Review Request: SimplyCFHost.com

Well your design is one that I haven't seen used before so congrates on originality...

It is probably just me but I would put the hosting plans up the top so people see that first before the news.

The advertisement or whatever for chatting live doesn't quite fit in the header, try moving it so someplace else because I'm sure its not your selling point.

For the problem of no one buying - I have no idea why it is...

Tried validating your HTML?

BTW, good job on the perfectly valid CSS

Phil, it looks great, possibly TOO great. I'm so wowed by the design that I'm not reading the text.

Also, I don't know a lot of people who use Cold Fusion -- Cold Fusion isn't a selling point for me, but if it ever is, I'll come over.

I don't like the background (dots in grid) -- I personally find them a little jarring and confusing. The chat button thing isn't at home where it is now, but I guess you want it there to stand out. The Domains row is all broken up (spaces between blocks) in Mozilla Firebird 0.7.

Other than that, it's great.

Could be that your prices and plans are below the fold for a lot of people. It is for me, anyway, at 1152 x 864. Even if it was above the fold many people may not see it down at the bottom of the page there.

Looking at the navbar, where do I go to find your hosting plans and prices? The terminology isn't clear. "our solutions" could get me there, but it could also get me to a list of technical specifications or blather about servers etc. I'm not sure. You've also called that "web hosting plans" in the breadcrumbs.

MBG on the "about us" page wasn't clear to me. People shouldn't have to think about what things mean, it should be immediately obvious.

You could try making that "order now" button bold to make it stand out more on the navbar.

You should say something about the savings people get if they sign up quarterly or annually. It looks like you've got quite significant deals available so it might be good to point that out.

That's all being nit-picky though. This is a great design you've chosen and overall the look and feel is great. I would move that domain name search and chat ad out of the header there. They really distract from the graphic.

The hosting business is highly competitive so you may need to just refine the details a little better.

Awesome!! (first time I ever used ! here)

there is a slight overlap with the squared background at end and start of the sections but nothing to worry about. (in mozilla firebird)

Only two things I can pick are the "come chat with us" thing in the middle of top banner looks realy out of place and the width of it (isn't a big thing) but maybe make it fit 800x600 better (hey I'm a mean old fart, gotta pick at things )

awesome job on layout, graphics and colours

Thankyou for the comments one and all! It's good to know that overall the site is working as it should. I must admit, I cannot take credit for the actual design. I have a graphic designer friend who suppled me with a flat PSD of the front page and the rest I cut up from there. Still took a lot of work so I'll take some of the credit

Renegade - Glad to see the css validates but then if it din't TopStyle wouldn't be doing it's job properly! Little more concerning on the HTML validation so some improvement there methinks.

Suzanne - Never had a design that looks TOO great b4 I understand what you are saying but I would say that professionalism is the key... I must admit I'm targetting a niche area offering CF but as the sites are hosted on Win 2003 servers, I can offer ASP, .NET and PHP if necessary. That said, my target audience is CF'ers. You would be surprised how many there are!

Abhishek - Didn't spot that in Mozilla, I'll try to figure out what's breaking it.

Megan - Thanks for the detail! I agree with the "Our Solutions" bit, I'll look at changing that. What did you mean about the MBG? Was there a specific section that wasn't clear enough?

Busy - I'm the first to get an awesome!!! cool.... again I can't take credit for the initial design but any muppet can break a PSD! Thanks

All - The chat button is gonna get moved. I added it as I wanted to be able to provide instant support for peeps browsing the site so they could ask questions, etc. I'll find it a new home.

Thanks again for the comments, fair bit for me to be going on with. I would like to ask any total newbies who are on the forum to take a look from a newcomers perspective rather than a seasones pro to make sure it's user froiendly enough... Any takers?

I'm new on the forums, but not totally new in webdesign . But I have some comments on the site.

First of all: I totally agree with the others.

Next to that, I don't really the design. Sorry, lol, but imho there are too much colors used. All kinds of tints of green, a lot different blue colors. I don't pick up the info anymore.

Next to that, the hosting packages are just put somewhere between news and some other information. It doesn't really get attention.

In Mozilla and Opera it looks ok.

Going on to the text (believe me, bad grammar can make your visitors drop dramaticly):

There's a typo on the data center page:

Quote: Well, quite simnply we wanted to be at the very hub of one of the world's largest providers.

On the same page, in the Protection & Security part, at the end, some of the text falls of the page in Opera.

The text on the lowest picture (images/footerGen_02.gif) the text is kinda hard to read, and doesn't look very 'neat' .

Overal a nice design, but, as Suzanne said, maybe TOO nice.

Jochem

OK I've cleared "most" of the points picked up on above. I've still go to move the hosting plans on the index page and make a start on the validation but how's it looking now?