Think your site is good?...Think again.

I spent many hours challenging the layout and content of Guardpost Online to ensure that it was a good product. Yet, no matter how finalized I think it gets, I find there is more to be done. One of the hardest issues to identify is where the pricing appears on the site, and another is the verbiage on the site, and lastly, I felt the pricing model could be even more simplified.

I posted on several web forums and learned some things about the site, that wouldn't have stood out to me, otherwise. The pricing was "hidden" at the bottom of the first page or past one to two clicks. It needed to be highlighted better. Some users also felt the site was too business-like and professional to be inexpensive, so that I likely lost some possible customers to it. Changing something as small as the opening text can make all the difference. Meanwhile, the pricing model was fairly simple with only two packages, but I narrowed it down to one. The pricing is more than aggressive and the cost for the other services easily beats most, if not all, the competition. The trick is getting people to realize this.

I'm working on a comparison sheet between Guardpost Online and some other vendors that should highlight that although they'll state "$4.95/Mo" web hosting, there are other costs associated with the hosting that are easy to find. In some cases, there are setup or cancellation fees. In fact, one company I contacted about their cancellation fees never actually answered the question of what the cancellation fee was. They simply stated that the cancellation fee was prorated after the first 30 days of service to the point of cancellation. When asked to define the rate of proration, they danced around the answer and never expressly stated it. I spoke with two people at that company and got nothing.

This is bad business, in my opinion. Guardpost Online will not do that to a customer. You should know what you're getting before you pay. It's that simple. We have no setup or cancellation fees and our site development and design services, etc. are not billed at hourly rates. We charge a flat fee. You don't want this to be difficult or painful, nor do we.

I hope our customers are happy with our services, as it is a reflection on who we are as a company. As stated earlier, even my own impression of our site needed to change in order to improve it.

Have large files to pass?

For many years I have witnessed people struggling over getting their large files to and from others. I have had to be creative in my suggestions for them, depending on their resources. Now, there are many companies working on cloud computing to make this type of interaction, among others, easier.

For those that don't know what cloud computing is, it basically means that you will use your internet browser as your operating system (like Windows, Linux, or the Mac OS). This way, any physical computer problems you have along the way shouldn't affect your files (as they will be stored elsewhere). Those files will be accessible to you and to whomever and however you wish. Your applications will also operate from that environment. In fact, I'm beta testing one such system now, about which I cannot speak (I'm bound by terms of agreement). All I can say is that you can expect great things from the many companies working on projects like this, in the coming years.

Now to my point. The biggest payoff is the sharing of large files and information. Information is becoming easier these days (take this blog, for instance). Files are another story. This is where I introduce two services I just learned about. One is Box.net. The other is Huddle.net. Both allow users to create a low-end free user account to pass files back and forth or to store them for access from any browser. Huddle takes this approach a step further by adding collaboration tools for project management and more. This isn't exactly new (E.g. Microsoft Sharepoint, Joomla, Mambo, Blackboard, and countless others).

Box.net offers accounts that add more space and better features, for a price, but the price is minimal for what you get. The interesting thing to know is that most business products that are geared toward one type of service, and are good at it, are usually considered best of breed. This means the product is focused, specialized, and tends to get much better, more quickly.

Huddle.net is more expansive in it's offerings, and also offers enhanced accounts for a price. The prices are a good bit higher than Box.net, but you get more. That said, it's hard to say, at this point, which is better for file sharing. I learned about both through my LinkedIn profile, because both offer a LinkedIn-specific application module for their services.

I am testing Box.net right now with a client of mine and we'll see how well it works for us. I'll post more on this later, when I have some type of assessment.

Take care for now.