Are you being held hostage by your current web developer/web designer? Even worse, do you not know if you are or not? Read on to see who is really in control of your website. It happens every day. Business owners are losing control of their websites because they are too trusting and not asking the right questions.
Control is the key to protecting your website and knowing how a website is setup is crucial to having that control.
Key Components
There are two main things that you need to have control of: the domain name account and the website’s hosting account. If you don’t have control of these accounts, everything becomes much more difficult if you try to make changes to your website and you are locked out.
Your registrar account controls your domain name. Common registrars are GoDaddy & Namecheap. Your domain name is your address on the Internet (ex. www.pretty-pages.com ). Your hosting account holds your actual website and delivers it to the world.
Sometimes your hosting company is the same as your registrar. However, it’s also very common for your domain to be registered at one company and hosted at another. Make sure you know where your domain is registered and where your website is hosted.
In 8 years in this business, I cannot count how many times clients have come to me and wanted me to create a new website for them, only to find out the domain name or web hosting account (or both) is not in their name. The problem is they hired a web designer to build a website and the web designer set up the main components instead of telling the client to outright buy the items they need to get started. Sometimes, business owners don’t want to pay for the items needed and instead let the web designer set it up and never think twice about the long term repercussion.
BUY YOUR DOMAIN NAME
If a web developer is buying a domain for you – they own that domain name.
Can you get it back? Maybe. But sadly, more often than not you won’t if your web designer is holding your site hostage.
BUY YOUR WEB HOSTING ACCOUNT & KNOW HOW IT IS SETUP
When you launch your new website, there should be no secrets. Well, really there should never be any secrets when developing your website – but that is another article entirely!
If you want complete control, the biggest mistake you can make is to let your web designer set up your hosting. There is a huge difference between accessing your website and accessing your hosting account.
Your website can be created using different software or platforms. Just because a web designer gives you login information for your website doesn’t mean that you control the website outright. The website itself is sitting inside of a hosting account. Ultimately, that account controls your website.
How to protect your investment
When your website launches, make sure you are provided or have access to the following:
- The name of the company that is hosting your website as well as their contact information.
- Access to your control panel so you can access your website database. You should receive a URL, username and password. FTP server name, address, username and password. This will offer you access to your website files.
- A list of any other software that was used in the creation of your website as well as any licenses and fees that are required. (Some plugins for WordPress for example are licensed and may require annual fees for updating – you should know this!)
- If a pre-made theme was used in the creation of your website, make sure you are able to update the theme as required. This often means the purchase of the theme should be in your name so you are the license owner – typically only the license owner will have access to future updates on themes. This could be detrimental to you in the future if you cannot access these updates.
Things to consider
It is not uncommon for business owners who sign up with a web designer on a monthly plan to not have control over the items above. You are paying the web designer a cheap fee to get the website up and to keep it maintained and like any company who is running a monthly service it is their way of having control to make sure they are paid each month. However, you should know this when signing up under a contract.
To review, logins seem like no big deal, until you don’t have one. So take the time to make sure you have the following to avoid all future hostage situations:
- Make sure YOU own your own domain name AND have the username and password for your account.
- Make sure YOU own your own hosting account AND have the username and password for your account.
- Make sure YOUR WEBSITE is built on a Content Management System like WordPress, and you have full admin access, too.
Where should you buy hosting?
There are tons of web hosting companies out there and whichever one you choose is up to you. For my clients I always send them to Siteground. Are you a DIY person? Read my tutorial on how to build your website like the pros!