Startup Branch Overview

Once a company starts up, you will make them a folder in the Customers/Startup folder. Make a copy of the Startup Document in the Google Drive. This goes for any type of startup. You will also add them to the Startup Masterlist.

It's a personal preference if you want to look up the website before calling the customer, or during the call. You will begin to fill out the Startup Document.

You will also perform a Google Place ID lookup and insert the key in the 3rd Party Google Tools. You can do this by finding their GMB, and right-click 'Inspect' their 'Write A Review' Button. In that code you will see an attribute that starts with data-pid="...". Take that whole strand of numbers and letters and put it under 'Place ID' in the Google Tools. Don't forget to save!

A WHOIS lookup is another big item on the Research List. This will tell you where the domain is located, their Nameservers (if they aren't together), and any records. This background will allow you to ask the customer:

• If they want to transfer their domain to us
• If they want to move nameservers over,
• Are they using multiple providers? They might be able to consolidate and save.
• Who is their email provider?
• Do they have multiple domains?

This step is started within 1 business day of sign up

You will want the Startup Document open while talking to the customer. Confirm their subscription level and begin to dicuss their level of expectation.

• You’ll want to make sure their reach doesn’t surpass their grasp and that they understand the scope of their subscription level. This step is CRITICAL as it can avoid a world of heartache later on for them and our entire staff. Ask their staff size, business age, etc… to make sure their goals are realistic.
  If they didn’t sign up for ‘First Class’ because of the price and they’re a smaller company, see if they qualify for a Nearby Now discount. (Exercise discretion that you don’t offer the discount needlessly (really, who’s not looking to save a buck?), and if they were referred, make sure to look up to see if their friend qualifies for the discount.)
  Sometimes customers have a deadline that they “need” the website to be up by – make sure this is realistic. Remind anxious customers that the website can go live in as little as 2 weeks (under optimal conditions) and this still contingent upon them engaging with us consistently throughout that timeframe.

If you are unable to get any design notes from the customer, but you are able to get content info from them, you can move to step 3.

If you are unable to get content info out of them as well as design, then reschedule for a later meeting so the customer can gather their info.

After you finish the notes in the Startup Document, download it and add it to the customers startup folder.

Also, you will want to establish if they are wanting to use email services with us. Determine if they are brand new emails or transferring email service to us. This will be followed up in Step 8.

Design Info:

Ask them if there are any existing sites that they like from around the web (even those that are not our own). “Are there any sites that you’ve come across and said ‘Man, I wish I had a site like that.’” They might even like their competitors' website. Make them aware that we can build something similar but they do not want to copy their competitor's look.

Most people are not in that category. We need to give them some concrete examples. The next step would be to take them to the gallery on our website or our Pinterest to check out some of the sites that we have done.

OA's Portfolio

OA's Pinterest Board

Some Design Questions To Ask:

• Do they have any specific landmarks around them that they may want incorporated into the site?
• Do they have a “thematic” logo such as a polar bear or a tiger suggest that we may be able to build a design around?
• Do they have a particular image they want up top? (ex: family, friends, seasonal, commercial, residential, a house)
• Do they want any special financing advertised on their Homepage?
• Are they applying for any Co-Op? (ex: Trane, Carrier, Bryant, etc)
• Do some elements have higher priority than others? (ex: Reviews up top)
• Are they particular with what their CTA buttons say? (ex: 'Schedule Service' vs 'Request Service')
• How many Service Buttons? (2-6 is average. What is their major services?)
• Do they need extra vertical sections? (ex: Plumbing, Electrical, Generator, etc)
• Do they want (coupons, cities we service, form, gallery, etc) on their homepage?
• Do they have any mftr logos, association logos, or awards they want to showcase?
• Do they want a form on the homepage or in their footer?

Give them a day or two to look over the sites if they don’t say what they want right away. If they don’t seem like anything really sticks out to them, you can recommend a completely custom design for them.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions – The goal here is that they are proud of the end result and that it performs well.

Once you have all the notes (include any deadlines they may have) and resources (truck images, tech pics, etc) needed for Graphics to start, you can upload all files the Company's Startup Ticket and assign a task to Graphics.

DNS & Domain:

There are 3 main elements you need to know about before they can go live. Domain, Nameservers and Email. This usually comes up in the beginning because it gives the customer time to look for login information or figure out who has authority. Sometimes this will be the hold up at the end of the process, so it is good to start early.

