WordPress website rescue & agency switches
Is your existing WordPress website slow or showing signs it may have been hacked? Perhaps you’ve been told your website “can’t” be updated or that it has other technical issues? Is your existing WordPress agency or developer poor at communciation, or have they quit or closed down? We can help with a WordPress rescue.
Does this sound familiar?
We’ve worked with lots of clients to rescue WordPress websites that were deemed “unfixable”, or that were too complex for other agencies and developers to improve. Some of the symptoms of needing help might be:
Something’s wrong with the site itself:
- Your website has slowed to a crawl, and no one can tell you why
- You’ve been hacked, or you’re seeing security warnings you don’t understand
- You’ve been told your site “can’t” be updated, or that updating it will break things
- Plugins are conflicting, and every fix seems to cause a new problem
- Something’s broken and you don’t know who to call
Something’s wrong with who’s looking after it:
- Your developer has gone quiet, or stopped replying altogether
- The agency that built your site has closed down or moved on
- You’re paying for support but you’re not sure what you’re actually getting
- You’ve outgrown the person who originally built your site
- You want an honest second opinion before you spend money on a rebuild
Unsure if any of those apply to you, or whether an agency switch is the right move? Why not try our WordPress website health check before you commit to anything. An in-depth, honest report of action points for your WordPress website covering “the good, the bad and the ugly” across key areas including security, accessibility, technical debt, SEO, and more.
What our clients say
We transitioned from our old team of 12yrs seamlessly and the difference in communication, output and professionalism has been outstanding. We are really happy with the service provided and looking forward to implementing some of suggestions and ideas they have provided going forward.
Dave Eccles, Director Slatted Screen Fencing Ltd
How an agency rescue works
If you’re thinking about switching WordPress agency, this is how our process usually works:
Step one: auditing and analysis
We start by looking at your website and figuring out what we’re dealing with. We perform a full technical audit of the site which includes the plugins and theme, the hosting platform, connected third parties, performance, security and more.
At this point we also try and establish where everything lives: email services, plugin licenses, domain and DNS provision. This allows us to flag any weak spots in your access profile and you to ask the right questions of your current developer or agency.
All this data becomes an actionable WordPress health report that you can take anywhere, even if you decide not to proceed with a ‘rescue’ or migration. The report is yours to keep.
If you decide to continue, we then…
Step two: confirm business needs
If you decide you want to move to our services and start addressing the health report findings, we have a chat about what you actually need from your website. Sometimes what looks like a development “high need” might come secondary to a pain point that’s bugging you or your customers, and your business comes first.
Step three: stabilise urgent issues
If there are critical security issues, potential risk of a customer data leak, or anything actively broken, we make practical recommendations on how to deal with those issues first.
Step four: agree ongoing improvements
Once the site is stable and any critical issues are dealt with, we can create a mutually agreeable plan for tackling other items flagged in the health report based on the severity of the issue and the business needs flagged at the start.
We can then tackle these as part of an ongoing maintenance care package, or ad hoc as required.
Why choose Ultimately Better?
What’s so great about our team of web development talent anyway?
Real developers, not tinkerers
At Ultimately Better, our developers undergo a rigorous vetting process to ensure that they can actually write code, and that it meets internal and WordPress best practices
Honest assessments
Our WordPress audits are honest and backed by facts. We’ll tell you where things are going wrong, why, and what (if any) risks those problems pose.
No contract lock-in
Decide we’re not for you? You’re free to go at any time, with no fixed terms or contract lock-in. WordPress empowers ownership and we reflect that in our approach.
Great customer service
Customer service is at the heart of everything we do, and we have our customer commitment to prove it.
What our clients say
Great support for our website from Jem and the team. Always quick to respond and good at finding practical solutions without breaking the bank.
James Sales, In The Saddle Limited
Frequently asked questions
What if my site has no documentation?
We don’t need documentation to get started. In fact, sometimes documentation hinders rather than helps. If we blindly follow existing documentation we might miss issues that have crept in since it was written or problems the existing developer or agency don’t know about.
So what do you need to get started?
We need access to your WordPress website. Ideally, this is via the hosting control panel, but as a minimum this should be an adminstrator level account with full privileges.
Do you handle WooCommerce audits too?
Absolutely, it’s one of our specialisms. A WooCommerce audit covers everything the general WordPress health check does, plus the things specific to running an online store: payment gateway setup, checkout flow, stock and inventory syncing, tax and shipping configuration, extension conflicts (WooCommerce sites tend to accumulate a lot of these), and anything affecting order processing or site speed at checkout. If your site takes payments, we check that separately and specifically, rather than treating it as just another page on the site.
Can you support large or complex projects?
Yes. From single-page projects to enterprise-level builds, we scale our services to meet your needs. Get in touch to discuss some of the large and complex builds we currently support and how we might be able to help you.
Do I have to commit to a long contract?
No, we don’t do contract lock-in. One of WordPress’ core tenets is that data freedom is a fundamental user right and this is anchored in its open source software principles. We borrow from that to shape our business model: our customers are not locked in to our services, and stay with us because of the quality of our work and standard of customer service.
Will my website go down during handover?
If we need to move your website hosting as part of our agency rescue, there is a small chance of downtime while any DNS changes – changes that tell computers where your website lives in relation to its domain name – propagate worldwide. This risk can be mitigated by ensuring the website remains live with the old provider for 24-48 hours after the migration is started, and that handover happens swiftly.
I’m not sure if I need a rescue or a rebuild, can you advise?
Your WordPress health report should spell out whether or not you need a rescue or a rebuild. Often, when clients have been told they need their website rebuilding, what they actually need is a few key plugins upgrading or replacing, or some of the ‘fat’ trimmed away.
A rebuild generally only makes sense in a small number of cases, for example, when the underlying WordPress theme or codebase is so outdated that it can’t be safely updated or the site was built in such a way that any remedial work causes more problems than it solves.
We will tell you up front what’s feasible with what you already have, and whether a rebuild would be beneficial or not.
Can you work with my current host, or do I have to move?
In most cases we are happy to work with your current web hosting provider, but there are occasionally times where the hosting provider is part of the problem so we’ll advise during your website health check.
What about WordPress plugin licenses?
We check plugin license status as part of our audit and will advise where plugins are obviously tied to a previous developer or agency, or worse – expired. License transfers vary by plugin vendor so sometimes these may need repurchasing.
For customers on our care and maintenance plans, we have a small number of agency licenses for mostly commonly used plugins, e.g. Gravity Forms, WP Migrate and so forth. If you need a license outside of our managed set we can source a license and manage that for you.
What our clients say
If only all companies were like this to work with! So grateful to Jem and her team for doing a fantastic job recreating my website and working their SEO magic on it.
Andrea White, A W Fire Ltd
Ready to make your website work for you?
If your website or your current agency is letting you down, hard to update, or just not doing what it should any more, get in touch and we’ll take a look. No obligation, no jargon, just years of WordPress expertise in an actionable website health report.