You’d ring a plumber. Who do you ring for this?
When a tap leaks you know exactly who to call. When your website stops emailing you the enquiries, there is no obvious equivalent, so it tends to sit there for months. This is the page for that. Asking costs nothing.
I keep finding the same handful of faults on Jersey business websites, and they are almost never there because the owner does not care. They are there because nobody knew who to ask, or because the last quote to look at it was frightening enough to make living with it seem reasonable.
Almost none of them are projects. A contact form quietly sending enquiries into a dead inbox is an afternoon at the outside, and it might be the most expensive thing on this list if it has been happening since spring. The work is usually in finding it rather than fixing it, which is why the first job is one price covering both.
The ones I find over and over.
If any of these is yours, it is more common than you think, and it is very unlikely to be as expensive as you are bracing for.
Enquiries never arrive
The contact form says thank you and then nothing reaches your inbox. Usually a form pointing at an old address, or mail failing a spam check nobody set up. This is the single most common one, and it is often costing real work.
The site takes ages to load
Normally a few enormous uncompressed photos, or a pile of plugins doing nothing useful. People give up before the page appears, and Google notices too.
Google shows the wrong information
Old opening hours, a previous address, a phone number that stopped working, or a listing you have never been able to log in to. Fixable, and worth fixing first.
Nobody can edit anything
The person who built it is gone, you cannot get in, or changing a price means paying someone. You should be able to update your own opening hours.
The browser says "not secure"
An expired or missing certificate. Small job, bad look, and it puts off exactly the people who were about to get in touch.
Something is charging you and you cannot tell what
A subscription renewing to a service nobody uses, or a domain and hosting bill from a company you have lost contact with. Worth untangling before it renews again.
Two systems refuse to talk
Bookings that never reach the calendar, invoices re-keyed by hand, an export that has quietly failed for months without telling anyone.
You have lost access to your own accounts
Domain, hosting, Google listing or email registered to a former employee or an old agency. Unpleasant to discover in a hurry. Better to sort it now.
Not on the list? Send it anyway. The list is just the greatest hits.
Asking is free. Properly free.
Nothing to sign, and nothing to pay before you know what it will cost.
All the prices, on one page→- Questions
- Free, permanently, however many you have. If the answer is short you get the short answer and we are done.
- Getting it sorted
- £150 the first time, covering getting to know your setup and dealing with the first thing. Finding the cause is usually the long part, so that is what the money is really for.
- If it turns out to be bigger
- A fixed price agreed before it goes any further, worked out at £80 an hour. The price is a ceiling: if it goes quicker, you pay less. You can also just stop.
- Next time
- Just £80 an hour, to the nearest quarter hour. You pay the £150 once and never again, because I only have to learn your setup once.
- If it is not mine to fix
- I will say so, and point you at whoever it does belong to. That happens fairly often and it costs you nothing.
The things people ask first.
Why is my website contact form not sending emails?
Usually one of three things. The form is still sending to an address nobody checks, often a previous owner or a staff member who has left. Or the messages are being sent in a way that fails modern spam checks, so they land in junk or are rejected outright, which is common on older sites where the sending domain was never set up properly. Or a plugin or service that handled the sending has expired or been disabled. It is normally quick to diagnose and quick to fix.
Do I have to pay just to ask you a question?
No. Asking is free, however many questions you have, whether or not you are already a client. Nobody should be sitting there working out whether a problem is worth a phone call. If it turns out to be a two-minute answer, you get the two-minute answer and that is the end of it.
What does it cost to get one fault looked at?
£150 if you are new to me. That covers getting to know how your setup is put together, working out what is actually wrong and dealing with it, and most things on this page land inside the two hours or so that buys. If yours turns out to be bigger, you get a fixed price before I carry on and you can stop there instead, worked out at £80 an hour and always a ceiling rather than a target: if it goes quicker than expected, you pay the lower number. The £150 is charged once and never again. Come back with something else later and it is just £80 an hour, to the nearest quarter hour, with no minimum. And if what you have is a question rather than a job, it is free, permanently.
Do you only help people who already have a website you built?
No. Most of these are sites built by someone else, often years ago, and often by someone who is no longer around. You do not need an existing relationship and you are not signing up to anything by asking.
What if I do not know what is wrong?
That is fine, and it is the usual starting point. Describe what you have noticed in plain terms: enquiries dried up, the site feels slow, something looks wrong on Google. Working out what is actually causing it is the job, not a prerequisite for asking.
What if it is not something you can fix?
I will tell you, and where I can I will point you at whoever can. Some of this belongs with your IT provider, your web host or your accountant, and it is more useful to say so than to take the work.
What is annoying you?
Describe it however it makes sense to you. You do not need to know what is causing it, and you are not committing to anything by asking.