Domain Purchase Needed? - If they do not have a website, ask them if they have already purchased a domain. If not, you will need to help them pick out a domain. You can do this at this time or set up a separate meeting to do so. Use the tools on Joker.com or Godaddy.com to check what is available.

Transferring Domain? - Customer needs to:

1. Send our DNS servers to whoever has access to the domain and have them change the DNS to bring the site live. In order to transfer the domain, we need the following:
   • Domain unlocked
   • Authorization code (can send to customer who can fwd it to us)
   • Ideally, would be great to get the administrative contact email changed to domains@online-access.com so we can manage the transfer. If not, whoever is tied to the current address will need to watch for transfer related emails and act on them or forward them to us at domains@online-access.
2. If the current controller of the domain and DNS is able to send us a login and pw to do these things ourselves, that is fine, too.

Registrar Access? - Ask the customer about their registrar login. If they have access to the registrar, they will want to give us the login. If not, make sure they know who the person or company that is managing their domain is. If they don’t know who it is, they need to start figuring out who that person is.

Have the customer sign into their PagePilot account so they can walkthrough both segments with you

After figuring out what direction the customer is doing with the content, a task will be created and assigned to Products. Whether there are design notes or not, the Products team will do a content audit for the customer. This audit should be done within 24 hours of being assigned to their department and there are three ways the content audit can be done:

1. Customer DOES own their content and would like to use it.
2. Customer DOES own their content, but would like to start fresh, not use much of their content.
3. Customer DOES NOT own their content, will have to create their own/use Online-Access content.

Once you establish which direction the customer is going with the content you can create a content audit sheet. To do this:

1. Go to the Startup Content Audits.
2. Make a copy of the Template Content Audit and rename with company name.
3. Copy the list of all their pages and copy it into the spreadsheet.

Once you do that, assign the task to the Products department with which direction they will have to go with in regards to the content and a link to the audit.

Content Audit Checklist

1. Content Ownerhip
• If Yes, are we taking the content on the page? If we are taking the content say YES and leave PID field blank for Startup coordinator to fill in once the page is created. If we are not taking the content say NO and fill in the PID field with the PID that we should redirect the link to.
• If No, fill in the field with the PID that we should redirect the link to.
2. In the rare times that the customer owns the content and the Products team is torn on brining over the page, they can say "If client wants it" as an option, leaving it up to the customer on if we bring over the content or not on that page.
3. Comments can be added if needed to pages they do or do not own, along with pages we might or might not bring. These can be recommendations on how we can optimize the page further for a cost if the customer is interested, or just notes about the content in general.
4. Cost to Fix can be a price given by the Products department if they want to offer to clean up a page for a certain price.
5. Pages to Be Added recommendations are at the bottom of the audit with pages that the Products team recommends they add, along with a price of how much it would cost for each page and a total of all the page prices.

Once the content audit is complete, depending on if the design notes are complete as well, Products can assign this task to the graphics department, or back to the Startup Coordinator to finish getting design information.

Graphics now has the task with all the necessary information and images that are needed to start working on their mockup. A designer will reach out if they have any follow up questions or resources needed.

Determine if you can clarify any questions or concerns that Graphics may have. If not, reach out to the customer to get the rest of the information. Let Graphics know if the customer will require more time to get that information or resource.

If the customer has a deadline, confirm with Graphics if the deadline is feasible with their workload. This may require the other designer to take on the project, or a conversation with the customer to make them aware that there are other factors that may impact the deadline. (ex: the designer is out for half a week in the middle of the project. The customer may have changes but it will be a slightly longer turn-over time during that period)

Once you get back a design, email the customer a link to the desktop and mobile versions in Figma and screenshot (usually Design provides one) to the customer with an invite to schedule a time to go over it. If they don’t respond the same day via call or email, call next day.

Design Look Over & Discussion:

Make notes of any changes, whether content or design

List what don’t they like and WHY. While you can offer suggestions, it's more important to figure out WHY they don't like it. This allows for the designer to have more creative freedom when looking for a solution. Don't make any promises.

If they had any specific things that they had wanted on the site, mention where those things are incorporated. Ask them to look over the homepage and see if there is anything that needs to be tweaked or is incorrect. Keep in mind that the Foundation -> Bootstrap Mockups will not have the proper tags so they may have our reviews, phone number, name etc but that will all transfer over when they go live.

