What website would you model your business website after?
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If you were to put together a website for a software product, what websites out there do you like, that you would model your own site after? Marc Pensieve Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson -- modified at 22:44 Saturday 22nd April, 2006
Marc Clifton wrote:
If you were to put together a website for a software product, what websites out there do you like, that you would model your own site after?
To be honest, I've never come across a decent site. Most are either too "corporate" or too 'Flash'. Have looked through this thread so far, only the http://www.divelements.com/net/[^] page really appeals to me. I like the Visual Studio home page, http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/[^] - but it has a lot of content to link to which is very difficult to have for most software products. http://www.dundas.com/index.aspx[^] is also fairly nice, for selling a graphic intensive product. http://www.theultimatetoolbox.com/[^] works well for me, apart from the cheesy graphics. http://www.frontrange.com/index.aspx[^] is also nice. http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/[^] is probably the nearest to my ideal site. (Although I'd lose the left hand testimonial bit) A lot depends on what your target market is. I like to see lots of screenshots of the product in action without having to hunt through masses of pages. Corporate customers probably look for different things, otherwise we wouldn't have all that "corporate language" on most sites. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Bl
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If you were to put together a website for a software product, what websites out there do you like, that you would model your own site after? Marc Pensieve Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson -- modified at 22:44 Saturday 22nd April, 2006
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If you were to put together a website for a software product, what websites out there do you like, that you would model your own site after? Marc Pensieve Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson -- modified at 22:44 Saturday 22nd April, 2006
Some random thoughts: ----- So few people do any kind of market research before starting their product development. Geeks just like to code, and then hope that their product will sell. There is zero market research, and zero effort to get any traffic to the website. Go to http://www.wordtracker.com[^] and http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/[^] to find out what keywords people are actually searching for. Then, when you have an understanding of the market needs, see what skills you have that matches those needs. Love to do image processing? Great! Don't just blindly start coding a tool that flips all images vertically. Find out if anyone wants it first. Or, better still, find out what problems people are trying to solve, and which of those are related to your image processing skills, and do something in that area. ---- If you are a geek, please don't design your own website. I can guarantee you that it will be horrible. Just because you can code some HTML, it doesn't mean you can design websites. If you are launching your website as a serious business, then treat it as such and get a decent web designer to do the job. You can do all the backend coding yourself, but don't touch the front end design. ----- Web design != graphics design. The purpose of a website is to sell, not to show off cool graphics or color schemes. A whole book can be written on this topic, and I don't even know where to start. ----- Features and benefits mean different things to different people, and for different products. Programming controls, libraries, etc sell more if you list their features - "Office 2003 like classes," "Automatic layout management," etc. Products for end users, even if they are programmers in their day jobs, sell more if you list their benefits - "Be more productive and obtain faster results," "Communicate and collaborate more effectively within your software teams," etc. And remember, these same benefits/features have to be presented in different ways depending on whether a manager or a programmer is seeing the page. ----- It's not enough to have a "Products" link, button, drop down, menu, or whatever else. I am not on your website so I
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Marc Clifton wrote:
If you were to put together a website for a software product, what websites out there do you like, that you would model your own site after?
None. :) I'd look at my competition... major: https://simdis.nrl.navy.mil/[^] http://www.multigen.com/[^] http://www.quantum3d.com/[^] and minor: http://www.tec.army.mil/TD/tvd/survey/survey_toc.html[^] and simply make the site better than my competition's. ;P speaking of which... we need to push our new flyer through approvals. ;) but the point is moot, I have a product, but we don't sell it, only the service: http://newtecllc.com/CapabilitiesENG.htm[^] pay no attention to the man in the beard in the back... that picture is old... but even that decision is moot... someone else does the websites... :rolleyes: _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) -- modified at 0:14 Sunday 23rd April, 2006
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
simply make the site better than my competition's
Shouldn't be too hard. Multigen and quantum3d text were too small for me to read and the huge table on the tec.army.mil site stunk. My 2 cents worth :) Paul
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Some random thoughts: ----- So few people do any kind of market research before starting their product development. Geeks just like to code, and then hope that their product will sell. There is zero market research, and zero effort to get any traffic to the website. Go to http://www.wordtracker.com[^] and http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/[^] to find out what keywords people are actually searching for. Then, when you have an understanding of the market needs, see what skills you have that matches those needs. Love to do image processing? Great! Don't just blindly start coding a tool that flips all images vertically. Find out if anyone wants it first. Or, better still, find out what problems people are trying to solve, and which of those are related to your image processing skills, and do something in that area. ---- If you are a geek, please don't design your own website. I can guarantee you that it will be horrible. Just because you can code some HTML, it doesn't mean you can design websites. If you are launching your website as a serious business, then treat it as such and get a decent web designer to do the job. You can do all the backend coding yourself, but don't touch the front end design. ----- Web design != graphics design. The purpose of a website is to sell, not to show off cool graphics or color schemes. A whole book can be written on this topic, and I don't even know where to start. ----- Features and benefits mean different things to different people, and for different products. Programming controls, libraries, etc sell more if you list their features - "Office 2003 like classes," "Automatic layout management," etc. Products for end users, even if they are programmers in their day jobs, sell more if you list their benefits - "Be more productive and obtain faster results," "Communicate and collaborate more effectively within your software teams," etc. And remember, these same benefits/features have to be presented in different ways depending on whether a manager or a programmer is seeing the page. ----- It's not enough to have a "Products" link, button, drop down, menu, or whatever else. I am not on your website so I
smaaaart wrote:
I could go on, but I think this is enough for the time being.
