Is your web developer holding your website hostage?
Final part
You have probably heard this before: business owners (and sometimes even non-profit organizations) have lost control of their websites because they trusted too much on their developers and did not ask the right questions.
Hiring a web developer (or an agency) is a big decision and you better be sure that before you allow someone to manage or develop your website, they are open, honest and care about your business and it’s image.
This series of articles is intended to show you some steps you can take in order do prevent this type of misfortune from happening to your business.
Be Aware
The situations presented above have been seen a lot over the years but all of them can be avoided by asking the right questions and not being afraid to request access to your web information. To sum up, these are the steps you should follow in order to prevent those situations:
- Make sure you have a contract that outlines any work to be done and who owns what.
- Purchase your OWN domain name then allow the developer access to it if needed.
- If you are using a hosted platform like Wix, create your OWN account and then provide access to the developer.
- If you decide to host with your developer – make sure you receive access to your hosting account (cPanel) when your website launches.
- If you get hosting – make sure it is in YOUR NAME and then you can provide limited access to any developer or designer to prevent them from taking over your account.
- Do NOT pay any final invoices until all passwords and access has been delivered and tested by you.
- (Optional) Change passwords after the developer’s work is done, so only you have access to those passwords, making your data even more secure.
This is the final article of the “Is your web developer holding your website hostage?” series. You can download the PDF below with the summary of the whole series.