✉️ Email automation series - Onboarding new clients

We really can't express how thrilled we are that you've decided to partner with us on your WordPress website. It means everything that you trust us with the well-being of your website.

WordPress is about to get a whole lot easier for you. Let's get started.

1. First things first - we need access to your website! 

Here are the login credentials we need: 

• Your website address (www.yourwebsite.com)
• Your WP dashboard username
• Your WP dashboard password
• A link to your hosting provider or cPanel (godaddy.com, https://gator4207.hostgator.com:2088, etc.)
• Your hosting provider username
• Your hosting provider password

And here's how you can safely and securely get them to us. Please double check that they work before sending them over:

• Enter all your login credentials here: One-Time Self Destructing Links For Sharing Sensitive Information
• Click Generate Link to retrieve a short URL
• Reply to this email with your short URL
• When our team visits this link, we'll be able to access your login credentials. The information is then destroyed on One Time's system and can not be retrieved again.

2. Please review our FAQ page. People ask us questions all the time that are answered right here, so let's get on the same page so we can be an even better technical partner for you. 

3. Here are a few plugins we'll be adding to your website as part of your new plan. If you think any of these plugins might conflict with your current WordPress site or you've implemented any custom code at all, reply here and let us know ASAP! 

4. Here's how website edits work (Protect Plan and Perform Plan only):

• You create a list of improvements whenever.
• Send us your changes via email
• Within 48 hours, we've finished your edits. If you've opted into our Perform Plan Pro, they'll be finished much faster. Virtual high five!

5. Here's how you get in touch with your new WordPress support team. 

• Email (email@yourdomain.com): Email us, day or night, 24/7/365 and we'll get your edits done.

If you've opted for our Protect Plan or Perform Plan, we've added a few goodies to your site:

• WP Rocket ($199 value): a premium caching plugin that speeds up the loading time of your site. 🚀
• Imagify ($120+ p/yr value): automatically compresses all images across your site for faster loading time. 📷
• iThemes Security Pro ($297 value): a complete security solution for your entire WordPress website. 🔐

If you don't see them installed in your dashboard just this minute, they'll be added very soon.

We just wanted to let you know that once we have access to your site, we'll be implementing your new plan. If you've already given us all your login credentials, we've already been working on your website and should be nearly finished. You'll receive your first website report on Monday (if you haven't already). Here's a nice sample of what the report will look like.

If you'd like to change the frequency of your reports, just let us know!

We're more than happy to help you make changes to your website anytime. 🔧

But can I be real with you?

This relationship really only makes sense if we're able to work well together.

That means while we take responsibility for keeping your website secure, backed up and well-maintained, you take responsibility for getting us the information we need to complete your WordPress tasks effectively. 💪

So we're here to help you do that.

1. Rate your tickets ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

When your tickets get solved, you'll be able to rate us. The more feedback we get, the more we can improve for you. I personally review every piece of feedback we get so it's all being used to improve your experience.

2. Use Loom 🎥

This Chrome extension allows you to take quick videos if a written email or screenshots just won't cut it.

3. Include screenshots 📷

This is super helpful for our technical team. When you send images of exactly what's wrong, we can nail down exactly what needs to be done.

UNHELPFUL: "I need the attached image added to my blog post!"

HELPFUL: "Please add the attached image to my blog post (wpbuffs.com/this-specific-blog-post/) and see the directions below to put it in the right place. Thanks!"

• Snipping Tool (Windows, Free)
• Jing (Windows/Mac, Free Trial)
• Skitch (Mac, Free)
• Snagit (Windows/Mac, $50)
• FastStone Capture (Windows, $20)

4. Add a descriptive subject line 👌

It's best to include high-level details in your subject field so that we'll know exactly where to go to make the changes you want.

UNHELPFUL: Subject - (No subject)

HELPFUL: About Us page needs realignment.

5. Be as specific as possible 📏

Include as many details as you can when you're giving us edits or tasks to complete. That way, we know exactly what needs to be done.

