Ask Me Anything: a monthly website clinic for SiteVitals members

If you look after a website but you're not a website person, you'll probably know the feeling. Something in a report looks a bit odd, or a developer sends over a quote you can't make head nor tail of, or Google does something unexpected, and you've no idea whether it's a big deal or nothing at all. And there isn't really anyone to ask (not without paying someone by the hour to tell you it's fine, anyway).

So we're starting something new for SiteVitals members. Once a month, you can send your website questions to Tom or me and get a proper answer from two people who've each been building and looking after websites for over 20 years.

Here's the short version. One day a month, the account owner on any paid SiteVitals plan can send in as many questions as they like, and we'll reply privately by email, answering as many as we can that day. The rest of this post covers how it works, what you can ask, and a few honest bits about what we can't do.

How it works

We'll email you ahead of each clinic with the date, and again on the morning itself with a link to send in your questions. The form is open from 9am to 5:30pm (UK time), and one of us will reply by email as soon as we can during the day.

If we need to know a bit more to give you a useful answer, we'll ask. And if our answer raises another question, just reply and we'll pick it up from there, so a clinic question can easily turn into a short conversation.

It's a one-day thing, so if you miss it, the form will be back next month.

Who can send questions

The clinic is for the account owner (the person who set up and pays for the SiteVitals subscription). You can add as many people to your account as you like, and they can all use SiteVitals as normal, but only the account owner can send clinic questions.

That might sound a bit strict, but the clinic is our time, and keeping it to one person per subscription is what keeps it fair for everyone. If someone else would like to send their own questions, they'll need their own subscription (paid plans start from £2.50 a month, so it's not a big ask).

Who'll answer

Tom or I will. We've each spent over 20 years building, launching and fixing websites (Tom's the developer, and I'm the one who translates between developers and everyone else), so you'll get an answer from someone who's seen your problem before, or something very like it.

Very occasionally, for something like illness or a family emergency, an experienced member of our team might run the clinic instead, or we might move it to another day. If that happens, we'll let you know by email.

Ask as much as you like

There's no limit on how many questions you can send. If something else comes up later in the day, send that in too.

The only catch is time. Questions are answered first come, first served, and while we'll reply to as many as we can on the day, we'll close the form early if we think the day is full. So if there's something you really want answered, it's worth sending it in the morning.

What you can ask

Anything about your website, really. A few of the things we'd expect:

• Something in your SiteVitals report you're not sure about, and whether it matters
• Whether a quote from a developer or agency sounds fair
• Why a page has dropped in Google, or how to show up in AI tools like ChatGPT
• Which platform to move to, or whether you need to move at all
• What to ask before you sign up with a new host or developer

The one thing we'd ask is that you keep it realistic. A good clinic question is one we can answer properly in an email, so if something would take a day of consultancy to work through (a full website audit, say, or planning a brand new site), we'll let you know and suggest what we'd do next.

What we can't do

We give advice, not hands-on fixes. We won't log in to your website or make changes for you, so please don't send passwords or login details.

We also can't give legal, financial or tax advice, and we can't guarantee any particular result from following our advice. But we'll always tell you honestly what we'd do in your shoes.

Why email?

Your questions will often involve your business, your clients or your plans, and that's not something most people want to post in a group chat. So everything happens by email, and our replies come straight to you.

How we use your questions

We sometimes turn clinic questions into blog posts, newsletters and social media posts, because if one person's asking, loads of other people are probably wondering the same thing. When we do, we anonymise everything. That means we take out your name, your website address, your business name and anything else that could identify you, including things like your location or a very specific type of business. By sending a question, you're agreeing that we can use it this way.

We may also use AI tools to help us research and draft replies, so we can get through more questions on the day. Before we share a question with an AI tool, we take out your contact details, though we might keep your website address if the tool needs to look at your site to help us answer properly. Every reply is read, checked and sent by a real person (usually Tom or me), and we never send advice we don't agree with.

How it might change

This is brand new, so we're going to learn as we go. If clinic days get really busy and people aren't getting their questions answered, we'll look at running it differently, for example with different plans on different days. If we ever make a change that significantly cuts what's included in your subscription, we'll give you at least 30 days' notice first.

When's the first one?

The first clinic is on Thursday 5th November (remember, remember!), and we'll email members with the details beforehand. If you're not a member yet, pop your website address in for a free report first, and if you'd like to join us for the clinic, paid plans start at £2.50 a month. The full details are in section 6A of our terms of service. And if you've got a question about the clinic itself, you don't need to wait for clinic day, just get in touch.