Cloud Provider Website Review

[ThatDevAaron]

Hi, I'm Aaron, we previously held a thread for this exact company here: https://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/vps-hosting-website-review.428019/

We can from now consider that thread, CLOSED

We've since our last post changed our website, immensely, based on the advice we got from others. Added many more pages, etc.

We'd love opinions, we're primarily looking for insight from others in the tech industry, however all are welcome <3

Website: https://hammervm.com​

 

[EnterprisePro]

Who's your target market and audience? My worry for you in this space (as in the VPS/hosting space) would obviously be the competition you have from the likes of DigitalOcean or Hetzner.

If you're targeting business owners/leadership, the content will need some work. If you're targeting the dev or tech community, my observation would be that those folks already (somewhat) have their preferred go-to places.

Don't take this as criticism, but take it as constructive feedback but I couldn't tell from your opening Hero section what the differentiator is. Affordable and reliable hosting is subjective. Can you think of what really sets you apart and what would make one want to read further than the first part of the page?

Another thing - I think you're using Tailwind CSS, but it does have a bit of a Bootstrap feel. Nowadays, light/dark mode would be good.

One last point that came to mind - do you have a dashboard? Perhaps a screen capture of what that dashboard looks like would be good in the Hero section.

Favicon didn't render on my side btw.

 

[ThatDevAaron]

Who's your target market and audience? My worry for you in this space (as in the VPS/hosting space) would obviously be the competition you have from the likes of DigitalOcean or Hetzner.

If you're targeting business owners/leadership, the content will need some work. If you're targeting the dev or tech community, my observation would be that those folks already (somewhat) have their preferred go-to places.

Don't take this as criticism, but take it as constructive feedback but I couldn't tell from your opening Hero section what the differentiator is. Affordable and reliable hosting is subjective. Can you think of what really sets you apart and what would make one want to read further than the first part of the page?

Another thing - I think you're using Tailwind CSS, but it does have a bit of a Bootstrap feel. Nowadays, light/dark mode would be good.

One last point that came to mind - do you have a dashboard? Perhaps a screen capture of what that dashboard looks like would be good in the Hero section.

Favicon didn't render on my side btw.

Target market is tech/dev/cybersec community, however our services are suitable for most cloud users.

From our year-long experience, we've seen what I'd call very very good growth, primarily because we're undercutting the market right now, and people are actually open to trying new providers to find better deals, and better hardware.

I understand the bootstrap feel you have, we're working to slowly improve on that, however, we are one of the very few providers with a bespoke client area and vps management area etc, so that alone is a great USP. We didn't want to go all-in on a specific style, so we've kinda kept it at what we'd consider an "enterprise layout", just pure information etc - we don't want to get confused with a lower quality host, we're most definitely what I'd class as enterprise, as we do not at all provide Web, or Game hosting etc, only VM/PHYSICAL servers.


Your advise is great, I look forward to it prompting further discussion.


Our dash:

 

[EnterprisePro]

Target market is tech/dev/cybersec community

Then its probably best to have something that will attract that cohort of users. I still sit in tech/dev/DevSecOps camps despite my role, and I can say that cohort can be brutal, especially if you're a technology company.

however our services are suitable for most cloud users

I think here is something you may want to think about. "most cloud users" is ultra broad. I'm sure you know this already, but a reminder doesn't hurt. There are cloud users who use apps without having any awareness of the infrastructure stack. There are then business executive/leaders who are only interested in business-level objectives and will have constraints on budget vs. outcome. Then there are the technology folks whom as I have said above can be very brutal and would almost always judge a book by its cover. Not all, but most of the ones I've worked with are like that.

From our year-long experience, we've seen what I'd call very very good growth, primarily because we're undercutting the market right now, and people are actually open to trying new providers to find better deals, and better hardware.

If price undercutting is the gameplay here and you're offering what looks like commodity VPS systems, then I'd suggest presenting your offers so they are annual plans and then show the monthly equivalent pricing. Some of my customers are looking to repatriate their runtime stacks back into private data centres because of the cost creeps and leaps that happens with AWS and the like. If you can offer 1-year or 2-year fixed pricing, you may be on to something. You'd need some solid SLAs in place and contingency funding to mitigate any risks of downtime or business operational issues.

understand the bootstrap feel you have, we're working to slowly improve on that, however, we are one of the very few providers with a bespoke client area and vps management area etc, so that alone is a great USP.

"Bespoke client area" - how do you mean? How is it different from DO, Hetzner, AWS etc? They all have client areas and are multi-tenant, where needed.

We didn't want to go all-in on a specific style, so we've kinda kept it at what we'd consider an "enterprise layout", just pure information etc - we don't want to get confused with a lower quality host, we're most definitely what I'd class as enterprise, as we do not at all provide Web, or Game hosting etc, only VM/PHYSICAL servers.