UNHELPFUL: "My website has some spelling mistakes. Please fix them all ASAP!"

HELPFUL: "My About Me page has the word "Wordpress" in it but it should be "WordPress" with a capital P. Please change that when you can!"

6. Include the browser or device you're using 💻

This will help us to troubleshoot the issue and fix it faster. If we're looking at your website on Chrome but your issue was on Firefox, that's something we need to know.

UNHELPFUL: "My website's header looks funny! Please fix it!"

HELPFUL: "The background color of my header looks a little off. I'm using Google Chrome on a tablet. Please fix this when you can!"

7. Include links to where changes need to be made 🔗

This way, we know exactly what page you're referring to and can go right there when making any necessary edits.

UNHELPFUL: "One of my blog posts needs a featured image. Please add one!"

HELPFUL: "This blog post needs a featured image. Please add the attached one: wpbuffs.com/this-specific-blog-post/"

8. Be nice 😁

This one is really underrated, but please remember that we are real people helping you, not just magic WordPress robots. We like to have fun running our business, and that means not dealing with intolerable customers. Being mean or overly-demanding probably won't get you very far.

UNHELPFUL: "Here are 50 edits I need done on my website within the next hour. If you don't get it done, I'm leaving you a 1-star review!"

HELPFUL: "Here are a few changes I need to my site. If you could get to them as quickly as possible, I'd really appreciate it. As always, appreciate you guys and thanks for kicking butt!"

Our goal is to be the very best technical support partner for any individual, business or organization with a WordPress website. But you can help us do that by making our job just a bit easier.

If you've signed up for our Perform Plan, we're already assessing and improving your website's speed. We'll be emailing you with the results very soon.

If you want to upgrade from a Maintain Plan and have us speed up your website, just reply to us here and we'll make it happen.

To do performance enhancements, it usually takes about a week for us to get everything working properly.

Because every website has a unique theme, plugins and core files, we have to make sure we speed up your website taking all those into account. We don't want to make any changes that will crash your site, so we make updates slowly but surely to help you score better here.

Thanks for your patience!

But we did want to touch on one thing that's really important. Unfortunately, page speed is not very well correlated with scoring well on tests like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTMetrix.

The simple truth is this.

Your Google PageSpeed score does not matter.

That's right. You read that correctly.

We understand that this is a bit counter-intuitive to most people, so let us explain.

Speed, i.e the loading time of your site is the most important metric. This is what counts for user experience and for SEO. When the Google bot crawls your site, it cannot see your “grade”, only your speed.

But Google PageSpeed doesn’t even measure the loading time of your site.

Here are 3 websites all with similar load times, but with vastly differing PageSpeed scores.

Between these 3 sites, the loading time ranges from 465 ms – 596ms but the PageSpeed scores range from 58 – 91.

And this site has a really good PageSpeed score but is slower than all 3 above.

So you can see from these examples that the Google PageSpeed grade is not an indicator of speed.

This is why we focus on decreasing your page load time (what really matters) as much as possible and not on improving vanity metrics that won't really improve your website's performance.

That being said, we understand you probably want to score well on these tests regardless. We do our best to improve your Google PageSpeed score and our team will let you know if there are any big changes we need your permission to make.

Reply here if you have any questions at all. We're here to handle your website needs and hopefully teach you a thing or two along the way.

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Let's be real here for a second. Whoever thinks their website is never going to go down is just being unrealistic.

At some point in the future, your server will have downtime, a plugin update will crash your website or a theme conflict will cause issues. 😱

But with our support and thorough testing before every update, you're significantly better off. But the fact remains that at some point, something out of our control will cause your website to go down. 👍

Here's the good news.

This is exactly what happens when your website experiences downtime.

