We think you are going to like this. MajesticSEO.com is making the huge usability leap that so many people have wanted – starting with a major overhaul of the site theme, navigation and layout. From today you will be able to find functionality that you never knew existed and at the same time we have added some tools and functionality and overhauled others.
Majestic SEO last had a major overhaul just over a year ago, in October 2010. We were happy with the positive feedback received, but are not one to rest on our laurels. Our last website update involved a shift in technologies from bespoke PHP to off the shelf with Perl / Catalyst. This time we have focused on the front end, in particular the look and feel, with a little tidying in one or two areas.
We have tried to avoid second version syndrome by taking a pragmatic approach to the delivery of this project, with many exciting features still waiting on our TODO list.
Our homepage demonstrates the philosophy with this project – we have tried to reduce the complexity of the presentation of some of our content, and adopt a clearer, more consistent feel across the website. After much experimentation and discussion between Dixon, and the project team, we adopted a slightly retro feel, which helped facilitate more colour and vibrancy in the site.
The facelift travels from the homepage, as does the use colour, and addition of icons – we have heard from customers that they liked our site, but found the number of panels in shades of grey a little more prevalent than they would have liked. We have strenghtened the iconisation of our reports and tools, as illustrated in the “Site Explorer Ships Wheel” seen in the background and upon the tools menu to the right of the screen.
We have started to take baby steps towards re-organising our menu structure for our reports and tools section. As we have added more tools, space has started to become a premium, and hence after studying usage, some tools have been moved off of the main banner menu to a additional dropdown. Joining these tools is our new comparator tool – providing an alternative view of data of multiple sites or pages.
Our project team had at its core two undergraduate students from Wolverhampton University School of Technology and Wolverhampton School of Art and Design working on the design and implementation – Savvas taking responsibility for designing images and layout, with Harpreet taking the role of coder and implementor. Dixon took the role of internal client, with our development team providing mentoring and support to them during this project. Whilst Harpeet and Savvas had not worked together prior to this project, they formed a good team based on dialog and a respect for each others knowledge and experience. We feel they have delivered a good product and look forward to continuing to work with them as we further enhance the site.
Steve has a been in tech since the late 90's, learning the ropes with a UK e-retailer through much of the first dotcom boom after developing a passion for the web during his BSc in Computer Science.
Steve has been engaged with the Birmingham tech scene for years, co-organising the grassroots open-source conference YAPC:: Europe 2008, and founding the West Midlands Java User Group in 2014.
We’ll be publishing positive views as well as negative, but it would be most helpful to us see constructive critisism that will help us improve new design.
If you do not wish to post it publicly then please feel free to use our contact form here:
Please return old design, this is too 90’s… older was more professional looking. I hate such as bright colors, also strange orange line, its like a 2 years old kid drawings on wall.
1st off… Well done for moving to Perl & Catalyst….
I have to say that I also don’t like the design… I agree with the other poster. The design is lacking…. hard edges, harsh colours.. poor use of white space. And the header… well it looks like it was hand drawn…. by a not so steady hand.
The overall design lacks polish… it actually looks pretty amateurish.
It certainly doesn’t convey Majestic SEO’s standing in the industry…. I would not be surprised if your conversions take a hit….
I am sorry to hear you did not like our new design, I’d like to comment on just two things here:
1) the line you are referring to isn’t meant to be perfectly straight – just like many of the backlinks history charts that we show on our site
2) it’s very early days but we have not observed a hit in registrations/conversions and it is our hope that our standing in the industry is due to the data that we provide and that has not changed, well – not technically true, we’ve had fresh index update done just now, so the data is fresher!
I’d be happy to take any constructive comments on board, but the reality is that it is difficult to please everyone with new design even though we try our best.
We have received a number of comments over the last 24 hours – both positive and negative.
There was a common theme amongst some of the more constructive comments, focusing on the new background images, and the orange in the header – this view was most prevalent amongst some of our longer customers. We do value the input and opinion of our existing customers, and do not wish to lose them in a grab for higher conversion, so we have have taken some of the earlier comments onboard, and toned down certain elements of the new design – the orange has been reduced around the header area, and the background images have been removed. We have also removed the symbolic line representative of our index in the top bar.
Please keep the comments coming – we will continue to review all feedback, and look to implementing further changes in the forthcoming weeks.
Out of respect for those commenting above, we would like to add that the images in this blogpost have been updated to reflect the adjustments made as a result of feedback – We would like to thank Ryan, Mantas, Greg, Tyseo and Robin for their comments, and extend our gratitude to all of those who contacted us privately.
Please take the other negative comments with a grain of salt.
People tend not to like change because, at the core, they are afraid of it.
All you have to do is tone down the orange, or turn it to a soothing green. Tweak a few border sizes. And all of a sudden these people will like the design.
But then you’ll hear complaints from people who are personally repulsed by green, for whatever unquantifiable reasons.
Put 10 of these people in a room and they’ll spend all of next week trying to figure out which color is better. All the while ignoring the real design and usability enhancements you’ve made.
