Click on questions to view the answers.
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I don’t know anything about blogging. Is the Power Blog Service right for me?
You don’t need to know anything about blogging – in fact the websites we build for you can be used as very powerful business websites or as traditional blogs.On our Silver WordPress Support Package and above, you are supplied with full training on how to use your system to run the blog or website that we’ve created for you. That means you can update your own content without having to wait on us to do it for you.
We leverage the power of WordPress to create websites and/or blogs depending on what you need.
More on “Is the Power Blog Service Right For Me?”.
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But I don’t want a blog, I want a proper website!
A WordPress blog is entirely capable of functioning as a high calibre website. You can run WordPress as a blog or as a standard website. It is an extremely flexible and easy to use product.WordPress blogs are not a poor man’s web site. On the contrary – in most cases they are the clever man’s (and woman’s) web site solution.
The only time you need a website in addition to a WordPress blog is when you need some special features on your site that can only be supplied by highly specialised software or by bespoke design. An example of this might be that you require a fully featured ecommerce site with features like stock control and bulk product upload – this would be better better implemented outside WordPress.
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What if I want my blog to appear as part of my main web site?
No problem. Let’s say you already run a business web site at www.example.com and that you now want to add a blog.The Power Blog Service makes this simple to do. Just contact us and tell us you want the blog appear as part of your site and we’ll let you know exactly what needs to be done to achieve this.
Even though we’re installing your blog on our special blog servers, it will look to everyone who visits it (including Google), as if it is right next to your original web site, at say www.example.com/blog.
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Where’s my blog hosted?
All blogs are hosted on LiquidWeb servers in Michigan, USA.
We chose LiquidWeb due to their excellent service and 100% uptime guarantee as we rate reliability as a key attribute of our service.
We do not crowd hundreds of blogs onto the same server. Your blog is hosted to allow for resilience, and we aim to keep it running even when it becomes popular. Many cheap hosts will close or suspend hosting accounts if sites use up too much resource.
We are different – we are not a hosting service and you are not a faceless subscriber. We’re a web design company and you are a client. That means you get the best hosting available. If and when your blog becomes very popular, we’ll suggest to you that even more resources are required and price a hosting plan preceisely for your needs.
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I’ve got more than one blog! Do you have special pricing?
If you are on the Silver or Gold package for one blog, you can add additional blogs on the Silver pricing.
Platinum packages are on a per blog or per site basis.
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Who will own the design and content of my blog?
You own your blog. The contents of your blog – i.e your blog posts and any blog post images belong to you. Should you decide to leave us after your 30 day money back guarantee period, to run your blog by yourself elsewhere, we will package it up and provide you the following items in a zipped up email attachment.This will include :
- Your WordPress database containing all your blog posts, comments and plugin configurations
- Your blog post and page images will be on Amazon S3 because this is how we teach you to use images on WordPress, so these are already in your control.
- If you have paid separately for any special Thesis customisations, these will be packaged up and included.
- Please bear in mind that if you ask for a refund under the terms of our guarantee, you will not be entitled to the blog design nor any setups that we will have done on your behalf. Your blog posts will always be your property though and we will provide a zip of your blog’s database containing your posts, pages and plugin configurations.
- We run your blog under a developer’s client license for Thesis. If you leave, you will have to purchase your own Thesis license if you do not own one already.
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Can I upgrade or downgrade my package?
To upgrade a package please contact us. We can arrange an upgrade from Silver to Gold or from Gold to Platinum.
Please be aware that a downgrade will involve a reduction in service level. Please contact us if you need to take either action.
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Are there any extra costs?
The Power Blog Service is a premium service and as such we provide you with best in class information and add on services when you need them.
Once you’ve paid a setup fee for the package of your choice, apart from your monthly subscription charge from us, the only extra costs to consider will be as follows
- Design costs for your site
- CDN image hosting via Amazon S3 (recommended and very low monthly cost)
- A newsletter service when required (optional)
- One-on-one technical support for your own questions regarding your site (as and when you ask) in the case of Bronze and Silver members
- Programming or additional features on your site
- Premium hosting (only when your site is large and very very popular). Please note that this charge can be significantly delayed by using Amazon S3 CDN image hosting above, from the outset
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When do I pay for technical support?
Silver Package
Technical support is via paid support credit if your question is about your own site, or if to answer it, we need to look at your web site or log into it to fix a problem on your behalf. This means you only pay for one on one technical support when you need it.
Gold Package
You are entitled to one on one support for your blog should you get stuck. Support is subject to a fair use policy. The answer you need will either be pointed out to you in the Knowledge Base, or a new article will be written as the answer in the Knowledge Base to answer your question, or we will help you one on one via email or the telephone for any problems you have with your blog posts.
For example, you might submit a support ticket if you want to know the precise steps to take to upload an image to a blog post.
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What exactly is the Prep Zone?
When you decide to place your blog with us on either the Silver or Gold package you can start using your new blog straight away.
Once you have paid, our system allows you to use your brand new WordPress blog and Thesis theme straight away. We can do this very quickly so you can start adding your blog posts immediately.
Even if you’re not sure how to go about this, we supply you at sign up time with your first WordPress Blogging training module, so you can really start off on the right foot. In order to get you up and running quickly, we place your blog on our domain – it will be something like pbs0601.powerblogservice.com, and is unique to you.
Your blog will be live online and you’ll be able to show your colleagues and friends what you’ve achieved.
Domains Take a Bit Longer
However, what we can’t do straight away is get your new blog to run on your chosen domain name. This takes a day or two, and once you’ve bought a package with us, we’ll ask you to send us details of the domain where you want the blog to run.
Once you let us know details of your own domain name we will get your blog running there for you.
The advantage to this system is that you can start blogging and learning straight away.