Make sure that they stick to the homepage at first. Let them know we will go over the other content later.

SEO Audit:

Once the customer is happy with the homepage, send the design back to graphics to build in HTML from figma.

Graphics will build the website in HTML and make sure everything works and will send the design to PBD to do an SEO audit and they will review and make any necessary changes along with link changes/additions and homepage content changes.

After the audit is done, graphics will work with PBD on the changes and finalize the design.

While the homepage is getting worked on, you can begin Step 6

If the customer is absolutely not happy with the design and it looks like we will have to start over from scratch, look under Misc Protocol to determine what steps need to be taken.

While Design is working on the website, start a Site Redirect Spreadsheet for the company. To do this:

1. Go to the Page Import Folder.
2. Make a copy of the Template Redirect and rename with company name.
3. Use the Page Import Tool to pull a list of all their pages and copy it into the spreadsheet.

Review the content audit done by the Products department. Go to the content audit and either bring over the pages the products team says to with the new PID you create, talk to the client and ask them if they should bring over some of the content, or put in the PID that the Products team recommends we redirect that link to in our content library. If the Products team recommends new pages to be added, discuss this with the customer when you review the content and explain to them the price of each page and what they would do for you.

1. Our Friendlies
2. Their Friendies
3. Our PID Structure

Once the spreadsheet is completely filled out, download a CSV copy and upload it to the Company using Page Import Tool. This will add each of the links as a friendly url to the company.

This step can be done over the phone with the customer, or they can look over it themselves and send you any changes.

Ask them to bring up the temporary site. At this point you will need to go over the menu and content with them to make sure the pages and information is relevant to their services and geographic location.
Remind them there is a difference in locked vs open content. Trash any content the customer doesn’t want on their site.

Search Engines like Google, Bing, etc. are switching to mobile first, mobile responsive. This means that your mobile version of the website hold more SEO impact than the desktop version. Since Search Engines are going to the mobile first, a clean, thin menu is recommended. The way SEO worked before is the more pages the better, and to have a large sitemap. Now, you want to thin that out.

Quick Cuts

Ask if they have any additional questions about the site
Offer the customer the opportunity to take a couple days to go over the content on the site and see if there are any other changes that they would like to be made. Let them know that in the meantime, we will be making the necessary adjustments to their site.

Ask the customer if, once the tweaks and changes and everything else on our list of things to do are done, they think they will be ready to go live with the site – Remind them that once we get passed this step we’re pretty much ready to go live.

This is the final walkthrough of the website before you begin the pre-launch checklist and going live with the site.

Page Imports – Make sure they are completed and you have uploaded them to the Multiple Page Import Tool

Graphic or Design Tweaks – Make sure all updates are assigned to Design dept and are done to go live. Any simple textual changes you can make yourself.

Blog – If the customer has a blog that they are going to continue using, we will need to find a way to host the blog somewhere and mimic the design of the new site. Hopefully, they have a 3rd party company that will be able to do this, but if not, then we will have to figure out something. If they have a blog that they are not continuing to use, the pages will just be imported with the rest of the pages. Make sure they have rights to the blog’s content and if they want it imported onto their new site.

NearbyNow –Make sure they have a scheduled a training with Nearby Now. If they haven’t had their training yet, disable the NBN content blocks.

Email – During the Initial Conversation, you will determine if the customer wants to use our email services or not. And if they do want to use our email, if they are brand new emails or they need to transfer over old email accounts.
If the customer does want to use our email services, you will want to send them the Email Startup Form and follow the steps in the Email Startup & Transfer Procedure.

Domain & DNS Access – Make sure you have access to change the DNS records or the Domains nameservers to set the website live. If they need their domain purchased, create a zoho ticket for Kerry by adding the domain via Domain Manager.

Once the website has all its changes finished and has received final approval, you can can begin the final checklist in the Startup Masterlist. As you go over each of the boxes, some of them might already be done during the startup process, and that is okay. This list is just a final verification because things may have changed during the Polishing & Tweaks.

