Frequently asked questions
FAQs.
Find answers below to common questions.
Website design
How much input do you need from me to create a website?
If you have detailed ideas about what you want, that’s great! We can take your input, offer advice on things we think could be tweaked or enhanced, and get on with creating your site. On the other hand, if you want much more guidance and support about what your site should look like and what it needs, we can do that too!
You can be as hands-off or hands-on as you want.
Who creates the content for my site?
This is something we will agree with you during the Discovery stage. If you want, we can create outline copy content, and find suitable stock images to make your site visually superb. For some sites though, getting the messages just right means our clients often want to take control of the content creation.
In some cases, stock images are simply not appropriate. For example a hotel website can’t use photographs of any hotel – it must have photographic content created specifically for that hotel.
We can take you through all the options during the Discovery stage. It may be that a professional photographer should be commissioned to create an image portfolio for your site.
How long will it take to get my site live?
If all the content is readily available, we can have a straightforward site live in less than a week. In most cases though, sites take 2-3 weeks to move from Discovery stage to Launch stage. The more complex sites can take upwards of 6 weeks.
Website recovery
Are you able to recover my site if I have lost the details of my domain registrar and hosting provider?
In short, it is very unlikely that your site can be recovered without this information. We can help you to identify who might be providing your domain registration and hosting services, and guide you on how you might retrieve your account information.
Once my site is recovered, can SparkStorm look after it for me?
Most likely yes. Before we accept clients with existing websites onto a care package, we undertake a site audit to confirm that the site construction is robust and that we will be able to operate the site to the quality standards that we have for our Hosting & maintenance services.
If the site audit reveals significant concerns, we’ll discuss these with you and outline how these can be addressed to enable SparkStorm to look after your site.
Hosting & maintenance
Can I use SparkStorm for hosting & maintenance, but keep my existing domain registrar and hosting provider?
You can retain your existing domain name registrar service, however we would prefer that you switch it to the SparkStorm preferred provider as this allows us to have control over the domain configuration to ensure everything you need runs smoothly.
For hosting services SparkStorm only offer care packages where we provide the hosting services. Before we accept clients with existing websites onto a care package, we undertake a site audit to confirm that the site construction is robust and that we will be able to operate the site to the quality standards that we have for our Hosting & maintenance services.
If the site audit reveals significant concerns, we’ll discuss these with you and outline how these can be addressed to enable SparkStorm to look after your site.
Will your SEO actions get me to the top of Google searches?
Google search algorithms are complex and constantly changing and adapting. Nobody can guarantee to get your site and its pages appearing at the top of Google searches. What we can do, is make sure that your site is properly configured for search success, which gives you a great springboard to start with. Improving your Google search results can only happen over time, and often involves regular and consitent efforts to refresh and update your site with new, fresh, relevant content.
Contracts & billing
How do I pay for services?
Once we have jointly defined what you need, we’ll send you a link to create an account in our client portal. From your account you can view contracts and active service packages, as well as make payments for services by credit card, ApplePay, or GooglePay.
Does SparkStorm have minimum contract durations?
Any monthly recurring services we provide can be cancelled with one month notice.
Our web design packages all have a one-time setup fee together with a monthly recurring fee for hosting & maintenance. The monthly hosting & maintenance service can be cancelled with one month notice.
Our website add-on packages all have a one-time setup fee, and some add-ons also have a further monthly recurring fee. Add-on services with a monthly recurring fee can be cancelled with one month notice.
Our hosting & maintenance contracts are rolling monthly contracts which can be cancelled one month in advance.
Our website recovery contracts are one-time service contracts and no contract term is applicable.