Your WP Project Is Ready to Launch

Launch Approval

First, when you request that we launch your project, you’re letting us know that you’ve thoroughly reviewed the site, you’re happy with how everything looks and functions, and you’re ready to make it live.

Before requesting launch, please take time to confirm that you’ve reviewed and tested the following:

• The front-end of the site (how it looks and functions in the browser)
• The WordPress dashboard (how pages, posts, and content behave when edited)
• Forms have been submitted and tested, including confirmation and notification emails

We know reviews can take time, but it’s important to complete this step before launch. Launch is the point where your project is approved and ready for real users, not when you should be reviewing for the first time.

Timing & Access

As you prepare for launch, we appreciate as much notice as possible—ideally two or more business days. We’ll also need all launch details and access at least two business days ahead of time so we can ensure everything is lined up and credentials are working.

For your security, we recommend sharing credentials using a secure password sharing platform as opposed to sending credentials in a plain text email. For additional help or questions about sharing credentials, please contact us.

To launch your project, we’ll need:

• The URL of the live website where the new site should be launched
• WordPress admin access (if the current site uses WordPress)
• Hosting access – How to Grant Hosting Access – A Complete Guide
• Domain registrar access (if you’re changing hosts)

We typically handle site launches Monday through Thursday only. We don’t schedule launches on Fridays, weekends, or holidays—this ensures we’re fully available to help if anything urgent comes up after launch.

Whenever possible, we aim to launch in the U.S. overnight hours so your site is live by the time you wake up. If you have a specific time you’d like for your launch, please let us know.

Unless otherwise discussed in advance, launches are handled as a full site overwrite. This means the new site will completely replace anything currently living at the live URL.

If there are files, content, or assets from the existing site that you’d like to keep, please let us know before launch—and let us know where you’d like those files placed. This helps us make sure nothing important is lost in the process.

Email Deliverability

Out of the box, WordPress sends emails using the PHP mail function. These emails are generated by your site’s code and are used for things like password resets and form notifications.

With modern hosts and stricter email providers, these messages can sometimes land in spam—or not be delivered at all, especially with inboxes like Outlook that have more aggressive filtering.

To improve reliability, we often recommend using the Post SMTP plugin. This switches your site to sending email through a real email account, which significantly improves deliverability.

This setup helps ensure important emails—like form submissions and password resets—actually reach your inbox.

We’re happy to set this up for you. We’ll either need access to an email account you’d like to use (many clients choose something like reply@yourdomain.com), or your permission to create a new Gmail address specifically for this purpose.

Tracking Scripts

If we’ve built a custom theme for you, we’ve included dedicated areas in the Theme Settings panel for tools like Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and other tracking scripts. This allows you to add tracking cleanly without editing code files or adding unnecessary plugins.

If you’d like help adding or verifying tracking scripts, just let us know. We’re happy to take care of this for you at no additional cost, included within your 1-hour total migration time.

Hosting & DNS

If you’re changing hosts and would like our help with DNS updates, we’re happy to coordinate that with you. DNS assistance is included at no additional cost, up to 1 hour of total migration time.

Most hosting providers and DNS tools warn that changes can take hours—or even days—to fully propagate. In practice, delays like this are quite rare, and DNS changes these days are usually very speedy.

During propagation, there may be brief moments where the site behaves in ways that are outside of anyone’s control. Rest assured, this is temporary and resolves on its own once propagation completes.

If email services are tied to your domain, please let us know ahead of time so we can help preserve or add the correct DNS records.

If you’re still exploring hosting options, we typically recommend the following setup, which works well for most clients:

• Domain registrar: Porkbun
• DNS: Cloudflare
• Hosting: WP Engine, Kinsta, or a similar high-quality host

One important note to flag: we generally do not recommend GoDaddy for hosting, DNS, or other web services.

If you choose to use GoDaddy, launches or account-level changes may be delayed by 1–3 or more business days. Unfortunately, these delays are outside of our control and are driven by GoDaddy’s internal systems and policies.

WP Security

Once your site is live, we strongly recommend the following steps to keep things secure and running smoothly:

• Enforce strong passwords
• Keep the number of admin users to a minimum
• Assign appropriate user roles (Admin, Editor, etc.)
• Remove unused user accounts entirely
• Hide the WordPress login page by changing the default /wp-admin URL
• Use a security plugin such as Defender Pro (premium; we can install this for you at no cost)
• Confirm your host is running automatic routine backups
• Ensure your site is protected by an SSL certificate (https)
• Keep WordPress core, plugins, and PHP versions up to date

When applying updates, always confirm that reliable backups exist first. Updates can occasionally cause conflicts, unexpected behavior, or—in some cases—cause a site to go down entirely.

WP Maintenance

For ongoing care, we offer a WordPress Maintenance Plan that takes care of everything above—and more—so you don’t have to worry about the technical details.

The plan includes:

• One hour of development time each month for updates, fixes, or small changes
• A discounted hourly rate if you need additional time ($60/hr)
• Speed optimization at sign-up and twice per year
• Image and media optimization at sign-up and twice per year
• Access to premium tools we use, including FlyingPress,
• Gravity Forms, ACF Pro, Elementor Pro, Smush Pro, and Defender Pro
• Site security hardening and monitoring
• 24/7 uptime monitoring
• Daily malware scans
• Automatic cloud backups
• WordPress core, theme, plugin, and PHP updates
• Database and cron management
• Broken link scans
• A monthly report—usually mid-month—confirming everything we handled for you.
• WP Engine hosting can be added to your plan for $30/month, which is less than signing up directly.

Annual plans receive 20% off with code LAUNCH20. To sign up, please visit our WordPress Maintenance page.

Code Guarantee

Once your site is launched, you’re covered by our 90-day code guarantee.

If any bugs or issues come up that fall within the original project scope, we’ll take care of them at no additional cost. Routine site use is expected, and that includes making normal edits like updating copy, swapping images, or managing content in WordPress. If bugs surface during those everyday updates, they’re absolutely covered.

The code guarantee only becomes void if the site’s codebase itself is edited by you or by another developer or team, and those edits introduce errors or instability. In that case, we’re still happy to help—we’ll just provide a quote before moving forward.

If you’re ever unsure whether something falls under the guarantee, please reach out. We’re always glad to talk it through with you.

Future Updates

We’re always happy to help with updates, changes, or tweaks—big or small. Whether it’s two weeks from now or two years down the line, let us know what you have in mind and we’ll be glad to put together a quote.

If you haven’t already, now is also a great time to think about:

• Privacy compliance (GDPR, CPRA, etc.)
• Accessibility compliance (WCAG)
• Core Web Vitals
• Technical SEO

If you’d like a quote for any of these services or have questions about any of the above, email us at info@heyreliable.com.

Thank You

We truly appreciate the opportunity to work on your project! We’re excited to see your site go live and look forward to supporting it well beyond launch.