Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Yes,  Keep it cute!!!

It just is missing something!  I am not a designer but I am sure someone here know what I mean.

I LOVE the product!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Michele

 

More important that what a designer thinks is what the people think. Sometimes people really overthink their message.

It is clear from the moment you get to the site what is going on. I do not see this as a complicated sale. If someone likes the product they make a choice to buy or go somewhere else.

This site is very simple, it gets the message out really well, and the presentation is really cute and grabs the visitors attention.

One of the previous people commented on the word "swaddle" which caught my attention.It is not a word you see everyday but it is a positive, warm word that brings babies to mind.

If you are getting good traffic, maybe put a fill in form and ask people what they would like to see. Collect the information over a month and then see what the major themes are and do some updating.

Can you post something about security, hacker safe, etc.

 

mt

If you are using a hosting company for the site and not your own servers I would not worry about it.

I have a client who refuses to use the internet because of security concerns. The reality is if you are hosted that is the problem of the hosting company.

As for hosting companies I recommend using a national company. The local people charging $20-$80 a month may not have the same level of security as one of the bigger companies, and usually they do not offer the same benefits.

We design sites but we use a hosting company. There is so much competition I have not seen prices go up in 4 years. In fact, they keep adding bandwidth, memory and emails. We are at a point where we can offer 2500 email accounts and more memory and bandwidth that we could possibly use. (I have stopped telling people how many emails they can have beacuse it has become such a preposterous number!)

I like hositng better because if something goes wrong, they fix it. Web Design is very different from maintaining a network. I`ve heard so many complaints about locals....When their power goes out every site goes down. If something happens after 5PM nothing is fiexed until the next day. The larger companies have emergency plans, generators, back up facilities. Locals just do not have those resources.

Boy, have I ever seen this....I worked for a local ISP for a while; they hosted a lot of sites at a far higher cost than I have ever charged my clients, and what they offered was far less for for more money. They also had a lot of hacking problems, but did have an emergency power backup in place, mainly so their ISP customers could get online. Why did they get the business? Because people wanted to support a local business... whether or not that local business was worth supporting.

Here`s the key... what is the first line of business for the company doing the hosting? I use a national company and with good reason--their ONLY business is hosting, and they do it extremely well because if they didn`t, they`d be gone. If there is a security issue they are on top of it before it takes hold--they know what to look for and keep a constant eye on things--and their service has been extraordinary as well. When I have a problem, I get a reply back with an *answer* (not a canned message) within 10-15 minutes, no matter what time of day I send it.


With regard to the website and critique thereof... the design would probably look good on a brochure--I can see it being used for that--but on a website it`s hard to read. Consider that a newborn`s parents may not be the only ones looking for something like you offer--their grannies may also be looking, and for those with older eyes the lack of contrast is tough....as someone already mentioned, especially the lavender against the green. Is it a graphic designer doing this site? Sure has that feel to it.T

I like the playfulness of the font and the idea behind the design, but it does need some work yet. I also see no meta tags for search engines (only one search engines actually uses these any more, and with low weight given, but not having them can still penalize your site), under-utilized page title and no content to speak of that will help search engines find you, no "alt" tags in the images, so your page would fail validation on that count alone, let alone that these help you with search engines, too... and more.

Hope this helps...

Pat is brillant!  So glad to see another web designer with common sense!

Y`know, this brings up a very interesting concept! Robentcorp, TonerDesign, and others (whose names escape me at the moment), all are professional Web designers. Reading the various posts, particularly where someone asks for critique, there seems to be a growing need for this kind of thing.

What caught my eye is the split between those who looked at the content alone, those who examined the impact of the site in the open market, and those you analyzed the underlying code. This is an unusual, total analysis of which type I don`t think I`ve ever seen before!

It`s true that SEO and validation are important, but now I`m wondering if it would be possible to start a sort of consulting consortium. We`ve got on these forums SEO pros, business consultants, designers, graphic artists, writers, and marketing analysts. How could we set up a sort of 1-Stop-Shop thing?

Wouldn`t it be cool to come to SuN and push a button, then have a complete report generated on the entire business evaluation? I suppose the problem would be affordability....but then, with the business analysts here on this site, they could figure that out better.

Maybe it`d be a pooled resource, like TV pools, where the entry point could be widely varied, but the payment would enter into a pool of some kind, to be distributed by percentage of input?

Just thinkin`.....
:-)

I think as you read some of the posts you will find we have very different styles that probably do not lend themselves to such an idea.

Nice thought, though.

 

Isn`t that cool! Swaddle caught me, too. I am not really sure why, but maybe it is just one of those words that just belongs to the baby world; and who does not love the baby world?

Regarding a consortium, and Rob`s view that we have too diverse a set of opinions... (this probably orta be a separate post, but what the hell....):

That`s the whole point. Consider how the existing corporate model and structured capitalism is starting to crack. Look at the growing Open Source community. How can we make money when an OS is going for free? How can "free" open-source apps. generate money? Actually, how can an open source community even exist?

But consider statistics, probabilities, and trend analysis. On the individual level, there`s huge room for variance. But on the macro level, we approach not only objectivity, but also a more accurate view of reality.

It`s precisely because of the diversity of opinion that what I`m seeing is by far one of the most accurate assessments of, say, a Web site I`ve ever seen. Personal agendas, biases, and subjective influences all begin to wash out in the mix of the overall "consensus." Same with open source coding, or Wikipedia, being another example.

How did Wikipedia "prevent" wrong information or biased articles? By allowing everyone and anyone to edit anything. If someone willfully puts up wrong information, the entire world has the option of correcting those articles. Only the "he-said, she-said" kind of nonsense requires intervention by a governing body, and Startup Nation offers the nascent outline of just such a governance.