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.