What Are Tweaks?

In my maintenance service package I talk about site owners having a number of tweaks per month over and above the standard maintenance work we do.  These tweaks can be called down as and when required, but what are tweaks?

In my mind they are small packages of development work to enhance your site.  In this post I want to clarify what tweaks are to potential maintenance clients.

Example Tweaks

Probably the best way to show you what a tweaks are is to list out some examples we have done for our current clients:

Install and Configure Plugins

We have been asked by our maintenance clients to install and configure plugins that are too complex for them.  We have installed simple plugins like widget logic, up to more complex ones like s2member.

We have been asked to replace plugins that no longer work as expected, for example one client was using a search plugin that was no longer supported, we swapped that our for Google search.

Fix plugins that have stopped working; our client spotted that a post rotator plugin was not working after an update to WordPress. We fixed a jquery conflict.

The list goes one.

Managing Complex Content

We don’t look after your normal posts and pages content, but some plugins such as e-commerce have very complex content in them, we have added new products to plugins if our client is struggling.

Theme Changes

We are often asked for small tweaks to our clients site theme, we will happily make small changes to css to change colours fonts etc.

We have also been asked to completely replace themes with new ones.

Theme Updates

When a theme has been customised it’s a tricky thing to apply the latest theme update, we will get the latest theme files, apply updates and re-apply customisation.

Building Development Environments

We have been asked to clone live sites and build development environment so our clients can test things out without impacting their live sites.

Errors On The Site

When a client spots an error on their site and reports it to us we raise a tweak call to fix these too.  Errors such as warning notes appearing, malware reports, missing PDF files.  Again the list of errors goes on and on, as long as it’s an error to your existing site we can fix it.

Fix Database Issues

One of our new clients, had an absolutely enormous database due to spam comments that weren’t being deleted we fix that database issue and optimised their database for performance.

Fix Menus

We have been called in to setup and fix menus, such as creating new menu areas, adding new menu items or changing text.

Add Third Party Scripts

We have been asked to install third party scripts, for example Google Analytics javascript code and Facebook like widget code.

Consulting

Client will ask us what is the best way to do X, and with our years of experience we can suggest a solution.

We Spot Errors Too

As part of our maintenance work we often spot errors and fix them too, we will raise them and treat them like a tweak but they are not part of your monthly draw down of work.

Some of the things we have spotted are

• Backups not working
• Security issues
• User permissions wrong
• Hosting run out of disk space
• Issues with domain registration

What Are Not Tweaks

Anything that involves a large amount of development work such as coding up a plugin, or creating a custom theme.  These would require a separate project over and above your maintenance agreement.

Just ask us, we will let you know if it is a tweak or not,

How Tweaks Work

When you sign up for our maintenance service, over and above plugin updates, backups, WordPress updates, security monitoring and database optimisation, we will give you access to a support email address.

Send you tweak request to that address and Rod will raise and manage a tweak project and our team will fix your problem.

Wrap Up

If you would like to take a test drive of our maintenance service and have us do some tweaks to your site then why not check out our 30 day free trial.  There is no credit card required and nothing to cancel if you don’t want to go forward.

Sign up for a free trial now>>

Photo Credit: Elsie esq. via Compfight cc