The 1&1’s Lenexa, Kansas Data Center Grand Opening article showcases 1&1’s entry into the US market with their new data center. The Ping! Zine team was there in person to tour the facility and learn about all the latest in data center technology. Oliver Mauss was on site as well along with the facility’s development director, Thorsten Ziegler. The new 1&1 data center, like many other data centers across the country, is green. They teamed up with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (www.b-e-f.org) to offset CO₂ emissions for an environment friendly facility.

Want to get featured in Ping! Zine web hosting magazine or Gawkwire?

As a regular contributor to Gawkwire and Senior Editor at Ping! Zine web hosting magazine, I am committed to helping companies reach new audiences by sharing their news and stories through interviews, product and service reviews, and general announcements. I highly encourage you to have your media spokesperson contact me today for an interview. I am always looking for fresh, new content to write about.

Click on the Eleven2 link and browse around for a minute. The site is simple, yet elegant and has a high quality feel to it. Personally, I think it’s one of the best web hosting sites I have seen in a long time.

Best Qualities

1. Top Navigation Menu – You cannot get lost on the site. The navigation could not be any easier. The top navigation (Host, Resell, Dedicated, Develop, Help) make it very easy to find the service you want.
2. Sign Up Button – It’s the big orange button to the right of the top navigation menu.
3. Rotating Highlights – The homepage features four rotating highlights about Eleven2, its products, services, and special features. It’s in your face, but has such a great impact.
4. Bottom Navigation – Basically the bottom navigation is like a sitemap of the site. What you cannot find in the top navigation, you can certainly find it in the bottom navigation. Plus it’s great for SEO.
5. Inside Content – The site’s content is not saturated with unnecessary content. The information gets to the point quickly and gives you what you need to know about the product/service. Notice the two boxes on the right side of each page. The top box provides links to learn more about the featured product/service you are viewing. And the bottom box provides links to learn more about why you should use Eleven2 as your next hosting provider.
6. Next Step – At the bottom of each inside page you will see “Ready for the next step?” and a big, orange graphic that says “Order Your Plan Today!” just below the package details table. Great call-to-action elements, actions elements that take you to what I think is truly one of the best sign up forms in the industry.

Overall Grade: A+

Unique Feature

Before I sign off, let’s review one of the most unique features about the company itself. They provide an email and anti-spam solution for your iPhone with their new iPhone hosting platform. You can watch a video of founders Rodney Giles and Travis Weerts discussing the new feature at http://www.eleven2.com/iphone/.

Needed Improvements

Every website has elements that need to be improved, but that’s part of the learning process; consistently reworking pieces or sections of your website to make it better for the end user. Two things are difficult to find on the Eleven2 website:

1. The link to the iphone information and video page. I knew the page existed on the site somewhere, but I had to do a quick Google search with a few added clicks to find it.
2. A link to their news section. Either it doesn’t exist or the news area is hidden somewhere?

I only pointed out two elements that could be improved. Trust me on this – if you only have a couple of elements that need to be improved on your website, go reward yourself with something great, like a new iPhone (or buy one for me).

Before You Go

Take a look at the following video detailing some of the highlights, call-to-action elements, and features of the Eleven2 website.

Your Comments

Can you find any aspect of the Eleven2 website that could be improved? Please post your comments, ask questions, or request a site review. You can always send email to dave (at) youngcopy.com instead of posting your comments to the public.

1. It looks bad if you have broken links throughout your site. If your goal is to look unprofessional, go ahead, keep the broken links.

2. Search engine spiders (Google, MSN, Yahoo, and others) can’t search your site thoroughly if you have broken links.

3. Your visitors can’t find information they need if you have broken links.

You will be surprised at how many times Xenu finds a broken link even though you “thought” you covered them all. Take the extra 30 seconds to open Xenu, insert your site’s web address, and click the “go” button.

Visit the Xenu Link Sleuth free link checker website at http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html. Don’t let the alien creatures scare you off. They quickly become your friends. Who knew alien technology would benefit humankind?

Don’t forget to watch the video explaining how to use Xenu Link Sleuth in the download section. Xenu makes testing for broken links faster, more efficient, and fun. The link checker is an invaluable tool for professional technical writing consultants. Plus the aliens are cool.

MailChimp really knows how to not only develop great software, but they also know how to build a brand. I know this first-hand because they hired me to manage their optimized press release marketing strategy. Some of the unique features they recently launched include:

• Google Analytics Email Tracking
• A/B Split Testing
• Email Authentication
• Email Segmentation
• and other cool features, too many to list here

These guys are graduates of Georgia Tech University and it shows. Their creative minds combined with solid programming skills make my job much easier. How? Writing about features that require one or two clicks to configure makes it easier to promote. In fact, their optimized press releases average well over 100,000 impressions resulting in thousands of new visitors to their website.

I enjoy writing for companies I believe have what it takes to be successful. And I subscribe to blogs I find helpful in my own professional writing services. That said, I subscribed to MonkeyBrains in Google Reader (a wonderful tool for blog readers) and added their blog to my blogroll (in case you want to click on over and visit their site).

Take a look at a snippet from the review below.

“For one, it links to over 100 search engines, including Google, Yahoo! and MSN, to provide search results from all of them from Advanced Searchbar. In addition, it includes an automatic form filler, account login manager, spellchecker and pop-up protection. You can keep up-to-date with 88 news providers, weather and stock lookup features. The tool also provides access to movie show times and TV listings, and even gives you driving directions and the ability to lookup phone numbers.”

If that type of organization doesn’t get your blood flowing, what will? Head on over to the Practical eCommerce Magazine website and read the Get Organized With Advanced Searchbar article.