The new design is much more usable than the old design. Your conversions may dip among current users because there’s a new learning curve, but your conversions among new users will surely rise. It is a big improvement. Good job, guys.
I don’t normally count design all that important. Functionality comes first as far as I am concerned. If the tool works fine. Design can come as the last effort.
By the way, I have come across certain tools which have been redirecting me to SEO Majestic even the ones I paid for. I have been wondering whx should they send me here and not the Yahoo site explorer as before.
Now I have the answer. I even noticed that Majestic SEO returned a lot more than siteexplorer and after testing those links confirmed that they were genuine.
Thank you all for the comments on the design. We have plenty to work with, so we will not be publishing more comments on this thread, but would ask you to send comments on the new design via the support system.
I’m sorry but I don’t like the new design! 🙁
November 15, 2011 at 6:25 pmRyan and Matans, thank you for your feedback.
We’ll be publishing positive views as well as negative, but it would be most helpful to us see constructive critisism that will help us improve new design.
If you do not wish to post it publicly then please feel free to use our contact form here:
https://www.majesticseo.com/support/contact-us
November 15, 2011 at 7:27 pmPlease return old design, this is too 90’s… older was more professional looking. I hate such as bright colors, also strange orange line, its like a 2 years old kid drawings on wall.
November 15, 2011 at 6:57 pm1st off… Well done for moving to Perl & Catalyst….
I have to say that I also don’t like the design… I agree with the other poster. The design is lacking…. hard edges, harsh colours.. poor use of white space. And the header… well it looks like it was hand drawn…. by a not so steady hand.
The overall design lacks polish… it actually looks pretty amateurish.
It certainly doesn’t convey Majestic SEO’s standing in the industry…. I would not be surprised if your conversions take a hit….
November 16, 2011 at 2:25 amHi Greg,
I am sorry to hear you did not like our new design, I’d like to comment on just two things here:
1) the line you are referring to isn’t meant to be perfectly straight – just like many of the backlinks history charts that we show on our site
2) it’s very early days but we have not observed a hit in registrations/conversions and it is our hope that our standing in the industry is due to the data that we provide and that has not changed, well – not technically true, we’ve had fresh index update done just now, so the data is fresher!
I’d be happy to take any constructive comments on board, but the reality is that it is difficult to please everyone with new design even though we try our best.
Alex
November 16, 2011 at 3:37 amHi all,
We have received a number of comments over the last 24 hours – both positive and negative.
There was a common theme amongst some of the more constructive comments, focusing on the new background images, and the orange in the header – this view was most prevalent amongst some of our longer customers. We do value the input and opinion of our existing customers, and do not wish to lose them in a grab for higher conversion, so we have have taken some of the earlier comments onboard, and toned down certain elements of the new design – the orange has been reduced around the header area, and the background images have been removed. We have also removed the symbolic line representative of our index in the top bar.
Please keep the comments coming – we will continue to review all feedback, and look to implementing further changes in the forthcoming weeks.
Alex
November 16, 2011 at 5:57 pmI just saw the new design minutes ago with a client and that was an “oh my god wtf” experience. The orange colors were bizarre.
But after all, the functionnality are still there, the website is as usable as before so this is alright.
November 16, 2011 at 6:48 pmI like the new design.
How about giving us a choice in the main color instead of using orange all over?
November 17, 2011 at 2:28 pmOut of respect for those commenting above, we would like to add that the images in this blogpost have been updated to reflect the adjustments made as a result of feedback – We would like to thank Ryan, Mantas, Greg, Tyseo and Robin for their comments, and extend our gratitude to all of those who contacted us privately.
November 18, 2011 at 7:02 pmI like the new design too.
Please take the other negative comments with a grain of salt.
People tend not to like change because, at the core, they are afraid of it.
All you have to do is tone down the orange, or turn it to a soothing green. Tweak a few border sizes. And all of a sudden these people will like the design.
But then you’ll hear complaints from people who are personally repulsed by green, for whatever unquantifiable reasons.
Put 10 of these people in a room and they’ll spend all of next week trying to figure out which color is better. All the while ignoring the real design and usability enhancements you’ve made.
The new design is much more usable than the old design. Your conversions may dip among current users because there’s a new learning curve, but your conversions among new users will surely rise. It is a big improvement. Good job, guys.
November 22, 2011 at 4:53 pmI don’t normally count design all that important. Functionality comes first as far as I am concerned. If the tool works fine. Design can come as the last effort.
By the way, I have come across certain tools which have been redirecting me to SEO Majestic even the ones I paid for. I have been wondering whx should they send me here and not the Yahoo site explorer as before.
Now I have the answer. I even noticed that Majestic SEO returned a lot more than siteexplorer and after testing those links confirmed that they were genuine.
I am loving it.
November 22, 2011 at 6:05 pmThank you all for the comments on the design. We have plenty to work with, so we will not be publishing more comments on this thread, but would ask you to send comments on the new design via the support system.
November 22, 2011 at 11:46 pmI tried several tools to check backlinks, but this is the only true results has given me, I think it will prove to underwrite payment.
November 26, 2011 at 1:08 pm