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Party of Me Hosting has 6 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on Party of Me Hosting. Jump to review form?

Lilian gave it on 13th Nov 2009 and said:
This submission surprised me. I had assumed it was a personal website and did not think to review it as it would currently suit that purpose. However this is not a personal website. It is a website which is offering professional services in an extremely unprofessional manner.

My advice would be to enrol the services of a professional designer if this business is to be taken seriously. Having said that, I get the feeling that this is perhaps a personal endeavour, a hobby, and not a serious enterprise. It could be that I am wrong and it is just the presentation which is letting down your intended professionalism.

Ditch the current design. If a professional designer cannot be hired, a pre-made template would suffice (even if only temporarily whilst design skills are developed). Look at hosting websites for inspiration, such as Holdfire, Site5 or 123-reg, to see how other businesses portray their services.

Doing a quick search I found this website which offers free professional Wordpress themes:

- http://wordpresstemplates.name/category/business-theme/

Come up with a rudimentary brand. Branding is the essence of any business. It is an ethos which becomes visual in the form of specialised language, imagery and communication.

For example, look at Coca Cola - one of the most successful brands of all time. It has a signature red, a recognisable logo, a certain style of advert, and it uses semantic fields of authenticity like "real", "enjoy" and "happiness" consistently.

Get on paper what it is your company is about, and brainstorm words together. Collage images from flickr that relate to those words for visual inspiration. Start making those connections between what your business is to you and what your business is to your customers.

Some good links:

- http://mashable.com/2009/02/05/personal-branding-101/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_slogans

Speaking of semantics, the language used is too informal. Colloquialisms like "long story short", "POM", "confetti wedding cake" and "part of the Party of Me family" are too chatty. Another problem with the language is the occasional use of negative words. "Conceited", "must know", "you must"... this service is assuming too much of its customers. It is very imposing. The sidebar introduction also comes off as very needy. As a result I am getting mixed, negative messages.

Here are some links with very good information on the subject of writing for businesses on the web:

- http://www.fuelyourwriting.com/category/genres/seo/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copywriting
- http://www.copyblogger.com/copywriting-101/

I cannot take this business seriously as it is being portrayed right now. It may be that the service is excellent, but potential customers will always turn to a brand they can trust. They are not going to personally assess the individuals in every hosting company they are considering - part of their decision making will depend on the vibes they get from that company through their language and brand.

Take this seriously and do some research - you will find that your current and future clients will take you seriously in return. Good luck with your personal endeavours and your business.

UPDATED 07 Nov 09:
REPLY

In which case the current template is also childish. I appreciate the desire to be different and stand out, however in order to be able to break the rules you must immerse yourself in them. Do the standard thing every hosting company does, because doing so will be an education in how you can make yourself different without compromising professionalism.

I also understood your use of the word "conceited", so no questions are necessary. It is still negative. You are calling your customers conceited through passive measures and at the same time making it look like you are bitter about serving them. No one likes to be called conceited, and there is no positive context.

UPDATED 13 Nov 09:
I am impressed by the changes. A few things worth noting:

- The navigation is temperamental, and half has disappeared onto another line from "Updates & Addons" onwards. Perhaps two menu's are needed? Perhaps one could be about the services you offer, and the other obligatory website fodder.
- I like the green, but it's a bit strong. Use it more sparingly alongside more muted tones, and perhaps use an accent colour on links for emphasis. (I will include some good COLOURlovers palettes for inspiration.)
- The language has improved substantially. Excellent work.
- The type could use with more line-height. Right now it seems a bit squashed.
- Another way to break up the green could be to use appropriate stock photography to reinforce content. Go onto flickr, and use an advanced search to find Creative Commons photography.
- A contact link needs to be added to the navigation, so that it is clearly accessible and not buried in content.

The arrangement of the content boxes could do with a better hierarchy. Try:

- "Welcome to Party of Me!" & "Specials" could span 100% of the container.
- The sidebar i.e. "In the News", "What's Happening", etc. has valid content, but is superfluous to the main message i.e. that this is a hosting site. Perhaps these boxes would sit better in a 2x2 grid underneath the content (making them 50% in width each?). Alternatively there's a 1x4 grid so they'd be 25% each.
- "Your ad here" could be a vertical banner on the right, so that it does not interfere with the tracking of the content. It looks like a header right now.

Overall an excellent effort. I look forward to any further improvements.

The aforementioned COLOURlovers palettes:
- http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/871636/A_Dream_in_Color
- http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/1014409/Blank_Diary_Pages
- http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/859283/%5BL5F%5D_Scotchguard
- http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/886786/Revolutionism

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partyofme's Response:
we actually are using a premade layout right now while in the process of making our new one. the one had before was "childish" as others have said.

UPDATED 06 Nov 09:
also, the reason we say we are "concieted" or whatever is because when you think of party of me, you think of yourself and we dont want others to feel left out. so its kind of like a reversal thing [i cant think of the word right now]. if you have anymore questions, just ask.
karenboswell gave it on 11th Nov 2009 and said:
Mozilla Firefox
1440x900pixels

First Impression 2/3
Looks like a personal blog. Like everyone says, it feels like a personal blog. If you need help in designing a professional website layout, you can just google for them. They have links to "top web design layout tutorials". I can tell you want to keep the site a happy color instead of boring grey, white. It's hard, but I'm sure you'll pull it off! You can have a nice colorful yet professional logo like http://dzineblog.com/

Content 4/4
Nice content. It's informative and pleasant. I have no issues with this. Love it! Maybe you can have a "Contact Us" page, or a faq page.

