OK, over excited

[Cantankerous]

OK, working from home can be a little restrictive but I'm so excited I've got to shout it out somewhere.

We've launched our beta site and we've got our first five businesses signed up!!!!!

a wedding planner
a toastmaster
a garage
a business consultant
a B&B

OK, we are still in beta and these are free accounts but it is still very exciting for us. I'm now off to write to them for their thoughts on the sign up process and how they would look to use the site and what features would make it better.

If any of you have a few minutes free, could you take a look over our beta site at www.OpenYourDiary.com. Any thoughts and feedback are very welcome. We've already had some great suggestions (some SEO work, changes to the text on the home page to highlight benefits), but any other advice is appreciated.

rgds

a very excited Alex

[Emma]

Moved to webby reviews. Free website reviews - please read this first

Good luck.

[AboveParr]

I just tried to sign up and got an error

[Cantankerous]

Hi Sara,

Yes, just got the error report through and we are on the case. I know this may be the wrong attitude but we are a little excited as you have found our first bug of the beta testing! Could you drop us a line (using the site feedback form, it works, I've just tested it again) and let us know which page you were using when you got the error. We've got scripts at this end to track the problem but it is always handy to have the user's side of things.

Thanks again for signing up and I'll keep you up to speed with progress.

Alex

[AboveParr]

Hi

No problem, have just sent the error report through

I really like the look and the idea of the site by the way - that's why I was happy to sign up

[bluestagstudio]

Hi Alex,

At first glance I quite liked the website, looks clean and simple and professional so first impressions were good...but...

The homepage doesn't quite explain to me what your service is. The blurb at the top says its a great low cost way of booking appointments - great, but in my mind though outlook calendar is also a great low cost way of booking appointments - so I need to know more, and I need to know it quickly.

At this stage I have no idea whether the website is targeted at companies or customers or both.

Next thing my eyes are drawn to (and I would imagine most peoples eyes) is the 'Search For Providers' box and Google Maps. I don't know what this is and even if I did I don't want to do it because I want to know what your service is, why it benefits me and why I should want to use it over Outlook!!

It's only after this I noticed the Find Out More button which explained to me what your service does. I think this content should be on your homepage and 'Search for Providers' should be a link in the menu instead.

It's only after reading the content that's NOT on your homepage I understand what it is you do, and I'm still not entirely sure I've got it now!

Part of that is my nievity in this market I admit, but I still think it's something that needs to be fixed.

Other than that the technical side of the website is good, doesn't quite validate with W3 yet (link below)

[Invalid] Markup Validation of http://www.openyourdiary.com/ - W3C Markup Validator

But that's nothing that can't be sorted either, it is beta after all!

I like the design of the website, and my eyes are drawn into the page content which is great (apart from the homepage of course )

The Features & Benefits page lists loads of features but some links/notes would be useful so I can read more about the particular feature I'm interested in and why it would help me.

I think a couple of minor changes would make the world of difference on this site. When you become involved in a project it's easy to forget that your target market aren't necesarilly going to know that you're targeting them!

Hope that helps, sorry if I've come across as over critical, but if I didn't like the idea and the website in general I wouldnt have bothered posting such a long review

Cheers,
Matt.

[bluestagstudio]

Ha!

Just found this in your other thread....

Should I re-focus the public pages to just sell the service to providers then provide the directory of providers under a different URL?

If only I'd found this before I posted then I couldv just written 'Good Idea'

Anyway, hope I've helped, give me a shout if you need anything...

[Cantankerous]

Matthew,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review my new site, it is very much appreciated. I'm in the process of making a number of changes based upon this feedback and I hope you will take a look once I've got them in place.

I'm rejigging the home page to remove the consumer features and concentrate on selling to provider companies with some text about the site features and a big "free trial" button.

I'm also going to make the business sign up process much simpler, so businesses can sign up with minimal info then fill in the rest later.

Again, thank you for the advice.

Alex

[bluestagstudio]

Hi Alex,

No problem, I'll have a look once you've made the changes, like the website overall though!

Cheers,
Matt.

[AboveParr]

Originally Posted by AboveParr

Hi

No problem, have just sent the error report through

I really like the look and the idea of the site by the way - that's why I was happy to sign up

Hi

Did you manage to find the error report OK?