Alright - if its enterprise-layout and if you are catering for that market, then much needs to be done in terms of the text content. Enterprise customers are brutal too and if you can't capture their interest in the first nanosecond, then they'll be gone in no time.

If your business has some certifications or awards, or even if you have any technology partnerships, you could put some case studies up. Similarly, for enterprise, you could also showcase specific industry alignment.

I could go on but I don't think that will help your motivation or demeanour. What I strongly recommend is stepping back and looking at your business plan and model and focusing on that area. Build a little business plan too for yourself. Its easy for things to slip out of sight and mind on the following day, so having a single document that covers your direction will help you.

 

[ThatDevAaron]

Then its probably best to have something that will attract that cohort of users. I still sit in tech/dev/DevSecOps camps despite my role, and I can say that cohort can be brutal, especially if you're a technology company.



I think here is something you may want to think about. "most cloud users" is ultra broad. I'm sure you know this already, but a reminder doesn't hurt. There are cloud users who use apps without having any awareness of the infrastructure stack. There are then business executive/leaders who are only interested in business-level objectives and will have constraints on budget vs. outcome. Then there are the technology folks whom as I have said above can be very brutal and would almost always judge a book by its cover. Not all, but most of the ones I've worked with are like that.



If price undercutting is the gameplay here and you're offering what looks like commodity VPS systems, then I'd suggest presenting your offers so they are annual plans and then show the monthly equivalent pricing. Some of my customers are looking to repatriate their runtime stacks back into private data centres because of the cost creeps and leaps that happens with AWS and the like. If you can offer 1-year or 2-year fixed pricing, you may be on to something. You'd need some solid SLAs in place and contingency funding to mitigate any risks of downtime or business operational issues.



"Bespoke client area" - how do you mean? How is it different from DO, Hetzner, AWS etc? They all have client areas and are multi-tenant, where needed.



Alright - if its enterprise-layout and if you are catering for that market, then much needs to be done in terms of the text content. Enterprise customers are brutal too and if you can't capture their interest in the first nanosecond, then they'll be gone in no time.

If your business has some certifications or awards, or even if you have any technology partnerships, you could put some case studies up. Similarly, for enterprise, you could also showcase specific industry alignment.

I could go on but I don't think that will help your motivation or demeanour. What I strongly recommend is stepping back and looking at your business plan and model and focusing on that area. Build a little business plan too for yourself. Its easy for things to slip out of sight and mind on the following day, so having a single document that covers your direction will help you.

We certainly have a lot to work on when it comes to what kind of market we're trying to attract, and cater more toward that, currently we're working on collecting some useful demographic information to better understand our existing clientele.

 

[EnterprisePro]

@ThatDevAaron is your datacentre in Chicago? Do you have a data centre here in Britain?

 

[fisicx]

I asked the question in your other thread but didn't get an answer.

How are you planning to market the service? Your marketing plan will determine the structure and content of the site.

What you don't make it clear is these are bare metal servers. Which narrows down your target customer base.

And not having a local data centre may put off potential customers.

 

[EnterprisePro]

And not having a local data centre may put off potential customers.

I've just had a customer who's thrown their toys out because of some issue at Hetzner in Germany. They now want to re-deploy some key critical infrastructure here in Britain. The problem is less about data laws or even latency, but more to do with the contracts and SLAs. I don't blame the cynicism, but CTOs and other execs who've spoken to me have become more intent on having 'England and Wales' as the Governing Law in their contracts.

With @ThatDevAaron 's offerings, the only thing will be, the people I know will want a physical tour of the datacentre if he has the datacentre here in our great country.

 

[fisicx]

All you could do in Chicago I assume is point to a rack and say ‘one of those’.

 

[EnterprisePro]

All you could do in Chicago I assume is point to a rack and say ‘one of those’.

very true.

Just to give you a picture, I personally set up their site-to-site tunnels to connect a company's private network across multiple subnets across multiple data centres, for extra compute, business operations and failover. There's also automatic database replication happening cross-site. The folks I'm working with have quite a thorough due diligence process so they even check if the public IP addresses of the gateway actually do indeed point to the gateway running in the particular data centre.

On a broader note, demand for sustainable data centres is obviously on the up. Have you heard of the HeatHub?

 

[DontAsk]

On a broader note, demand for sustainable data centres is obviously on the up. Have you heard of the HeatHub?

Which one? The only one I have seen that might be relevant is a cluster of Raspberry PIs. Hardly a data centre in the accepted sense.

 

[EnterprisePro]

Which one? The only one I have seen that might be relevant is a cluster of Raspberry PIs. Hardly a data centre in the accepted sense.

Ha! Yes, true! I saw that one too. To be honest, I only read about something similar, including the one on the BBC page: bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rpy7envr5o, but I thought the concept was interesting.

Truthfully, I haven't run any numbers as I'm spinning too many plates atm, so I've not looked into it any further. The thought only came back when my customer called me this morning to grumble about Hetzner (which I've managed to sort out for now) and asked for a local independent UK solution that they could potentially own.