Your website is live. What happens next?

Make sure the everyday journey works

Try the site as a customer would. Check the contact details, send a test enquiry and open the pages on your phone. If there are bookings or payments, test the agreed process before relying on it.

Know which inbox receives messages and who is responsible for checking it. A good website cannot help much if the enquiries sit in an unattended account.

Keep the information in step with the business

Changed opening hours, a new price list, a service you no longer offer or a replacement photograph are ordinary business updates. Put those changes somewhere you can collect them rather than relying on remembering later.

Check the same details in your Google Business Profile and any other places customers use. A website that says one thing while a listing says another makes a simple visit unnecessarily difficult.

What the first year includes

For 12 months from launch, my website packages include unlimited changes to existing words, prices and opening hours, and replacement of supplied photographs. Turnaround is confirmed before starting, with urgent or larger batches scheduled by agreement.

New pages, new features, redesigns, photography and substantial image editing are quoted separately. Replacing a supplied picture is a different job from arranging a shoot or building a new gallery. We agree the work before it starts.

Know the bills and the boundaries

Your domain renewal is separate from the website build. Hosting, booking subscriptions, shop services and payment processing can also have costs, depending on the setup. The written scope explains the running costs for your project.

Website care is optional at £15 a month, with its scope agreed separately. It is not the same thing as the first-year content update allowance. After the first year, updates are quoted before work begins; the allowance does not automatically renew.

Use real questions to improve the site

If three people ask whether you cover their town, make the service area clearer. If people keep asking how to book, check whether the booking link is obvious. These are useful signals even when the business is too small for traffic figures to tell you much.

Keep a few notes about the enquiries you want more of and the ones that are a poor fit. That gives us something practical to improve instead of changing the site simply because it has been a while.

You still have someone to ask

You do not need to know which part of the website is responsible for an issue before getting in touch. Describe what happened, where it happened and what you expected. A screenshot can help; passwords and card details should not go into the message.

If you are planning a bigger change, tell me what the business needs next. We can work out whether it is a small update, an addition or something that needs a fresh scope.