you have a Home button on the other side of the screen, I'm accustomed to clicking on the logo to go to the home page for most sites.
- In the domain registration box, you need to add an onFocus event that clears out the text in the box (or someone's going to complain that they tried to register "mydomainDomains for $8.50 / year.com". Personally I think that text should be moved outside of the text box.
- I like the flash menu but there's somthing about where the link to the forums is. That's the only menu item without a drop-down and that kinda throws me. It also seems to pop up really quickly.
- Personally I don't like the snowflake effect on the "Making Technology Affordable". It distracts the eye from the purpose of the front page ... to sell your hosting and reseller package.
- The flash for the reseller package is beautifully annoying. It repeats continously which as I continue to look at the page is distracting with the full white-wash-over effect happening every other minute.
- The buisiness of the main page is to hook people based on your packages, why do you have them so far down on the page? If you're going to build the width for 800x600, the height shouldn't be built for 1024x768.
- You gain no status in search engine optimization with images... I think the blue dither bar under Atul is unnecessary personally, especially considering the fact that it's a repeat of the text in the logo.
- The three selling points above the plans don't link to anything. Why?

Okay, I think that's picky enough :D Graphically it represents a very nice setup and is a good starting point.
 
Thanks hatton. As far as search engine rankings go, we have text pages behind which should help. We get most of our traffic from sponsored links anyhow

I'll be having almost all of he suggestions here included. More are welcome
 
Yash said:
Thanks hatton. As far as search engine rankings go, we have text pages behind which should help. We get most of our traffic from sponsored links anyhow

I'll be having almost all of he suggestions here included. More are welcome
Click to expand...

I do like the site, but prefere it to be without flash. The old site was actually easier, but needed to be centered and some more "help" to explain the components of each package. The new one looks a bit "overdesigned" with more emphasis on design than functionality. So in a nutshell I would recommend to remove all unnecessary gimicks (especially flash) and keep focussing on good and easy to find content.
 
One other flaw that i see is that not enough items link to "what your trying to sell". I mean, why is there no big red SIGN UP button? I'm guessing that many people who come to this site are referred by other people, so they probably have an idea of what your service is like. If I were you, I'd put up a big image that links to the sign up page. Even better, you should advertise your free trial.
 
Bliss said:
...you should advertise your free trial.
Click to expand...

Ya. There should be more mention about the free trial and 30 day money back guarantee. Those things are what a lot of people look for.
 
I personally liked the previous website a bit better - its simplicity and lack of flash helped draw me in to look at your services closer. The new homepage is just a bit too flashy.

When looking for a good host, I want information layed out quickly and cleanly - I don't want to visit a website that tries to impress me with flash. Also, there is a large amount of different fonts and styles on the page and it doesn't feel very consistent.

Besides my design opinions, you should know that the website doesn't look or function correctly on IE 5.2 for Mac OSX. The top navigation doesn't work at all, and the tables are not rendering correctly. Not sure if you care if it looks right in that browser. :p
 
Coming in late here, but a couple comments...(apologies if these have been mentioned.)

Site looks very nice, I like the bit of flash you've added.

Suggestion1.
The forum logo says jodohost.com and that is where it should take you. There is a text link for jodohost forums below it, and therefore redundant (and a bit misleading.) The jodohost.com text link is at the bottom of page and hard to find if you don't know where it is.

Suggestion2.
On the "be a host" flash movie, have the "learn more" button available throughout the movie. I've found myself having to wait for the movie several times in order to verify some information on your hosting page.

All in all, it looks great. I'm very impressed in how you've been able to keep pace with all areas of your growing business.
 
Flashy, if you like that kind of stuff. Decent look - just like 500,000 other templated sites out there!

I agree with Hatton's laundry list post, especially where he remarked that images don't help with the search engines.

Since this was created with Fireworks and Dreamweaver MX, its html is not always the most efficient or standards compliant. There are table alignment problems in Mozilla Firebird. Tableless CSS design would give you faster loading, and everything in the hosting package section, including the three "headlines" could have been done with text instead of Flash and images.

Also, the word "Guarantee" is mispelled in the first headline (the one about "99.5% SLA Uptime). More difficult to fix in an image than it is using text.

