Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello everyone,

I recently launched a website offering online accounting services and would appreciate some constructive criticism from fellow entrepreneurs. I designed it myself (I`m not a programmer, so I`m sure there are at least a few coding errors).

1. Would you use our service? If not, why not?
   
2. How is the content? Is it easy to read? Too wordy? Too technical? Boring to read? Not folksy enough?
   
3. How`s the homepage layout? Is it cluttered with too much content? Is the color scheme okay?

Be tough, I can handle it! Thanks in advance.

Mike

Hi Mike :-) Welcome to the community.

Despite Steve`s curmudgeonly argument that NObody uses FireFox 2.x, or IE 6.x, I actually do. I happen to like them, and I also think that backward compatibility is a must in today`s tech world. As such, I saw two problems.

In FF, your home page has some sort of banner at the top that doesn`t display right. It`s not really a banner, I think an artifact of the "home" drop down menu. But until I hovered over the Home tab, it covered up the underlying box. It reoccurred whenever I refreshed the page, or came back to it from some other page.

In IE, there was no problem with that, but the text under "Features & Flexibility (under the graphic) was black on dark blue and impossible to read.

The content itself could use some work. For example, your major heading is: "In today`s challenging economy, you need an advantage..."

That`s not very strong, nor does it instantly put across the idea you want to sell. Perhaps something more to the point?
My point is that you get about 4 seconds to catch my interest. The bullet points are great, but the heading itself doesn`t connect well with the actual bullets, see?

The next problem is the content for Your Online Accounting Department is too small and crowded. That whole quadrant of the page makes me tired. The landing page ought to be clean and basic, showing the main point of your business----accounting.

You have lots of room, and you can use links to nicely direct people around the site for more information. That`s the "customer journey." It`s the way you get people in to the site, then guide them around to the specific features.

I`d take the Simple 3-Step Process and make the graphics larger. Then perhaps center them below the bullets. Below that, I`d have the three actual steps. Clicking the first gets me the "How it Works," and that`s fine. But clicking any one of the below 3 would give me the existing results, just as you have them.

Another option would be to have your Features & Benefits below the bullet points, and the graphic representation of the process over to the right, instead of the features. Just switch them, in other words.

Removing the blurb about online accounting would give you room. Put that text in the "How it Works" page, as the lead introduction.

The point is that everyone knows what accounting is. They know what online is. They get the concept immediately, and want to know what YOU do differently.

That means credibility. And you have your certifications at the bottom of the page. I`d also have them on the "About AOS" page, perhaps with the graphic "seal" and a paragraph that explains what each certification does.

You already have a far better Features & Benefits on the Benefits tab, so all that content on the home page is redundant as well as crowded.

All in all, my primary negative experience was the messed up tab bar and empty dropdown. I dealt with it, and the rest of the visit wasn`t bad. I wasn`t convinced that I should use your service, and that`s the next problem.

There needs to be some stronger content (copywriting) I think, so you may want to get some help with an editor. I (personally) think for service sites like this, a professional résumé photo does help, as a small portrait on the Why Outsource page. It makes you more personal, direct, and introduces a real human being.

After all, if I`m going to hand over my finances, I`d like to know that I`m dealing with more than a faceless site.

That`s the point: I`d like to have some reassurances that I`m not just handing over the keys to the house to a stranger. :-) Y`know? This is too passive. It`s like you`re saying, "I do accounting. You need accounting. What else is there to discuss? Just send me your financials."

You might consider some sort of FAQ that deals with privacy issues, warranty information, and that sort of thing. I`m guessing there are standard disclaimers and warrants you can find on other accounting sites.

For example, how do you stand behind me if the IRS wants to do an audit. Things like that.

All in all, not a bad site. But not a strong interest-generating site. Yet.
:-)

I have to strongly disagree at blindly worrying about backward compatibility.
Backward compatibility is quite important... if needed. As an example, a moderate trafficked ecommerce site i run gets 17.55% of its visitors using firefox, out of that percentage only 0.75% use firefox 2, the rest use 3.0 and its variants!
As a webmaster you must ask yourself, is that small percentage worth investing time in? My decision was no, because  only 0.13% of our visitors used that version. Now, on our end 13% of our visitors still use IE 6, thus that is enough to continue support for that version.
However, it should be noted that these are values for our site, you should track your own site and come to your own particular conclusions. But just blindly supporting all browsers and all versions because "you" feel some may use them, will just cause you to spin your wheels but get no where.

