At our West Metro Detroit WordPress meetup last night, Suzanne Seibel gave an excellent talk about what to do before and after you launch your website.
Her presentation centered on using Trello to manage and document her website projects.
She explained how she uses a Trello template to stay on top of website projects.
While her talk focused on launching WordPress sites, many of her tips apply to every website, no matter what application or code is used to create it:
- Create checklists to stay on top of tasks
- Update your checklists regularly
- Validate your HTML
- Check your spelling
- Check your site in multiple browsers on desktop and mobile
- Test your forms and making sure you change the email address for form notifications
- Back up your work regularly
Seibel talked about the challenges of choosing from thousands of WordPress plugins; she keeps a list of suggested plugins that other people recommend).
In addition, she highlighted the importance of getting testimonials from clients immediately after you launch the site.
When she talked about plugins and testimonials, I commented that I had published multiple posts about plugins and reviews here on my blog.
Many members weren’t aware of my posts, so I thought I’d share them again.
Reviews and Testimonials
As Seibel mentioned in her talk, the best time to get a review or testimonial is immediately after you’ve completed work on the client’s project, when your client is happy with your work or service.
Reviews and testimonials are social proof. They add credibility and trust to potential clients who may not know you or your work.
You can ask your client for a review when you meet them in person or talk with them on the phone.
But I’ve found it easier to send a short email message to my client after their project, where I:
- Keep the tone casual
- Thank my client for choosing my business
- Explain why I’m asking for a review
- Highlight points they can share in their review
- Include specific instructions on where they can submit a review
- Share my thanks for them adding a review
Google is one of the first places people look for reviews, so that’s where I ask my clients to submit reviews.
Not sure what to include in your review request? Use my template to ask your clients for a review.
Whether you choose to use Google or some other review site, be sure to thank your client for their review. And add their review as a testimonial on your own site.
Share Your Favorite Plugin
In 2016, I started a new talk format, Share Your Favorite Plugin, at our Metro Detroit WordPress meetup group.
With over 50,000 plugins in the WordPress repository, many of our members would ask, “Where do I start looking? It’s so overwhelming.”
The Share Your Favorite Plugin format was an answer to that question. We invited our members to talk for 5-10 minutes about their favorite plugin.
The response from people attending the meetup was great!
Thank you! I’ve been looking for a plugin with that functionality for over a year. I’m going to add it to my site this week.
Over the years, we’ve continued to use the meetup format to encourage our members to share and learn about WordPress plugins.
Based on the positive feedback from our members, I started my own Share Your Favorite Plugin series on this blog where I highlight the plugins I use in client projects.
Here’s a list of some of my more popular plugin posts:
- Share Your Favorite Plugin: Simple CSS
- Share Your Favorite Plugin: Email Address Encoder
- Share Your Favorite Plugin: Insert Headers and Footers
- Share Your Favorite Plugin: Duplicate Post
I regularly publish Share Your Favorite Plugin posts and highlight plugins in my weekly roundup.
If you’re not already subscribed to get notifications of new posts on my blog, subscribe now!
Summary
Managing the multitude of tasks involved with a website project is a challenge, but using a tool like Trello can help you stay on top of everything.
Take the time after website launch to ask your clients for a review.
And check out my Share Your Favorite Plugin series to find WordPress plugins to help you add features and functionality to your client websites.
Have you used Trello to manage website projects? Or something similar? Tell me about your experience in the comments.
