Bringing to mind the website hosting: 10 tips

When developing the poiskvps.ru website , I often visit websites of hosting providers and constantly come across them with the same drawbacks. Therefore, I decided to summarize my experience and write a few tips for creating really convenient sites for selling hosting services.

Tariff Information

Most often, the user gets to the main page of the site, and the transition to the site is performed in most cases in order to find out the cost of maintenance and get other information about tariffs. If you provide several types of services, then the tariffs can not be detailed in the main page. It is better to briefly describe the range of prices and give a link to more detailed information.

Limited number of fares

If your business expands and you add new locations in which you provide hosting services, make sure that this does not confuse the user. Agree that it is much more convenient for the user to choose between five identical tariffs in three different countries, rather than between fifteen approximately the same tariffs, but having small differences. Tariffs in different countries are not very different (for example, a different amount of traffic), but this approach confuses a potential client and reduces conversion.
As an example, I can cite two tariffs of one hoster: the tariffs in two different countries are completely identical, except for the amount of traffic, but the user can easily “get lost” due to the large number of similar offers.
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Quick registration

If the user got to your site, then you need to make every effort so that he does not go to the competitors. If you force the user to go through a tedious registration procedure with many fields, then some customers may fall away at this stage. In my opinion, to register a user, you need to leave only one field: an e-mail, which will act as a user name, and either automatically generate a password or optionally request a password.
Examples, in my opinion, are good and user-friendly forms for registration. After entering the e-mail address and password (in the second case), the user is immediately transferred to the control panel.

Full tariff description

Most often, customers who buy a virtual or dedicated server are not housewives and at least somehow understand the features of service provision. Therefore, when describing tariffs, you should pay attention to details and provide more detailed information about servers. For example, for virtual servers, I consider it necessary to indicate the type of virtualization, the type of hard disk, the amount of traffic, the width of the channel and the country of placement. As an example, I want to give a screenshot from the site of one hoster, which clearly shows a lack of information.

Support and pre-sales questions

In most cases, a potential client will want to ask a few questions to his future hoster, so it’s worthwhile to provide fast communication channels. Now more and more often on the sites of hosters you can see online consultants. There are quite a few advantages of such a widget - the user will be able to quickly get answers to his questions and talk to a living person. However, it’s easy to overdo it with an online consultant: the automatic appearance and sounds of messages may not appeal to everyone. For example, if I hear the sound of an online consultant who is actively offering me something, I immediately close the page and leave the site.
In addition to fast support, it is worthwhile to provide a feedback form from the site and an e-mail. However, with requests by e-mail, you need to set everything up very well: very often I see that hosters “tie” the e-mail for questions to BILLmanager billing, which in turn asks to confirm the e-mail address in order for the message to be delivered to the hoster . I am sure that at this stage a certain percentage of potential customers go to competitors. You can also describe on the website the working hours of the customer service department and the approximate time for receiving a response. And most importantly, do not forget to check your mail, and sometimes it is very funny to read the replies to letters that were sent a week ago. By the way, the record that one of the hosters set when answering my question is 24 days to answer .

Secure connection

I am sure that users posting their sites want their information not to fall into the wrong hands. The first thing you need to do is set up billing over SSL. However, as practice shows, not all hosters want to use an https connection, and users access the site without any protection via http. Even more unfriendly to the user is the use of a self-signed certificate. I am sure that almost everyone who sees the browser message about an invalid certificate will immediately close the tab.

Different payment methods

The slow development of bank cards in Russia prompted the creation of a large number of different online payment services and electronic money, so users are used to choosing what to pay them, and the lack of their usual payment method can lead to the loss of a client, therefore connecting a large number of payment methods should increase conversion. Also, information on methods of payment should be placed somewhere in a prominent place, for example, so that the client can immediately find the necessary information.

Billing

When opening a new project, the hoster has a problem: write your billing or buy an already written version. Naturally, many use the second option, so billing for many hosters look the same. There are very few minuses in this regard; of the biggest drawbacks, only weak possibilities for non-standard actions can be noted. I personally have a tremendous respect to the hosting provider, as it’s obvious that people approached the issue very seriously, but you need to get things done with your designs. I saw several billing systems in which any actions could be performed only by creating a ticket to the service department, that is, the billing was just a list of services without the ability to perform any action.

Spamming

After registration, every self-respecting hoster receives an e-mail address of the client. Naturally, the hoster believes that the client needs to know about all the changes in the work of the hoster, and begins to send spam in its pure form.

I will give examples of several such letters:

We would like to inform you that from June 24, 2014 the Robokossa payment system is integrated.
Also, do not forget that a 10% discount is available on all tariffs of dedicated servers.

Only 2 days you have the opportunity to get a bonus + 20% to recharge via Yandex Money or QIWI.
The minimum amount of replenishment is 1,000 rubles, the maximum amount of replenishment is 15,000 rubles.
The bonus is calculated automatically within 24 hours after making the payment.
The number of payments that can take part in the bonus program is not limited.

We are glad to inform you that you have the opportunity to order any of the existing tariffs, for a week to test, the cost, respectively, can be found on our website.

Good time of day.
Would you like to visit a data center in the US?
No problem, our team prepared for you a brief description of the data center with which we cooperate.
In order to see how the Internet lives in the USA, and not only, we invite you to visit our data center.

We inform you that from May 21, 2014, the text of the Agreement on the provision of information services will be amended in connection with the change of the Director General of the Horn and Hoof Joint Stock Company.

By default, any hoster believes that if a user is registered on the site, then he wants to know absolutely everything and voluntarily subscribed to the newsletter. However, as practice shows, it is possible to register with a hoster very imperceptibly. For example, billing BILLmanager can process incoming emails. If the system received a letter from an unknown sender, then a response is sent to the client with a request to confirm something there. As a result, after clicking on the link the user is registered and subscribed to various messages.

The reasons for the commission of such mailings virtually no need. Here are excerpts from letters about the reasons for receiving the letter:

Newsletter made in accordance with the Agreement on the provision of
information services.

You have received this email because you have previously registered on our site.

But the most important thing is not the “content” of such a newsletter, but the impossibility of unsubscribing from it. Almost all of these mailings can not instantly unsubscribe from it. And if the link to the termination of the mailing is, then it requires authorization. It is easier to send such letters immediately to spam.

SMS verification

Some hosters will disagree with me, but from the user's point of view, SMS verification does not look very friendly. Some hosters have introduced the practice of checking the client’s phone number by sending an SMS code, which the user must enter before purchasing the service. In large cities, buying a SIM card without a passport does not take much time, so this way of verifying customers will not stop fraudsters, but it can discourage a potential client from ordering services: not everyone likes to leave his or her phone number to someone.

I hope my advice will come in handy and hosting sites will be a little more convenient.

PS Thank you andorro for help with preparing the text.

PPS I thank the hosting company VDSina.ru for supporting the project.