• Your website goes down for any reason at all. 😱
• Minute 1: We ping your website every minute of every day to check that it's up and running. The minute your site goes down, our automated monitoring sees it. 🔎
• Minute 1: Our team receives an instant email and chat notification that your website is offline. 💬
• Minutes 2-5: A group of the biggest WordPress geeks on the planet are making any changes necessary to get your site back online and addressing any ongoing issues. 👼

This happens 24/7/365, which means you can go about your day and sleep soundly every night knowing your website is in good hands.

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If you ever think about doing anything risky with your website, it's possible there are a few more precautions you can take to avoid the infamous white-screen-of-death. 

These are the most common ways people crash their websites and where you should be extra careful:

• ❌ Messing around with the theme editor. Under Appearances > Editor, you have full access to your theme files. Making incorrect changes here is an easy way to cause a fatal error and bring your website down.
• ❌ Installing "bad" plugins. If you add a plugin that has a major conflict with your core files or simply isn't compatible with your current version of WordPress, you'll risk a significant error.
• ❌ Not renewing (and paying for) domains and hosting. If you're getting emails that your website will go down if you don't continue paying for your domain or hosting, you're running the risk of your site getting shut down.
• ❌ Making major changes to any files via File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Even one wrong keystroke here can crash your website, so be cautious when making any changes via FTP.
• ❌ Implementing Domain Name Server (DNS) changes yourself. Making a mistake here can cause your website to fail immediately if things aren't pointing where they're supposed to.

These are all easy ways to cause a fatal error. If you have any questions, why not ask your support team before making major changes so we can give you the green light?

But remember - if anything does go wrong, we're here to handle it.

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Wow. We just wanted to give you a round of applause. 

This is a big moment for you. 

This marks the point in time when you said, "I want to really grow this thing and I know my time isn't best spent worrying about technical WordPress issues. Yes, this is one more subscription I'll be paying for every month, but this one will give me the time and resources I need to dream big about my website and make the moves necessary to keep growing it." 

And it's true. Partnering with us puts you lightyears ahead of your competition. While they're dealing with a hacked website and scratching their heads trying to make simple changes, you'll be marketing, getting more traffic and building relationships that will lead to the growth you want to see while we take care of the technical stuff. 

Instead of rambling on and on, we'll leave you with a huge congratulations for thinking big and investing in a partnership that will pay for itself 10x over.

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Keeping your website secure is a team effort.

We're doing everything we can on our end, but you can help us out. If you're adding new plugins to your website, you need to make sure they're not going to put your site at risk.

Here's a quick checklist of things to check before you add a plugin:

• ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Make sure the plugin has lots of 5-star reviews. This means that most people who have used the plugin are extremely happy with it, meaning the risk of using is lowered dramatically.
• 👍 The plugin needs to be compatible with the current version of WordPress. If this is the case, it means that the plugin is actively being maintained by its developers and won't cause any major conflicts between your core code or other plugins on your website.
• 🔎 Always Google the plugin to make sure there aren't any major issues. The WordPress community is a very active one, so if there are any major problems with a plugin, there will be information available online about it.

If you take these three steps before adding any plugin, your chances of maintaining a secure and high-performing website are significantly higher.

But remember - if anything does go wrong, we're here to handle it.

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You've been working with us for a while now.

You've become a loyal partner to us.

So, we wanted to ask you something... 

It's pretty clear you care a lot about your WordPress site. And it's even more obvious that partnering with us means less technical WordPress headaches and faster growth.

The thing is...we want to help as many WordPressers as possible. 

And that's where you come in.

Here are a few ways you can help us out:

• ➡️ Forward this email to someone. That just takes a few seconds!
• 💬 Post about us on social media. Facebook and LinkedIn groups are a great spot, and Twitter's not bad either. Be sure to tag us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter so we can show you some love!
• 🔈 Whenever you hear somebody discussing WordPress, give us a shoutout. We already get a lot of our business through word of mouth, but every little mention counts!

Thanks in advance for your incredible support. We will be forever in your debt. Plus, you'll be happy to have a friend you can chat about our company with.