It’s important to be sure of the website you want, the direction you want to go in and the standards you expect when starting a website design project with a website design company, take a look at this example project to see how easy it is to take your eye off the ball. This particular example website project has a client that turned out to be confused about most aspects of business and building / running a website which proved particularly problematic for the design process and everyone involved.
[Website Designers] Hi it was nice talking to you today, I will email your old website designers today about transferring your website. I will subsequently email you / chat with you about your options but basically you have two main ones:
1, Update your current site without a redesign / SEO / Improve it in its current format (approximate 7 hours work)
2, Create a new website that is ‘responsive’ (one that looks / works perfectly (and easily) on every device / browser), is WordPress CMS (you can update it), we promote it (SEO Friendly CMS system). This will be the most suitable for you requirements.
The website will be promoted (SEO) to make it rank higher in the search engines and bring in more enquiries (by increasing your website visitors) SEO is Built into our packages depending on the package level.
We will create Webcopy (text for your website) as well as checking the existing text – approximately 4000 words
Any package will include the website transfer / hosting / domain / email setup / the redesign / optimising the site for the search engines / review of all the existing webcopy on the site (and adding more where appropriate) / Google Analytics setup / Google Local setup / Google Webmaster setup. In short there is nothing missed or nothing that will be charged for as an
Any website package we do for you will need a 50% deposit then a final payment once we have completed the project.
The text to be sent to your old website designers is
With the website owner’s permission can you transfer this website for us? We have agreed to transfer the site for her then look after the site
Any problems please phone / email me personally using the numbers below. I have cc’ed the owner into the email and obviously you are at liberty to phone / email her to confirm this request
[Website Designers] Please find attached the invoice confirming our project plus the payment to the previous website designer so that he will then transfer the domain to us.
I attach our invoice (invoice 580) and their invoice, if you pay myself I will instantly pay him to enable the release / transfer of the website, we have already got the website code / photos from your existing website. I will subsequently work on a list of things we need from you and for you to confirm so we can start your new website project. Your old website design company said the following:
There are some outstanding fees owed by the company for that site. If the fees are paid up to date I will happily transfer it over.
I stated that I’m happy to act as intermediary, can you send me the invoice and if agreed by Denise that she will pay them I will pay you on her behalf via bank transfer to enable the transfer to proceed
[Website Designers] Received deposit with thanks this morning, We will now schedule your project and confirm we will create you a newly designed bespoke website that is ‘responsive’ (one that looks / works perfectly (and easily) on every device / browser), is WordPress CMS (you can update it), we promote it (SEO Friendly CMS system). This will be the most suitable for you requirements. The website will be promoted (SEO) to make it rank higher in the search engines and bring in more enquiries (by increasing your website visitors) SEO is Built into our packages depending on the package level. We will also create more Webcopy (text for your website) as well as checking the existing text for uniqueness and search engine friendliness.
The agreement between ourselves includes the website transfer / hosting / domain / email setup / the redesign / optimising the site for the search engines / review of all the existing webcopy on the site (and adding more where appropriate) / Google Analytics setup / Google Local setup / Google Webmaster setup.
What we need now is for you to review all pages and give us your corrections / additions / more photos / additional text, would also like to add a FAQ page for all the common questions and answers you give – please give us as many as you can
Questions
1, Can you provide more photos to us? Send via our file sharing site, I will send you an invite
2, Do you use [email address] as your primary website email address? If not do you want to use the main domain address? I can set this up for you easily
3, Please confirm the areas you want us to optimise the site for.
Told the old website designers that we would appreciate them absorbing the £12 transfer fee, especially as I have already persuaded you that the £75 fee they charged for work that isn’t on the site should just be written off. The £75 charge was for making the site suitable for mobile viewing, it was queried as we have agreed to make it responsive for you as it isnt responsive now.
[Old Website Designers] Can you send me the name and address for the new registrant and the Tag to transfer it to – no push, just before Monday please. Am I ok saying you will pay the Nominet transfer fee – I think it’s £12.
The website was originally done a number of years ago but I tweaked it a bit earlier this year and made it more mobile friendly. She agreed the price but was having a rough time when the invoice was due do I never chased it up properly. I am quite happy if she has paid the account up to date to transfer it to you. Can you just clarify she has:
- Paid the invoice I mailed you
- Is happy to have the address supplied as her public visible address ( I just don’t want any comebacks with this as it’s not normal for a lady to use her personal address)
I can’t help with the fees Nominet will charge though I am afraid. I will get everything done regarding the transfer Monday on my return. Hope this is clearer.
I have initiated a Nominet names transfer over to your email address. Once that is finalised I will send you over all the relevant details. Do you want the file sending over containing all her images etc? (I haven’t checked but I am sure I have it filed away somewhere. As you know the website is quite an old site, created originally in ‘sitemaker software’ (Moonfruit). I have not used Moonfruit in ages but I have created you an account (A free one) but I will have to change the email address to yours.
