Its common to have a ‘friend’ that thinks they can create great websites and promote websites better than professional website designers and SEO experts and its natural to believe friends as you have built up trust with them over many years instead of trusting a website professional but in the case below the trust was misplaced as a ‘friend’ was misleading a website client about their capabilities and understanding of website design and SEO that could have ended in tears. Fortunately the cilent ended up having a redesigned Responsive website that increased their website visitors dramatically over a few years.
[Website Design Company] Hi [website owner] hope all is well with you, please find attached the latest domain renewal / hosting renewal email for the next two years. If you want to discuss improving / updating / promoting your website we would be glad to do this for you and think we should chat to discuss what improvements are recommended / needed to keep your website ranking highly.
[Friend] My name is Ian and I have been working with one of your clients for a few months now helping with his new website and having looked carefully at your new domain renewal / hosting invoice you have submitted, we have decided not to proceed with your hosting package thank you. This because his domain name does not actually expire until Jan 2017 and also the website is not producing any enquiries, so we are just going to point the domain name to his new other new website. Thank you for your help and understanding. I am a Web Developer / Online Marketing Specialist and the client did not at anytime ask for renewal of any website hosting and as he was never contacted then he does not owe any money to you and wont pay your company anything. The Domain name was purchased by the client and belongs to him.
[Website Design Company] Got a strange email from someone using a Hotmail address that cant spell his own name correctly that looks like spam but the website he references belongs to you so there must be something in it. I can phone you later this afternoon but I urge you to come to your senses and not get suckered into this situation with this other website / person – the website they are proposing should be your new site is not-responsive – and full of copied content, another of my clients was suckered into a scam like this and it cost him his business.
Your website hosting period is correct but as the start date has already come we have manually renewed it for you, in the email it suggests we are being disingenuous or misleading but the fact is your domain registration / hosting / email period ended on 16th Jan and we renewed it manually for you and now require payment.
I hope this clears things up and hope you appreciate my thoughts / advice here, the last thing your website needs it to be pointed to a good looking site full of copied content. High ranking / good functional websites are our trademark and we have built hundreds of sites and promoted hundreds sometimes building website visitors of over 2000 per day within 6 months so we know what we are doing but you obviously need to invest time and effort (and money) into your website / SEO / social media / marketing to improve your online presence and we are happy to help. Please call (after 12 Tuesday) if anything I have said is not clear. Out of courtesy and as standard practise we renew the domain, can I now assume that you don’t want the domain / website / email?
Additionally another person has contacted us asking for ftp access to your site, assuming you have ‘employed them’ I need to tell you that by default we don’t give 3rd parties ftp access as your account doesn’t have a dedicated ftp account / cpanel system and going back to other clients when they have done this before this has previously resulting in ‘SEO’ companies breaking the site and putting lots of links on the site resulting in one going out of business due to the collapse in visitors on their website.
I would really advise you against using these type of SEO companies as from previous experience they will promise you the world / deliver nothing and charge lots – we have lots of ideas to improve / promote your site and happy to discuss.
If you insist on the ‘friend’ having access to the website will change your account to be a standalone account and give you ftp access (we wont send this to a 3rd party but will send it to you and you must be responsible for the actions of this company and cannot hold us responsible for any negative effects of their actions) Obviously will help and support you as you request. Creating your own account and allocating you a ftp code and access is a chargeable admin / support function and will add the charge to your next invoice which will be sent shortly and will include your hosting payment also.
