The best websites constantly evolve, get updated and improve, here is an example of how websites can get updated but also shows how much we protect our client’s websites and how careful you, as a website owner, need to be when trusting someone with your website updates when you allow them full control in approving updates / changes. The following conversations are generic and based on what may have been asked of us over the last 12 years.
New Website Manager – I just wanted to highlight some amendments for our website. I understand that you’re busy and sorry to infringe on your schedule.
I have attached illustrations of the changes that we would like made. Although these were from the mobile version, can they be translated to the web version? We have a Privacy Policy we need posted.
Most foremost, we need the image of the on the homepage changed immediately. We need it to be replaced with images that reflect our target market. I have attached examples of what I mean. Please note, the images are not licensed. Can we find license-free stock photos?
We have a PayPal account we need linked to the site as a matter of urgency. Plus, we’ve also had some people moan they have not received confirmation emails which we must provide by law. Can we ensure this process is still working?
There are a number of other minor changes we wish to make such as photos and text. Is there anyway we can make minor changes to the website ourselves without having to bug you every minute? Does the website have its own login details in order to make changes? Finally, can you send me a copy of the website registration for my admin records.
Website Design Team – Glad to have some feedback / suggestions / updates / improvements to the site, and will complete these quickly and efficiently, like we do for all clients but more so for yourselves as you are a new website with good sales coming up to the ‘important’ period for yourselves.
When we don’t understand / agree with some requested tasks we will do our best to accommodate these, clearly we work on behalf of your company and will question / need confirmation of changes that we believe will harm the website / marketing / SEO, which I think is generally appreciated and apologies if this comes over as anything but ‘caring’ as the website’s success is our success and having built / promoted nearly 500 websites over 13 years with some with turnovers in millions be assured we know what we are doing. One change requested below would have instantly disabled the website so hope this due diligence approach we have to website updates is appreciated and not annoying to you.
Believe its best if all changes are left to us initially and as you can see from the effort / thought and consideration we put into the changes its going to always be in the best interest of the marketing / website / SEO. The website doesn’t have its own domain registrar access, we don’t give website registration access to any client (its accessed via our own master account) but rest assured its legally registered as requested initially. I am happy to talk to the website owner about website registration if required.
Updates completed
1 updated privacy policy, assumed this was an update to the existing one, couldn’t see any changes but we cut and paste the new one section by section, if you want any specific changes to this document or any text please highlight the change made to make it more efficient thanks
Updates Pending
1 Will remove search function from mobile menu.
Changes that we are not sure about / Need Consideration / Confirmation / Won’t work
1, Remove ‘login’ as ‘customers don’t need accounts’ – Believe this is standard website ecommerce / woocommerce functionality and is correct / logical and normal on ecommerce sites, customer do need accounts for this site don’t know why you would suggest otherwise ? We stronly disagree with this change and havent completed it as its not in your website’s best interest.
2, Menu Order Change – You want to move the FAQs to the last item, we know that faqs pages are really valuable / popular and useful and by putting them after contact you are changing a website ‘convention’ (contact page being the last item on menus) so we disagree with this change
3, Remove product sorting
This is only visible on Mobile due to the amount of products shown on the page, myself and my team looked at this request and after careful consideration think that this can only be achieved with core code changes to the woocommerce system which we believe can probably be done but there is a risk in changing this code and every 2 weeks the code will get updated (approx.) requiring remedial code updates so believe this isn’t a change that will benefit the site / be recommended
4 PayPal urgent change – PayPal email address request to change from your old address to the website email address will assume this is a business upgraded email account. If we had done this as requested the shop / payments would fail to work. Payments cannot be taken as the ecommerce system requires api credentials to process the payment correctly, therefore please provide api credentials (live api username / password / signature). Believe we got them previously from your account and happy to do it again if you provide PayPal email / password, alternatively you can get them from the PayPal account and send them via email. If you are going to get them yourself please be careful and send them exactly as provided by PayPal or the system will fail to operate – We disagree with this change without API credentials
Forgot to address the concern about emails, believe until today emails were being sent to info@ account instead of the correct account, this has been addressed today and wont change when the paypal account is changed over.
All emails to the client are sent automatically and we checked again that this works and confirm all orders are automatically confirmed via email, we checked the latest order (the one today which had confirmation of order has been received with full details today at midday)
5, Change cover photo – Personally I believe this image ‘works’ and matches the text on the front page. Would argue that sales / use of the website proves that this image is effective also but happy to change if you think it will increase sales, need you to select a image (in landscape) format from this stock photo agency and give us the exact link please
My requests / concerns
1, Products – should we remove one of the products? believe its duplicated / redundant?