I wouldn`t argue about "blindly" getting exercised about backward compatibility. In fact, I don`t really care at all if developers ignore older browsers.

My only purpose is to mention that there are problems in FireFox 2x, and IE6.

If the company has enough business that it doesn`t matter about those few people using older browsers, then they`re in great shape. Otherwise, it`s hard enough to get feedback from the viewing public on the various browsers out there in the marketplace.

Sorry, i was just referring to this particular statement:
"Despite Steve`s curmudgeonly argument that NObody uses FireFox 2.x, or IE 6.x, I actually do. I happen to like them, and I also think that backward compatibility is a must in today`s tech world."

Which sounded like blindly worrying about backwards compatibility.
As for this:

"If the company has enough business that it doesn`t matter about those few people using older browsers, then they`re in great shape."

Keep in mind i use percentages for a reason, because they scale. Whether you`re a small business or a large business, anything below 0.5% is too little to worry about.
That and for the most part, those few browsers that support has been dropped for, will still display a site and have it function perfectly fine, there just may be a few oddities here and there, but nothing serious. Thus even those you do drop support for are not left out in the dust.

"Otherwise, it`s hard enough to get feedback from the viewing public on the various browsers out there in the marketplace."

Quite true, but its easy enough to simply have a test box or two that have all the browsers you need to test for. If you don`t, then you`re not following one of the most basic coding principles. Which, if you`re a beginner coder, its time to start using.

:-) I think it comes down to the nature of the business...the company. We sell a tangible product, one product line, and it`s a small niche. So we tend to have a basic site, without compatibility problems.

Other companies really do need to show by example that they`re using modern technology, can handle so and so, and have to make decisions based on percentages.

The reference to Steve`s curmudgeonly quip was just some humor carrying over from an unrelated topic. :-) But...he`s a curmudgeon, so we can pretty much discount all that grumping and griping. Right?

Craig, thanks for the review. You bring up a lot of great points.

The site seems fine in FF 3.x. Haven`t yet tried FF 2.x or IE 6.x. IN any case, I agree with Jarrod that this probably isn`t a huge deal, considering the small number of users. For an e-commerce site, it might be an issue, but for a service biz like this, probably not since most potential clients would be using current browsers.

I`ll overhaul the home page and post it soon. If you think it`s crowded now, you should have seen the first draft!

I changed the heading to something along the lines of your suggestion, which was good. I agree about the need for photos - they`re coming as soon as we have some taken professionally.

The FAQs for privacy and security are linked in the footer.

The text on several pages is a first draft and, I agree, needs to be refined or rewritten. Do you or does anyone else know what hiring a good editor costs? Just for a "tune up" of existing copy, not creating copy from scratch.

I`d put a more obvious link to the FAQ. Footers are nice, but I wonder how many people actually pay much attention to them unless there`s a problem? I don`t, but that`s just me.

Editors charge in various ways, usually per-word or flat rate per article. I`d make you a proposal, but I`m horrible at accounting. So what you`ll want to search for (or discuss) is someone who`s an editor but also has knowledge of the accounting business. I`m thinking you could start with SuN Marketplace and Google, then see what you find.

I`ve been getting a lot of comments that the original homepage was too packed with content. So I cleaned it up a bit. I`d appreciate your comments on the new one.

Revised version 

Original version

Thanks again!

Definitely like the revised version better :-) I`m still bothered by two things.

1. There are tons of accounting services "out there." I don`t yet see anything that distinguishes you from millions.
2. Your mission is just feel-good fluff.
   

I think your next step might be to sit down and have some extensive brainstorming sessions about what exactly will be your "unique selling proposition." What will make you different.

When you have that, you`ll also find that you can state it nicely in your mission statement. :-)

As soon as I hit your home page, I read the 2 paragraphs in the upper right----the starting point for my eyes. If you can capture my attention right there, then I`ll be more interested in exploring the rest of the site.

I like your first paragraph. The second one starts my eyes glazing over. Until you have a real USP, then you could make a couple of changes and blow off the "mission statement" entirely. Something that begins the "customer journey":