Others 2/3
Everything looks good. Nothing much to be done except the layout.

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partyofme's Response:
were in the process of making a new layout. it should be up soon.

we do have a contact us page. if you click on more on the reight you will get there
Pocci gave it on 7th Nov 2009 and said:
At first glance, I thought this was a personal blog, not a hosting site. It doesn't look as professional as hosting sites look and I suggest you change the colour scheme to something less..complicated?

If I was looking to be hosted, I wouldn't pick you sorry only because of the layout. The packages are quite fair though.

When I look through the 'adopt' part, there is way too many rules. I think its possible to maybe rule some of those rules out and create a separate page for rules so its basic guidelines for everything.

Also, I think you should alter the CSS a bit, the font is a bit too big I guess and there's too much colour, especially for a hosting site.

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studiolark gave it on 6th Nov 2009 and said:
First Impressions & Layout:
Because of the design, I did not expect this to be a hosting website, but more of a personal blog or something so I was surprised when I started looking closer. Firstly, I really like the layout - the position of the side bar boxes, the navigation,etc; however, I'm not to big on the color scheme/header. The link colors of the navigation are extremely bright and clash with the already light background. The header is cute, but probably not the style you would want for a professional site. Since you are charging for the services you provide instead of offering free hosting, the layout and design of your site means much more. Webmasters will not be to hasty applying for paid hosting with a website of that color scheme

Content/Blog/Pages:
The prices and plans for your cheaper shared hosting seem good and reasonable however I'm not too sure about the plans such as Party DJ. It just seems to me that for $27 per year, Emails, Subdomains Add Ons, etc should be unlimited as they are on lots of hosting sites for that price but then again, I'm not really up-to-date with hosting and such so that could just be me.

I especially like you have Adoptable Domains on your site. I feel like it's a great addition to hosting sites and will probably bring you more business.

Organization:
Party of Me is very well organized and content has "clean look".

Spelling/Grammar:
Spelling and grammar seems pretty good; I haven't noticed any errors yet so keep it up! =]

Summary & Improvements
So just to sum it all up:
You have a pretty great website here that seems to offer quality hosting. To improve your site and your business, maybe consider a different color scheme and header, perhaps one with colors that are easier on the eyes.
=]

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partyofme's Response:
we are trying to be a hsot thats not like the rest. I have noticed that most hosting sites are similar with their layouts and we are trying to be ourselves and not like the rest.
Sillyish gave it on 5th Nov 2009 and said:
I don't think I would risk spending money or trusting my website with partyofme.com, mainly because the layout doesn't look professional.

If I had the choice between, say, partyofme.com, holdfire.net, dreamhost.com, geekstorage.com, or site5.com, I would certainly pick one of the last four rather than the first.

When you're taking money and asking people to trust in your servers, you need to put out the most professional persona possible.

So, some suggestions for the layout....
Header image:
Quite childish looking, which would be alright for a personal website but seems quite out of place for a hosting site. It's also very large, and I have to scroll down to see any content at all, a major no-no as far as design goes. You should be able to read all the basics of a site without having to scroll. I like to say that the header should take up no more than 20% of the vertical, unscrolled browser window.

I realize that there are different resolutions out there, but I have a pretty standard 1280x800.

The cursor being a cross hair at all times is quite a turn off as well.

A little more padding around the edges of the layout would look nicer, I think, especially at the bottom of the page where the copyright info is very close to the edge.

Also, when I go to a comment page, all the smiley images are broken and there's a sideways scrollbar that appears as the alt text for each smiley bleeds off of the layout and into the abyss to the right.

Might as well work on validating your pages as well. I tried validating one of the hosting plan pages and it came up that you had forgotten to close a <tr> tag.

The FAQ's in the sidebar seems odd to me. Maybe just FAQ without the s? When I googled it and found it on wikipedia, it seems that it's mostly acceptable to use FAQ or FAQs, but not FAQ's.

I know that this is a nit pick but for some reason it really bothered me!

Anyway, there are a few points for you to think about. I know it wasn't a lot but there's not a LOT to say about the layout except that I think it needs to come off as more professional. As for the content, hosting sites all have the same basic stuff, so not much to say there ;)

Hopefully I was helpful!

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WelshStew gave it on 5th Nov 2009 and said:
initial impressions:
whoa - for a hosting website this is not what I expected at all. It looks and feels more like a blog, and the childish image at the top doe snot inspire confidence in your abilities to look after my online presence.
mouse
I usually would put something this small at the top of a review, but dam it's so annoying to have those cross hairs. please can you change it back. On a more serious note, it interferes with usability.

improvements
move the blog to be an added feature, not the main one

add advertising for your products on the home-page - you do want to sell them don't you? - I would take the three best deals and have these on the homepage - check out your competition, they must be doing something right...

you need a serious redesign - I like the idea of focusing on the user and what they want, but you need to keep in mind that even for bloggers, they want to know that their website is online and being looked after by professionals.

hope that helps

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