Absolutely fantastic advice. Thanks for taking the time to write that up. I'm printing it out and taping it to the wall. Marc Pensieve Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson
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Some random thoughts: ----- So few people do any kind of market research before starting their product development. Geeks just like to code, and then hope that their product will sell. There is zero market research, and zero effort to get any traffic to the website. Go to http://www.wordtracker.com[^] and http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/[^] to find out what keywords people are actually searching for. Then, when you have an understanding of the market needs, see what skills you have that matches those needs. Love to do image processing? Great! Don't just blindly start coding a tool that flips all images vertically. Find out if anyone wants it first. Or, better still, find out what problems people are trying to solve, and which of those are related to your image processing skills, and do something in that area. ---- If you are a geek, please don't design your own website. I can guarantee you that it will be horrible. Just because you can code some HTML, it doesn't mean you can design websites. If you are launching your website as a serious business, then treat it as such and get a decent web designer to do the job. You can do all the backend coding yourself, but don't touch the front end design. ----- Web design != graphics design. The purpose of a website is to sell, not to show off cool graphics or color schemes. A whole book can be written on this topic, and I don't even know where to start. ----- Features and benefits mean different things to different people, and for different products. Programming controls, libraries, etc sell more if you list their features - "Office 2003 like classes," "Automatic layout management," etc. Products for end users, even if they are programmers in their day jobs, sell more if you list their benefits - "Be more productive and obtain faster results," "Communicate and collaborate more effectively within your software teams," etc. And remember, these same benefits/features have to be presented in different ways depending on whether a manager or a programmer is seeing the page. ----- It's not enough to have a "Products" link, button, drop down, menu, or whatever else. I am not on your website so I
smaaaart wrote:
I am not on your website so I can find out what cool products you have, so don't be arrogant and expect me to go digging for each product and find out if it matches my needs.
This is a big issue IMHO. For an example, it is a pain to see just what Adobe has to offer. I go to thier site and you would think they only had PDF tools. There is no links from the main page to their products other than PDF unless you choose different classes of products and then drill down, PAIN in the BUMM.. It amazes me that many large scale companies have such horrible navigation on their sites. I know they have a large number of products, but there should be only one click to any product they offer. Rocky <>< Latest Post: SQL2005 Server Managemnet Studio timeouts! Blog: www.RockyMoore.com/TheCoder/[^]
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If you were to put together a website for a software product, what websites out there do you like, that you would model your own site after? Marc Pensieve Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson -- modified at 22:44 Saturday 22nd April, 2006
One site that I have used in the past (which I did purchase their ASP.NET grid) that seemed fairly complete is: http://DevExpress.com[^] The site is a little slow, but I like how I can find most things from thier home page and they provide plenty of graphics (not really screen shots but more like clips) showing a specific product. As an example, when you click on the "ASPxGrid and Editors Library" on the main page, it takes you to a fully detailed product page that clearly shows many of the nice features of the grid without having to dig for them, although there is plently of more information as links on that page. The page for the product also gives you the like to purchase or download a demo. Another nice feature is that the price is clearly visible on this product page wtihout having to dig. Personally, I think they did a great job given how many products they offer. Only wish other companies like Adobe would design their sites as clearly. Rocky <>< Latest Post: SQL2005 Server Managemnet Studio timeouts! Blog: www.RockyMoore.com/TheCoder/[^]
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Some random thoughts: ----- So few people do any kind of market research before starting their product development. Geeks just like to code, and then hope that their product will sell. There is zero market research, and zero effort to get any traffic to the website. Go to http://www.wordtracker.com[^] and http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/[^] to find out what keywords people are actually searching for. Then, when you have an understanding of the market needs, see what skills you have that matches those needs. Love to do image processing? Great! Don't just blindly start coding a tool that flips all images vertically. Find out if anyone wants it first. Or, better still, find out what problems people are trying to solve, and which of those are related to your image processing skills, and do something in that area. ---- If you are a geek, please don't design your own website. I can guarantee you that it will be horrible. Just because you can code some HTML, it doesn't mean you can design websites. If you are launching your website as a serious business, then treat it as such and get a decent web designer to do the job. You can do all the backend coding yourself, but don't touch the front end design. ----- Web design != graphics design. The