Sequence Hosting is here! Reviews/advice welcome

sequencehosting · #1 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 11:59 AM

Hello everyone,

After a lot of long nights Sequence Hosting is ready for a review. I have learnt allot during this process. The first being not to buy from Template Monster again (seems a good idea but really it takes more time to get it right than it saves). I have also had to get my head around the web hosting world and I now believe I have enough knowledge to get started.

Well here it is

https://www.sequencehosting.com

A few things I am working on.

- I know the SSL is only working on the main pages but im experimenting with the htaccess file so the pages in the "clients" will be protected as well.

- The page is full of images, im working on lowering page weight for faster load. Mainly by cutting down on images where I can.

The main pages (index, shared-hosting, company, TOS, AUP and privacy policy) should load ok. But the pages such as domains, cart, contact load quite slow at the moment. Im trying to sort this out now.

Any suggestion/reviews will grow my to do list.

Thanks everyone

Jack

missme · #2 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 01:26 PM

So far it looks good. It also looks like a lot of work to keep a site like that up. I wish you luck.

Missme

sequencehosting · #3 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by missme

So far it looks good. It also looks like a lot of work to keep a site like that up. I wish you luck.

Missme

Thanks for your kind words Missme. Yeah it certainly will be alot of work. The market is so busy but then again every website needs a web host.

lisa · #4 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 01:42 PM

Simply beautiful. Lots of graphics, yes... but not as big of a deal these days with more folks on high speed. Very clean, fresh and easy to read.

sequencehosting · #5 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lisa

Simply beautiful. Lots of graphics, yes... but not as big of a deal these days with more folks on high speed. Very clean, fresh and easy to read.

Thanks a lot Lisa! that means alot. Yeah your right, I did manage to get rid of some of the images Template Monster used. They were using images instead of simple clean h1 tags lol.

EDIT: I just managed to redirect the shopping cart to https where my SSL is installed so my site is now safe! woo

sequencehosting · #6 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 06:57 PM

Any more reviews and suggestions very welcome

James · #7 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 08:20 PM

Just a couple of things that I see off hand, after saying that I think you have a nice looking site with a definite professional look which is your number one essential for a site like this which requires a lot of trust on the part of the buyer.

First, I suggest that you darken the text in the main part of the body a bit. I like the contrast in text. It looks good. But I think it is a little too light for easy reading.

Second, I couldn't follow the code easily enough to quickly follow the image use clearly, but while I agree with the comments that people have reasonably fast internet service these days, the site does load a little more slowly than I would like. I would check out closely what you might do to speed it up. For example, if the display size on the page is smaller than the image size the image or pixel setting could be resized down a bit. However I think it may be something other than that since the main image in the banner is only 118.58 KB in size. Nevertheless, I do not think this is a major problem.

sequencehosting · #8 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James

Just a couple of things that I see off hand, after saying that I think you have a nice looking site with a definite professional look which is your number one essential for a site like this which requires a lot of trust on the part of the buyer.

First, I suggest that you darken the text in the main part of the body a bit. I like the contrast in text. It looks good. But I think it is a little too light for easy reading.

Second, I couldn't follow the code easily enough to quickly follow the image use clearly, but while I agree with the comments that people have reasonably fast internet service these days, the site does load a little more slowly than I would like. I would check out closely what you might do to speed it up. For example, if the display size on the page is smaller than the image size the image or pixel setting could be resized down a bit. However I think it may be something other than that since the main image in the banner is only 118.58 KB in size. Nevertheless, I do not think this is a major problem.

Thanks for your reply James, the second I read my email I could tell it was you. Thanks a lot, it was my number one aim. At one point I was tempted to change my design to a less heavy one. But I think a site offering web hosting needs to look professional and stand out.

I will defiantly darken the text, the reason I kept it that color is because no one suggested it was too light but I did think about making it a bit darker. I will make it darker but not exactly #000000.

hehe yeah my code at the moment is pretty messy, I will tidy it up tomorrow.

Yeah your certainly right. My main concern has been load time. Looking at it now if i could change one thing it would be load time. I have been working on load time the last few days, if you viewed my site this morning it took much longer than it does now. I am going to continue to reduce the page weight. I do use 12 quality on Photoshop which certainly isn't helping. I wanted to use png rather than jpg for the main images but it caused some color issues in IE.

Thanks a lot!

Jack

kelevraco · #9 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 09:21 PM

To fix those color issues try saving as a 32bit instead of the standard 8bit. Also if you drop your image quality down to a 10 you will almost double the speed of your load time. I am very glad to see you get it all worked out and up and running.

sequencehosting · #10 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 09:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kelevraco

To fix those color issues try saving as a 32bit instead of the standard 8bit. Also if you drop your image quality down to a 10 you will almost double the speed of your load time. I am very glad to see you get it all worked out and up and running.

Thanks for your reply.

Ah I see! So there was a reason for it then. Oh I didn't realise it helped that much, I will certainly drop the quality off most of the images tomorrow. Will the drop in image quality be visible? Thanks! I was pulling my hair out allot during the process but got their in the end. You have been a great help during this process.

jonathanfigaro · #11 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 09:50 PM

Great website. It really looks good. Neat graphics.

sequencehosting · #12 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonathanfigaro

Great website. It really looks good. Neat graphics.

Thanks alot

jonathanfigaro · #13 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sequencehosting

Thanks alot

How long did it take you to develop this website?

sequencehosting · #14 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonathanfigaro

How long did it take you to develop this website?

I bought the template from Template Monster although I wouldn't do it again. I have edited this template allot since getting it. The template was actually designed to be edited in Photoshop so I had to convert all the images just to unlock the background layer. I’m quite lucky that I was able to follow the coding of the template. I assume they over complicate the coding to increase chances of customers asking for them to make changes (costs a lot extra). A good example of this is the “domain checker” at the top was originally javascript which doesn’t seem logical since a CSS post form would be much easier to configure.

I am defiantly happy everything turned out how it did.

Edit: I have been working on the template for a few weeks now

kelevraco · #15 (**permalink**) 06-18-2009, 01:38 AM

Basically what you are looking at with your images is reducing the quality. Now in a template setting you can get away with dropping them more then you could for an individual picture or graphic. Reason for this is it was meant to be looked at as part of a larger picture and not stand alone. The chances of someone pulling that image up just to look at is slim. And the chances of them enlarging the image is even slimmer. You said you where saving the quality at 12. I would drop that back to around 8-9 and see where the distortion of the image starts to happen then bump it up one level higher. Even if you end up saving your images at 10. The size reduction is around 30% normally. In the end this reduction will help with the load time of your site.

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