Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Design and Content : Design Query.

[willmorgan0711]

Hi people of WHT,

I have been running a webhosting company for a few months now and have about 30 customers, I have been using a basic html and css design and using WHMCS for the billing/client management portion of my site, my servers run a combined centos and cloudlinux setup with cPanel.

I have been looking for design inspiration to spice up my site, I am not a web designer but i do know my way around html, css and some javascript. I also am using a css nav bar that I am unhappy with.

Does anyone have any ideas of how i can improve my site, it is quite simple and i would like to keep it clutter free but i feel it is too simple.

my site is here - morganwebhosting.co.uk, i also made a simple template for whmcs that consists of the header of the main site, relatively simple really.

Thanks,
Will Morgan
morganwebhosting.co.uk
admin@morganwebhosting.co.uk
Quality Shared Linux Web Hosting From Yorkshire!

[MikeTrike]

Stick with simple, simple is good.

A couple of suggestions though. You have a lot of aligned "center" content that looks kinda odd, especially with bullet points.

The big icons on the home page would be nice if they were clickable to somewhere with info about what those things are.

Drop the forum, it really is not needed for a small provider. And if you do keep it, make it simple. SoftLayer for example only has 3 public categories listed. http://forums.softlayer.com/ So stick with simple even on the forum.

cPanel login on your main site can be good and bad. It shows that you're a small company with one server. Same goes for the webmail and WHM. For example if you had 2 or 3 servers or hundreds. Then those obviously would not work for anybody except users on your first server listed there. It also shows that your website is listed on the same servers as your client. As opposed to it being secured on it's own server, not mingling with client data.

The news page might be nicer if you found a way to not use that integrated facebook plugin thing. But rather something that blended with the site better. That looks pasted on, vs integrated/streamlined looking.

The header of your site might look nicer if it matches the width of the body. Then make the header on the WHMCS side, match the width of the WHMCS system. They can be different widths, it just looks better in my opinion if it matches the body of the page. Otherwise the integration is clean and simple, which is good.

Also make your Morgan logo clickable to return to the home page.

To put the copyright watermark, it should be © in the html code. Though that's not a big deal I guess.

I'd dump the IRC and grab a live chat solution. Since you're a single person shop zopim would be a good start. http://www.zopim.com/

All of your features are on the main page. http://morganwebhosting.co.uk/hosting.html
So there is no need to duplicate those features in the cart, except for the plan details like storage/bandwidth/price. You should also put the price on the hosting page.

These are just suggestions off the top of my head. I recently had our site for AH reworked so ideas are still bubbling in my brain. At any rate, make sure you're at least enjoying the challenge.

I also see that you're a fan of http://www.iconfinder.com/

[willmorgan0711]

Thanks for your suggestions, I will definately keep these in mind, i suppose i should dump the IRC, i think i will stick to the ticket desk rather than continuing my vein attempt to start a community, also i think i might get some more customers and then get a forum.

your suggestions were greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Will

[MikeTrike]

Originally Posted by willmorgan0711

i suppose i should dump the IRC, i think i will stick to the ticket desk rather than continuing my vein attempt to start a community, also i think i might get some more customers and then get a forum.

It's hard to start both at the same time. Either focus on growing the business and then open a community area like the forum. Or start a community first and then get into the business side of it. Not that it can't be done, but taking on too many things at once for a small operation is counter productive sometimes.

[willmorgan0711]

I couldent agree more.

[JesseN]

Great simple and clean site. I have a couple of things to point out though:

1. I think it will be better if your paragraphs are left aligned or justified.

2. As MikeTrike said don't center align the bullet points on the hosting page.

3. Not a big fan of the domains, domains, domains picture on the hosting page.

[willmorgan0711]

Thanks for your help and to be honest, the domains image was ripped from my old site and there it was to fill space, i will
Definately look into getting some more or better graphics (-;

Will

[willmorgan0711]

anyone got any suggestions about the nav bar, this one doesn't align properly, anyone got any suggestions of a better one, preferably html/css/js not images, but anything useful!

Thanks,
Will

p.s the stylesheet is obtainable by adding /morgan.css to my domain.

[JesseN]

From what I've found, the wrapper width is 850px while the headwrap is 900px. Try putting both div with the same width, that should fix it.

[willmorgan0711]

I was trying to say the actual navigation menu, the links, not the actual headwrapper. But thanks for your suggestion (-:

Will