HomePage Checklist:

Google Analytics:

• In left hand menu, got to Admin on the bottom
• Under 'Account' go to the lastest OA Customer Tracking #
• Click the '+ Create Property' button
• Property Name = 'CID - Company Name'
• Time Zone = Detroit
• Click Next
• Pick Business & Industrial for the Industry Category
• Choose 'Medium' for the Business Size
• Click Next
• Choose 'Get Baseline Reports'
• Click Create
• It will pop up 'Web Stream Details' and under Measurement ID you should see an ID that starts 'G-####'.
• Copy that ID down as it is the GA4 ID
• Under Google Tools for the CID, scroll down and for 'User Analytics Account Type:' Choose 'Google Analytics 4' Add the GA4 Measurement ID to the admin.

Google Tag Manager:

• Search for most recent Tracking Account
• Click the 3 buttons
• Create Container
• CID - Company Name
• Click Target Platfor 'Web' Button
• Create

Once the GTM Account is created, Copy the GTM Account ID (ex: gtm-12321) in the pop up. Place that in the company's Google Tools under Tag Manager. Hit the radio button to Enable Tag Mananger and save.

Import GTM Container

• Click - Admin then Import Container
• Select and import the Container File (Click here to download)
• Click Existing and select the latest workspace
• Click Merge > Overwrite; click Confirm
• Go to Workspace > Variables > GA4 Measurement ID
• Paste Measurement ID from Analytics
• Click Submit
• Follow the prompts to finish the submission

Once all these steps are done, hit submit in the top right hand corner, then publish.

If they have a Meta Pixel

Updating Meta Pixel ID Variable

• Navigate to 'Variables' in the side menu
• Locate the variable in the image below and insert their Meta Pixel ID
• Save

Enabling Meta Pixel Code Tag

• Navigate to 'Tags' in the side menu.
• Locate the tag in the image below and select it via the checkbox.
• Scroll to the top and select unpause in the upper right (play icon)

Back to setting up the GTM Account

• Hit ok on the pop up after you copy code and saved it in PagePilot.
• Click Tags in Left hand menu
• GA4 Admin
• Click 'Tag Configuration' box
• Choose 'Google Analytics'
• Choose 'Google Tag'
• Copy the GA4 ID into the 'Measurement ID' box
• Click the 'Triggering' box
• Choose 'All Pages'
• Click 'Add' in top right corner
• Then hit 'Save' in top right corner & name it 'Google Analytics GA4 Configuration - Admin'

GA4 User

• Copy the above steps but rename with '- User' and use the User GA4 Variable

Create Outbound links Variable

• Go to variable page and click new
• Variable Type (1st field): Auto-Event Variable
• Variable Type (2nd field): Element URL
• Component Type: Is Outbound
• Name (Outbound Links) and save variable

Create Trigger (Outbound Links)

• Go to trigger page and click new
• Trigger Type:
• Click - Just Links
• Wait for Tags (checked) 1000ms
• Enable this trigger when all of these conditions are true:
• Page URL
• Matches RegEx
• .*
• This trigger fires on:
• Some Link Clicks
• Fire this trigger when an Event occurs and all of these conditions are true:
Oubound Links
• equals
• true (lowercase only)
• Name (Outbound Links) and save trigger

There are two parts to going live, the DNS changeover and the Post Live Checklist.

Domain, NS or DNS Record Change:

There are a few ways a customer can go live with their website and it breaks down to Domain, Nameserver and Email. Most of this should be figured out during Step 2 of the process.

We want to start by first assessing if they have an IT person or company that we will work with. Will they keep this IT or is it their old company they are moving away from? And finally, will they be bringing their email over to us?

The simplist, most common, way to break it down is if they are moving their email (MX Records) to us, we will take over NS and point to ourselves. If not, the options are:

1. Change their records ourselves with their login information
2. Send them or their IT the new records that need to be changed/added
3. Point their NS to us and transfer over their old MX records

The domain transfer will always come last and has little bearing on going live with the site because it will always be done after.

Post Live Checklist:

Google Search Console:

• In left hand menu, click the search property option
• Click Add Propery
• Choose Domain, once you type in the domain do the following steps
• Add TXT record to the Nameservers
• Verify in GSC
• Add the two sitemaps to Sitemaps (replace example domain with domain you're bringing over)
• https://airdoctorshvacservice.com/sitemap.xml
• https://www.airdoctorshvacservice.com/sitemap.xml
• Under settings/Users & Permissons, Add Dev's email
• 940436176729-k1v66h668s5mpos45ofom7o6l3a0nf2d@developer.gserviceaccount.com
• Request the Homepage gets Indexed