2, Facebook Feed – believe myself was removed from ‘Admin’ of the Facebook page, this has caused the website Facebook feed to become corrupt / stop working – please can you re-add me as ‘Admin’ of this page, this is the only way the feed can work, am admin to over 200 Facebook pages so you can be assured of security / confidentiality.
Am concerned about the tasks being allocated for the website, but will complete them as required, can you confirm that these tasks are updates / improvements / changes that we can charge for once completed. Am happy to talk about my reservations over the phone if needed.
We got The Facebook Feed updated / fixed (this may take a few hours to synchronise correctly on the website)
We swapped over the paypal account, this was done early evening so will check that orders received after this time are taken correctly
Changed FAQs to be just before Contact on menu
Changed the headline on Benefits to, cant change menu text as that would ‘break’ the display as it would then be too long
Terms and Conditions are legally required and are important for ecommerce websites and GDPR compliance and we can create you a legally compliant one if required but they are definitely needed not being GDPR Compliant brings a huge fine (if convicted)
Will address other points later
Website Manager – Thanks for getting back to me, and your assistance with the site. I have responded to each of your points stated below:
I just wanted to clarify that the website owners have given me full authority to make changes to this site. I hope this was made clear to you by either of them. Let me know if it wasn’t.
I requested domain registration details as I am trying to put all our admin affairs in order, and thus requesting paperwork from all our business partners. I have been asking this information from the website owners for a while now, and they have subsequently authorised me to request such information. I appreciate your assurances, but I am requesting the information strictly for admin / filing purposes, and making sure our ducks are in a row. Please do not take offence if this appears question your integrity.
I appreciate you do not wish to share your master account details nor am I request this. I was just inquiring if the site has its own login details.
If customers wish to sign up for accounts this needs to be expressed clearly in the “Login” item. There is no facility for them to do so there. Customer’s ability to sign up for accounts appears to only happen once they go through the purchasing process at the “Check Out Details”. Clicking onto “create an account” comes beneath the “Billing Details” sub-heading. This may confuse some customers. Can we add this function to the Login item. We aim to make the process very clear and simple. I still do not think it is necessary for customers to have an account as we sell only 2 items, but I’ll accept your expertise here.
I accept the technical implications of removing the sort function on the mobile version.
Thanks for removing the text from the FAQs. However, you have left a colon from the pasting of text. Please rectify.
From my understanding of using websites, FAQs are among the last items. I can’t remember seeing a site where FAQs was the 2nd item. I have attached screenshots of sites from big brands in similar fields. In almost all cases the FAQs are among the last items. Can we make changes that reflect/mirror this?
I shall provide you all API credentials later today.
We want the cover photo to reflect our core customers who are young energetic people. The current photo has a bit of a negative outlook when it’s relief and smiles we want to project. I have attached a photo from Shutter Stock (I searched quite a lot to find it) I wish to replace the current photo. We can leave the same cover photo under the “Contacts” items, although I might ultimately change this also. But I definitely want the cover changed.
The original intent of the text on the home page when I wrote it was to go under an “About” item next to “Home”. Can we still do this? When we change the current cover photo we can replace the headline (we will eventually have a track on the site with this tag line)
I accept your recommendations in relation to image duplication. Thank you!
I will chase concerning Facebook admin.
There is an amendment needed on the social media section on the Home page. I have attached a new header and text.
Please remove “Terms & Conditions” as this is unnecessary.
There are other minor issues, but they are not crucial at this point.
I appreciate that this is a lot to burden you with. I also need to know what was your arrangement with the website owner as far as remuneration. Again, just making sure our ducks are in a row and to avoid any confusion. Please let me know if there are any outstanding financial issues so I can chase that up.
Once again, thank you for your response and assistance on this issue.
Thanks for the updates done so far. The pic selected by us reflects what we are trying to project. Please can we not update the slogan. I had a different image in mind at the time. I saw the slogan update, but it appears it has reverted back to the original, the old slogan may work with the image in the contacts item. What do you think?
Also, thanks for your suggestion for the FAQs. I will do a write-up for that and send to you asap. Much appreciated.
I have the understanding that the privacy policy covers issues concerning GDPR. However, I will accept your recommendation on this issue, and again appreciate your input.
Website owners said you suggested giving me a tutorial masterclass in order to be able to do the less technical updates myself. I believe this is an excellent idea, and I am eager to see what I can learn from you, as I do not wish to bombard you with requests. I can attend at your convenience, and appreciate you schedule is tight, especially at this time of year. Please let me know when you will be able to do this.
I await for some of the other updates, and when you can conduct the masterclass. Once again, I appreciate all you have done for the website its really going well and bring in lots of sales.
