Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

It's easiest to give a list of acronyms and product names here, as there have been quite a few different systems that we've worked with. Below includes a list of the systems that I've worked with

• WordPress

  • WordPress (obviously!) - themes and plugins (creating from scratch and extending existing using hooks/filters)
  • WooCommerce - creating custom cart checkout functionality
  • Membership Plugins - e.g. Memberium, MemberPress
  • Training Tools - e.g. WP Courseware

• CRMs (Customer Relation Manager tools)

  • Infusionsoft - using the Campaign Builder and interacting with their API
  • Active Campaign - all features, since we use this tool ourselves. Also interacting with their API
  • MailChimp - using automations and interacting with their API
  • AllClients - using their automation sequences and interacting with their API

• Other Software Tools

  • GetDPD - using webhooks and their API
  • Acuity Scheduling - using their webhooks
  • Amazon - extracting live product data using their API
  • eBay - retrieving product listings and product data using their API
  • ChargeBee - using their webhooks and API to extract subscription and transaction information.

Some developers and agencies insist that you host your website with them so that they have control. Did you know that some of those agencies and developers charge you a fee to move your website away from them too?

We're not like that at all. We can certainly set up your web hosting for your website, but we strongly believe that you should have full access to the web hosting for your website. This gives you complete control on who is able to access your website control panel too. With those access details, we can then upload changes and set things up for you, so that the website does what you need to.

Of course, that means you could take your website to another developer if you so wish (obviously we'd prefer you didn't!). We're just going to give you such a great experience that you'd choose to stay with us!

No. All development is conducted personally by me, Dan Harrison. Occasionally, I will use trusted 3rd party WordPress plugins to create a solution, as there's no point reinventing the wheel if there's a WordPress plugin out there that will do 95% of what you need for $100 or less. I do outsource all graphic design to a talented local designer, but development is all in-house.

Ideally, you have a frequent daily backup. So ask your web developer or hosting provider to restore you a safe version from a recent backup, and then upgrade your plugins and WordPress version to the latest version.

If you don't have a backup (I'll deal with that one in a moment!), you can use the Sucuri service to do a hack cleanup and set up their website firewall to prevent further attacks. It's a very cost-effective service, and will usually be the cheapest and best way to get your website cleaned up.

Then I suggest that you get your backups sorted as quickly as possible (read more on backups here).

With so many web hosting companies out there, it's impossible to have an opinion on all of them. There are two hosting companies that I really like for WordPress hosting.

Cheap but good: TSO Host - as they're inexpensive, but they offer excellent support, fast hosting, and they offer SSL certificates for free using Let's Encrypt. So this means you can get HTTPS support for your website for very little indeed. If your website is really important for generating leads, then I'd recommend something that's much faster, like FlyWheel below.

Professional and Fast: FlyWheel - these guys offer dedicated WordPress hosting, it's performance-enhanced (so it's very fast), they offer special daily backups for free (similar to what VaultPress does), they offer staging support on higher-end packages (this allows you to test things without breaking your main website), and it has automatic security checking built-in to prevent against hacks (they actually use Sucuri's system to power their security protection). Ideal for business use.

I really like FlyWheel because they essentially give you SSL, Sucuri Security, and VaultPress backups, as well as optimised WordPress hosting with a single monthly web hosting fee that's only slightly more expensive than the average price for good quality web hosting with other providers (who don't provide the same capabilities).

Our Business-Grade WordPress Hosting builds on top of the FlyWheel platform, but we also add keeping WordPress updated, keeping your plugins updated, and monitoring your website for a range of potential issues. You can find out more about our Business-Grade WordPress Hosting here.

One of the most common assumptions that a business owner will make about backups is that their web hosting company or web developer is doing backups for them. Yes, they often are, but from my experience over the years, I've discovered that the backups are rarely complete or recent enough to be worthwhile. Often when a business owner goes to rely on a backup, something is broken or missing, and they've lost some critical information.

For business owners, not having decent website backups is extremely foolish, as invariably, your business will depend on your website. You can't afford for your website to be down for more than 1-2 days at the very most.

This is why I always recommend creating a secondary backup (or at least a very robust primary backup).

There are some free and paid WordPress plugins that will create a copy of your WordPress website, but they actually store a copy of the backup on your web server. So if your website has been attacked, then the database and files could potentially have been compromised, including your backups.

The best solution is to have a daily backup that stores your files/data in a completely separate location, usually on a different server that's protected. This is why I really like VaultPress. It's designed for non-technical WordPress website owners, and they make it really easy to restore a backup. You can also get help restoring a backup if needed.

If you use a high quality web hosting service (read the hosting FAQ) such as FlyWheel or our Business-Grade web hosting, then you'll get a similar type of robust backup system that VaultPress provides, but it's all in the same place.