Best Practices: Submitting Updates
Here’s how you can help us take care of you quickly and efficently…
Whether you have one of our Website Wellness plans that cover your content updates or you’re submitting your content updates à la carte, we are always happy to help out.
We know some updates are time sensitive while others may be more flexible in terms of launch, but no matter which yours may be, we want to accommodate your needs the best we can. To do that, we need you to provide some critical information when submitting your update requests.* Getting this information (noted below) in your first communication about an update can greatly curb the chance of delay and confusion, and aid in us in scheduling updates to meet your launch goals.**
Send your update requests at least 5-7 business days prior to when the changes need to be live.
We understand this may not always be possible, that last minute things may come up, but this is the most ideal timing for your updates going smoothly and quickly. ***
Let us know the date the updates need to be completed by and live.
This aids in scheduling, especially if you have a very specific target date.
Provide a bulleted list of updates needed.
The list does not need to be overly descriptive, just a basic overview of the tasks (ex for author clients: Add Book Page for [book title] in [series name]), then include any special instructions you think we may need to complete the update.
Include or attach the information for your update in the first request email – or tell us if you need us to gather it.
This information may include images, text, links, etc. If you want us to gather the information for you from another site, please specify exactly what information you need us to gather and where to find it online, if applicable. Please note that we do not write original content and, for copyright reasons, we will only copy certain types of content (such as uniform book blurbs from a bookseller).
Send all the content you are providing for the update at one time.
Across days, emails can get really scattered and lost in the shuffle so it’s best to send everything at once, on the same day, in a single email whenever possible. If you’re sending content in multiple emails, note how many emails you are sending and then label each email in the subject with an indication of which email it is in the order of things (1 of 3, etc.). This will really help us to notice something is missing. ****
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* An update request can contain more than one task you need us to complete. Each a la carte update request has a minimum charge. Rush update requests may incur an additional fee, assessed at our discretion and based on the size and complication of the update. An update request is considered a “rush” if the request and content are provided less than three business days before they are needed live. See current rates for à la carte updates.
** Website Wellness (Plus and Premium) planholders take priority in update queues. A la carte updates are either done in the order they are received or scheduled according to launch goals. This is why lead time and knowing launch dates for updates is critical to scheduling.
*** Our official business days for handling content updates are Monday-Friday (U.S.), and business hours are 9 a.m.-6 p.m. (Central) on those days. If an update needs to go live on a specific day and that day falls on a weekend or holiday, or when we’re on vacation, then the update will need to be made prior to that date or after we return to the office. Another reason why lead time and knowing launch dates for updates is critical.
**** For maximum efficiency in processing updates, we generally don’t do update requests piecemeal but wait until we have all crucial components before beginning work