purpose of a website is to sell, not to show off cool graphics or color schemes. A whole book can be written on this topic, and I don't even know where to start. ----- Features and benefits mean different things to different people, and for different products. Programming controls, libraries, etc sell more if you list their features - "Office 2003 like classes," "Automatic layout management," etc. Products for end users, even if they are programmers in their day jobs, sell more if you list their benefits - "Be more productive and obtain faster results," "Communicate and collaborate more effectively within your software teams," etc. And remember, these same benefits/features have to be presented in different ways depending on whether a manager or a programmer is seeing the page. ----- It's not enough to have a "Products" link, button, drop down, menu, or whatever else. I am not on your website so I
I noticed that you mentioned that the dundas.com web site does not make it easy to download or purchase. The top of every page has a standard menu that lets you go directly to the purchase page, and the download page (along with other popular links). Since you missed this, I am wondering if other people miss this as well. It would be great to get feedback from you and others about our top menu and overall site navigation. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Troy Marchand Dundas Software Ltd.
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Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
simply make the site better than my competition's
Shouldn't be too hard. Multigen and quantum3d text were too small for me to read and the huge table on the tec.army.mil site stunk. My 2 cents worth :) Paul
computerguru92382 wrote:
Shouldn't be too hard. Multigen and quantum3d text were too small for me to read and the huge table on the tec.army.mil site stunk. My 2 cents worth
I actually don't like our site much better... but... I am not the graphical designer for it. Our new flyers are REAL good (my personal opinion) so we will see. I am constantly being complained to for competing against the other groups. It wasn't deliberate, I just made something "slightly new" then everyone had to try to prove I was wasting my time and their money by comparing their code to mine... when they loose, they complain. :rolleyes: as for the huge table.... that wasn't my competition... the entire contents of the table is my competition. Interestingly enough, we are not on that table even though they did request information from us... at least if we are, I haven't found it because it is too large to find any one thing. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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computerguru92382 wrote:
Shouldn't be too hard. Multigen and quantum3d text were too small for me to read and the huge table on the tec.army.mil site stunk. My 2 cents worth
I actually don't like our site much better... but... I am not the graphical designer for it. Our new flyers are REAL good (my personal opinion) so we will see. I am constantly being complained to for competing against the other groups. It wasn't deliberate, I just made something "slightly new" then everyone had to try to prove I was wasting my time and their money by comparing their code to mine... when they loose, they complain. :rolleyes: as for the huge table.... that wasn't my competition... the entire contents of the table is my competition. Interestingly enough, we are not on that table even though they did request information from us... at least if we are, I haven't found it because it is too large to find any one thing. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
I actually don't like our site
What is your site? Paul
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Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
I actually don't like our site
What is your site? Paul
computerguru92382 wrote:
What is your site?
My company's... the one I said ignore the guy in the back... I have lost some weight from that picture. http://newtecllc.com/CapabilitiesENG.htm[^] Admitedly, I think it would look better without me in the picture. ;) _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) -- modified at 20:40 Sunday 23rd April, 2006
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computerguru92382 wrote:
What is your site?
My company's... the one I said ignore the guy in the back... I have lost some weight from that picture. http://newtecllc.com/CapabilitiesENG.htm[^] Admitedly, I think it would look better without me in the picture. ;) _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) -- modified at 20:40 Sunday 23rd April, 2006
You all look busy working in the picture. Your company's site is better than those other ones. Doesn't hurt to look at areas to tweak it though. At least you guys don't have a huge table like the one site I mentioned about (not just the table but the color choice of presenting the table). Paul
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I noticed that you mentioned that the dundas.com web site does not make it easy to download or purchase. The top of every page has a standard menu that lets you go directly to the purchase page, and the download page (along with other popular links). Since you missed this, I am wondering if other people miss this as well. It would be great to get feedback from you and others about our top menu and overall site navigation. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Troy Marchand Dundas Software Ltd.
Troy Marchand wrote:
The top of every page has a standard menu that lets you go directly to the purchase page, and the download page (along with other popular links).
I see it and whenever I visit a site that has development tools, this is the first thing I look for. After I find it, then I look at the contents of the site and what is offered. If not, I pass on. Paul