Sitemap- looks like a link farm. You should put a little explanation after each link describing what is on those pages.

Just my 2 cents, as a designer and a client!
 
Had a quick look. I agree with many of the previous comments, although I have no qualms with Flash. The homepage looks exceptionally busy. Lots of square boxes, rounded boxes, all kinds of different shading effects. Basically not enough white space nor much consistency between elements.

Lots of fonts, in lots of sizes in lots of colours.

There's also a plethora of link types: silver button with arrow on left, green buttons with colons on right, text links, links that don't look like links (the 3 items above the hosting package boxes). Some links give feedback on rollover, some don't. Two styles of link bars at the top of the page (below the photo of Atul and top right).

Kind of looks like someone put in every kind of effect known to man (or woman) on one page.

The basic theme here is no consistency anywhere. You're packing a lot of info into a relatively small space. Maybe if the elements were more consistent it might not look so busy even if the same amount of information was displayed.
 
Think its very good. Did a good job in the layout and reducing the clutter. Think everything blends in very well.. It can be improved a little as outlined by others.
 
Well,

Now that I have read every single post in this thread and my dinner is officially cold... I will begin my review on Jodohost.com... My appologies as well if i repeat a previous comment.

1. Love the layout.

2. Assuming your reseller packages are what you are trying to push the most, you did good with the flash movie. It grabs attention, and then the animation subtles to prevent annoyance. However, I believe Your hosting services are your main priority really and this might be a problem since I have seen your site a hundred times and honestly I do not even know the prices of your shared accounts. I should have to look. It should hit me upside the head. You guys are very affordable and that is what most look for first. The packages do animate to grab attention. thats neat, but your most important thing on your home page is this part, and it is flash. A rule of thumb i always follow. Never use flash for important items. Some people dont have flash player and cant get it and some also dont want to bother to get it. Trust me. Ive seen a million people deny the flash plugin!

3. Where it says, "24-7 support" in the header... make that a link to your support or the forum.

4. Activate that darn "Live Chat" link or get rid of it! I can't count how many times I've clicked it so far! lol :]

5. Now, as a deisgner... I have an eye for VERY minor flaws in design. This next topic would never pass with me... The line above "Latest News"... It steps a bit. This is caused by either the Bottom or Mid section getting trimmed incorrectly durring design. You should ask the designer to fix that. It actually bugs me. lol. really simple fix. :D

-Another point is that the right side of the screen has a white space where the left side actually connects with the vertical 1 pixel border line. looks like this site was created in dreamweaver. Am I right?

-Also, there are 42 spacer.gif images in your homepage. That is a bit excessive. It happens when using dreamweaver and fireworks... but 42 is a bit much.

6. Make the testimonials on the home page rotate. Seeing the same one every visit makes it seem fake. Even though there are more in the site...

7. Website of the month should be MAKstudios.com! :D

8. Be a host movie should have the "learn more" button loaded right after the "Be a Host" shows up.

9. Include ALL features in the compare tables. I noticed some features included in the account are not even on your compare charts. Cant name em off hand...

10. I think also, the reseller chart and page should explain more detail. Especially that resellers cannot offer domain registration. I was very upset about that. The documentation and everything says you can and when you go to set it up. The cpanel is just blank on that part.

11. Someone mentioned earlier about making the logo point to Jodo home page. Yes. Agreed! Most people are accustomed to Logos linking to the home page. It is instinct for me to do that.

12. Should I shut up now?

13. Really guys... The site looks good. the designer has a good eye for design. But honestly, I hope you didnt pay over $200.00 for it. My team could have done this site for $500 just for design. If you need anything, I will be willing to assist, If it's just an opinion you need. as you can see. lol :D

Love the work you guys put in... You deserve the best. Hopefully my future brings you guys good income.
 
We got live chat to work and you should be able to find someone anytime of the day willing to talk to you. But its mainly for sales. Customers are free to use it for *emegency* issues only. Please no general support requests on it. use the forum or ticket system.

The amount of time an administrator spends on helping one customer via chat, he could answer 5 tickets. That's why we don't provide phone or live chat support at least for the moment.
 
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