I quite happy to get paid the balance and pass that ‘one’ over to you! Word of warning (off the record) I am not sure about the website owner – She has rather a strange split personality and can be quite nasty with it! When she is quiet, she calls and calls and seems to think her not being busy is some conspiracy against her. I know she has had some rough times with her health but I am not sure she really should be doing what she does, but that certainly not for me to suggest! She has a list of Directories she advertises on so that should help you with it. I do wish you luck with her though, think you will need it.
[Website Designers] We have completed the website transfer and have added website statistics and setup yourself to receive a monthly report of your website visitor.
I would like you to have additional pages under services that clearly give info about what you can do and these will be attractive for customers and the search engines. I suggested two new services and if you can add anything then that would be good, would also like to add a FAQ page for all the common questions and answers you give – please give us as many as you can
So you have confirmed that Essex is the area we need to optimise the site for (it’s currently not even on the site so the new one will be 100% optimised for Essex. We will use the copy on the existing site to form the basis of the new website text / pages.
Some of your banners were not working / showing so they have been removed and the website is now transferred and working, we can begin work on the new site pretty quickly and will show you that to get your approval before we put it live. I have double checked the moon fruit website that was passed to us and the banners are simply not there, the new site will have these banners lined up and organised much better.
If you send the photos you were sending previously (or happy for you to let us simply use the ones we have already) and try to answer the questions above then we will be able to make a start, if you want to leave it all to us then that’s fine also
Website Notes:
Areas Essex. Charges £160 an hour 10 mile radius., there after that additional charge. 100 an hour thereafter. Copy off my old website for introduction. I don’t know what to do to be honest needed a web guy to tell me what I need. Why my sight and banners are not working. Need to go back on all the other links with change off area and prices. Really don’t want to be doing it myself you’re the expert.
I went on my banners yesterday there not active yet, showing on my sight but I’m not on there’s will need all codes and id numbers. When you finished thanks.
We haven’t completed the draft design but happy to hear your comments so far but wasn’t intending showing you this draft design yet as we haven’t completed it yet. I think I understand that you are saying that when you go on the websites that are linked from your banners you don’t see a listing, if that’s the case then you need to add these listings, I assumed that the reason you had all the banners on your site is because you already had listings on those sites
[Website Owner] Big thing when designing websites for escorts is the banner exchange, otherwise it’s waste of time, the website will not work correctly. I can not do this I said in the beginning banner exchange is important. Other web guys who know about escorts do this as standard practice. I thought the last web guy has all the codes and links, if I had them would have given it a go. When he signed the website to you I thought all this additional information had been passed forward. Looks like have to go on from the beginning. That’s why we bought the website from the other company so I would have more control off the whole website. I thought when you added the banners that you activated them. All there’s no point being there.with out them no matter how good web site nothing will happen and will remain lifeless as it is now am finding this stressful. The whole point in getting a web designer is to prevent all this.
[Website Designers] We know how websites and adult / escort websites work for sure but it’s a mistake to have lots of banners on your website before you have links from other companies / directories, am happy some listings for you but will need your email password to renew your listings (punternet etc). As I said you are listed on quite a few directories already, you never mentioned you expected us to create listings on 3rd party sites and no admin / access info was passed over to us but if you give me your email address password I can get one of our admin team to renew some of your listings.
[Website Owner] I most certainly did I said banner exchange you said you didn’t need it. I’ve never known a web designer that gets there client to do everything. I don’t have any details off Google my last web guy did all that and has that. I find it quite worrying that my first conversation with you I said my banners are not live. Punternet one isn’t. I think after all this I am going to end up with nothing. I even told you unable to offer Incalls. And now you’re blaming your client not good. I gave you the first lot off money to you 5 weeks ago how long is this going to take. There seems no urgency with you. Almost couldn’t care less just another escort.
[Website Designers] This is silly and not getting us anywhere. Banner exchanges are important to you and so we have included all your banners on the new site, the old site had them all messed up and now we have them displayed in rows / easy to see and view.
I am not getting you to do everything but ‘assuming’ and expecting us to re-renew / join business directories that you are a member or (or not a member of) is like expecting your Accountant to make great Coffee just because last one did. I have said we are willing to add you to the ones you have (like punternet) if you give us your email password (as that’s the email account you used to register with them I assume) and we can do that for you even though it wasn’t requested / offered previously. We are trying to help honest! There is massive urgency with us and if your now happy with the website we will put it live and progress with the optimisation.
Your website doesn’t mention / offer incalls and I do care of course, really quite frustrating for me to think that you think that, we are on the same size and want your site to be a success so give us your email password and will add you to some directories and get the site live for you.
[Website Owner] That’s reassuring but I did not put,my self on any banners the last web guy I have no codes or information that’s why I came to you. I don’t like the thought off owing you the final payment and if I don’t get in right it will take ages to pay you. I want it up and running so I can pay you what I owe as soon as possible. It has to go on punterlink . Other wise all the work you do is pointless. I’ve never had anything on credit if I can’t afford it I just do not have it.thats why when I first spoke to you I had not much money and thought you could do something with that, you advised me to spend a little more to get best results.
