Policies and Procedures for Working with Igniting Your Business Website Team
Welcome aboard! I’m so excited to be working with you and your company to ignite your business! I want your experience to be an enjoyable one for you and one that represents your business to YOUR clients and customers. To that end, I’ve established a few policies and procedures for working together. I put these in writing to avoid any misunderstanding during the process.
Office Hours
My office hours are Monday – Friday 9-5. I may, on occasion, return an email during off hours but for the most part, expect an answer during normal working hours. I schedule meetings and work times during working hours just as any other business. Texts or Facebook messages will be returned during normal working hours. Work order changes that must be completed outside of these hours will be billed at a premium rate of twice the hourly charge.
Please respect my time as I will respect yours. If you find you cannot make a meeting at a place where you can focus and devote the time, please advise me so we can reschedule the meeting. The scheduling calendar will send you reminders of our meeting and attached to that reminder is a button to reschedule. Please hold onto that email in case the need arises and rescheduling is necessary. All rescheduled calls are at the “mercy” of my available scheduled time. See below.
1. All meetings and calls must be booked in advance through my calendar booking system. I schedule my time pretty closely and in most cases, I need to allow time to prepare for your call – especially if it relates to questions about your work in progress. Please bookmark the link so you will have access to it. www.ignitemarketing.acuityscheduling.com I will update you via email weekly once the project has commenced. The scheduler will send reminders of our meetings. Please make sure to add the meetings to your calendar.
As awful as this sounds, it is very hard to answer “call me” texts or messages in the time frame that will work for both of us – the calendar is easier to use. If it’s an emergency, then certainly text me or call me but for the most part, we will work off the calendar. This also allows me to set up Zoom so we can share screens as needed and talk face to face if applicable.
2. All of our meetings will be on Zoom – an online meeting system. I use Zoom so that I may record the calls if needed.By working with me, you are giving me permission to record the calls and videos. This is especially important when training on a finished product.
3. I design the sites on a full screen monitor. For our progress meetings, you must have access to a full screen monitor or larger tablet. Using a cell phone screen is not acceptable and I will reserve the right to reschedule our meetings. One of the last items on the “go live” checklist is to adjust the site for mobile so this will not be completed until one of the very last items. It takes time to correct for mobile and if you change something, I could have to revise the changes I’ve already made. Please understand this before we begin.
4. For our progress meetings – all calls must be from a place where you can focus – not a car or standing in the Starbucks line. You MUST ALSO be in front of a laptop, large table or personal computer with a monitor (see #3). I reserve the right to reschedule the call if you are not in front of a monitor and are taking the call from your cell phone. Please respect our time and make sure it’s the object of your focus.
5. All content must be in house before work begins on your website. I will not schedule your project until the content is in house. This is usually what delays the project. Once the content is uploaded to the system, a schedule will be set for deliverables. Content added after the build has started will be considered a change order to the scope of work and will be billed accordingly.
6. All documents, photos, content, etc. will be placed in either an Evernote folder or a Google Drive folder set-up and labeled for your company. (We will make that mutual decision when starting to work together.) A link will be provided at kickoff for your folder. If you are not familiar with Evernote or Google Drive, I will be happy to walk you through one of them. This will be your “go to place” for all things with your build so I want to make sure you are comfortable with the content holder we will be using. (I do not prefer Dropbox due to the limitations on the files unless you have a paid Dropbox account – then we can use your Dropbox account but I will not be able to upload to it – generally speaking.)
7. For each document or image uploaded, please label it with the page the collateral with go on plus the name of the item. For example: About_my photo. Or Services_website design. Notice the _ between the page and the title.
8. All photos must be submitted to the Google Drive with the title of the photo and MUST be the correct size. Photos must be less than 1MB in size. I’ve provided a link below to a free photo resizer for your images. Make sure they are in the correct visual position – not laying on it’s side or upside down. www.picresize.com There is a $1.00 per photo charge for resizing or repositioning the photo. (This does not include any cropping I may do on my own to the photo.)
9. I ask you to submit all website images and content through the content repository (Evernote or Google Drive.) I do not accept texts, emails or Facebook Messenger for website images or website content. It must all come through Google Drive or Evernote. I will ask you to resubmit if I receive information via these or similar mediums.
10. Social Media links – please provide the FULL URL for the specific social media. For example – for Facebook – https://business.facebook.com/ignitingyourbusiness/ is the full URL – not just the name of the business.
11. If you are providing content, please double check your spelling and grammar on the file. I cut and paste content and unless it’s obvious or picked up in spell check (here instead of hear for example) then all pages will need to be double checked before we go live. Unless editing is a part of the scope of the project, you are responsible for all grammar checks and spelling on the site. Changes to content are considered a work order and may be done at standard billed rate.
12. Prior to going live, please make sure to look over each page of the site, double checking for spelling, grammar, etc. Make sure each link is “linked” correctly and that the images are correct for the text. It always helps to have someone else look over it as well. I do the same on my end.
13. After going live, any changes to content or functionality – i.e. text, images, icons, etc. are not considered part of “warranty” and changes will be billed at the going rate. Maintenance clients may start using maintenance hours for this work.
14. Under warranty is replacing links that do not work, images not loading correctly, text that has added spacing, mobile adjustments, etc. This is for a period of 15 days after the site has “gone live.”
15. Scheduling: At kickoff, I place your website into a project management schedule with realistic timelines and deliverables. Sometimes life gets in the way with a small business and I understand that – it happens to me too. If you – as the client – goes MIA (missing in action) during the site construction, your website will go to the “back of the line” for development. Please don’t expect further progress to be at the same schedule if I have to wait on you for information. It could be up to 2 weeks before I can resume work on your site. Stay in touch with me and let me know what is going on and I can work with you on the schedule. Not staying in touch is not good! Even if you don’t have the requested information ready – just let me know that and when you anticipate the information. We can work with that!
Revisions
Igniting Your Business will provide a home page design as the basis of the design for your website. You will be provided with a spreadsheet for any revisions to the site. You will be allowed one (1) set of revisions to the home page – 1 major revision and 2 minor revisions to the design. Any more revisions than this will be billed at the hourly rate. This spreadsheet will be due back within 3 business days after the home page has been delivered to stay in scope of the time frame of the project. Revisions after this time frame will be considered out of scope of the time frame set and will affect the deliverability of the project.
After the home page design is completed, a subpage design will be submitted for client approval. The timeframe will be based on the approval of the home page. Usually within the next 5-7 working days. After the subpage design is submitted, the process will be the same as above with a spreadsheet for major/minor revisions. Time frame for response is the same as above. Once both designs are approved, the design is finalized and the site will be completed.
Major Revisions are:
- Layout changes (moving text boxes or images)
- Changing menu items (menu items are based on the information provided at kickoff)
- Changing theme options.
- Changing or modifying the header image.
- Adding or adjusting footer information
- Changing the layout of a page.
- Changing the Call to Action layout.
- Adding or changing functionality of the page or element.
- Changing text layout (centering or aligning text)
- This is not inclusive – any other items deemed “major” will be discussed at the time.
Minor Revisions are:
- Changing one color globally.
- Changing background colors. (if colors are different, each change will be considered a color.)
- Modifications to provided text.
- Changing the text of a Call to Action.
- Changing out a sample image.
- Changing sizes of logos or other provided items.
This is not an inclusive list – any other items deemed “minor” will be discussed at the time.
Any revisions outside of the above will be considered a change order and will be billed at the contracted hourly rate. Client provided content will be deemed correct and any modifications to the client provided content will be considered a major revision and will need a change order.