[Website Owner’s Friend] I am contacting you on behalf of my client with reference to the new website that you have agreed to re-design and make efficient whilst cost-effective. She has informed me that so far there seems to be an anomaly since the site appears to be non-active, and there seems to be no actual revenue from these adjustments to reflect the cost incurred.
I would appreciate an update to the work carried out and completed and also to what is still outstanding prior to further monies being disbursed, as the cost seems to be rather excessive for what has supposedly been completed, and I feel sure there is a reasonable explanation for this, which I look forward to receiving at your earliest convenience.
As you can appreciate my client is not very computer literate and this is why she has engaged a professional company to assist her and as a business advisor I naturally must reconcile and validate all financial expenditure, with a view to future revenue being received to reflect the expense.
[Website Designer to Old Website Designers] You have proved to be 100% correct so far. She has now told us that its our responsibility to get her website listed on all the companies featured on her banner adverts even though this wasn’t requested or even suggested previously and as we are nice people we have agreed to this (anything for a quiet life to get this one finished and put live). She has told us that you have her email passwords to facilitate this and has requested we ask you for it Therefore can you give us the password to her email account?
[Old Website Designers] I suspected as much! I did feel a bit awful myself for passing it on to you but it was an opportunity to get paid for work I sure you understand. Lots of the links should still be current if she is using the same domain name, which should help you. I generally charge additionally for links as they take me loads longer to do than the site and its invariably a pain. She has changed quite a lot of passwords but I have attached the notes I made at the time.
[Website Designers] The website owner has given her permission to discuss the website but to avoid either of us wasting our time I will give some info to clarify the situation as of this point:
1, The website was put live earlier today after we completed development work. Any comments about website performance is slightly premature at this stage but we made some immediate improvements on the site on transfer and the site’s visitors are looking healthy currently.
2, The website was transferred 3 weeks ago after 10 emails / conversations with the previous website designer and we actually arranged the final invoice and as a company we paid the transfer fee.
3, Development has now come to an end (pending last-minute updates / changes) but the optimisation (promotion / polishing of the website now begins).
4, We have spent some time previously talking to another friend of the website owners with her concerns and she has phoned and emailed one of my developers about the website, this simply confuses everyone involved in this project. In future I propose that we deal with website progress / updates via a 3 way email conversation but am happy to deal with yourself directly at the website owner]s request.
5, Full details of the agreement was sent on the 19th October where we agreed a ‘Responsive’ / Content Managed Website with Advanced SEO / Additional services and new text (webcopy) / Adding new photos to the website and in summary it includes the website transfer / hosting / domain configuration / email setup / the redesign / optimising the site for the search engines / review of all the existing webcopy on the site / Google Analytics setup / Google Local setup (if required) / Google Webmaster setup.
6, Since the website has been developed she has requested that we add her site to 20 (approx.) 3rd party websites that correspond to her banners.
7, Claims of costs being excessive are not appropriate or helpful, we are a premier league website design and SEO company and after agreeing a project and costs find it inappropriate to then justify costs charged / agreed. The project cost is agreed and the final payment is to be made at the completion of the project, I have previously made it clear that if finances are difficult then we can agree a payment program / schedule of payments. I will also add that this project is not performance based and it could never be but we would expect to see website visitors increase over the next 12 months steadily as a result of the improved website / SEO work.
8, The comment about the site being non-active and no revenue being received from the changes are covered in points 1 but in summary, the site is active and changes in revenue can’t be measured or expected since the site has only gone live a few hours ago. For reference Google and the other search engines may take 4-6 weeks to re-index the updated website.
Website Updates:
1, Website put live
2, Old site archived
3, Redirects from all old site links made
4, Checked all website links internal and external
5, Robots.txt updated
6, Added to google webmaster tools
[Website Owner’s Friend] Thank you so much for updating me and I now see that extensive work has been done, and I agree that there should not be too many people involved in numerous pointless conversations as this certainly creates nothing but confusion and we are all busy people.
I believe that in-calls are not possible at this time, if that clarifies your question. Other information requested will come directly from the website owner but please do keep me updated as necessary and although I personally do not fully understand the machinations of this service I do understand finances. I am pleased to hear that the site is now active and naturally would expect sufficient time to pass before seeing immediate results. Thank you again for the prompt reply,
[Website Designers] The new / relaunched website has been live for less than one week, it’s not even been indexed by Google yet so performance of the website isn’t something that we need to focus on yet. Please be assured that your website has been redesigned / relaunched / optimised and results can’t happen overnight, its unreasonable and happy to discuss this further but feel it’s a waste of my time and yours by worrying about it at this time. Be assured we know what we are doing and for re-assurance to yourself we have previously created ‘new’ (yours has an advantage as it’s an older site) escort sites and within a year they already receive a huge amount of visitors and calls / emails every month.
I think we still need clear answers to these questions to complete the website
Additionally you must understand that by taking Essex off the site (if that’s what you decide) you are potentially removing a huge customer base.
