The most common thing we hear when people first come to us for website design help is that they feel like they are held hostage by their old web design company. Web design companies can often do sneaky things that give them control over a company’s website in various ways, which, unfortunately, makes the company who hired the web designer feel powerless and beholden to keep going back to the company holding all the keys. Dynamic Wave Consulting believes that the best business relationships aren’t built through manufactured necessity, but rather mutual trust. Here are the ways we typically see people stuck w/ old web design companies and how to avoid these pitfalls when choosing a web design company.
1. Get All Your Login Credentials to Hosting AND Site Editor AND Domain Name and Store them In A Safe Place
Probably the most common thing we see if people have no logins to their website editor or hosting or domain name or all of the above. Some websites are built on platforms like Wix or Shopify and you don’t need to worry about where the website files are stored. But other sites like WordPress or custom-built sites requires hosting companies to store the files and database. A Web company often will be reluctant to share logins to hosting and tell you they don’t want you messing up the back-end. But the reality is, you should have access to everything related to your website. You need to know how to get into your site editor, your hosting account and your domain name registrar account. Often, if there is a problem with hosting or your site gets hacked, the web company is holding all the keys to restore your site; and if they are hard to get a hold of, you may be in a website crisis situation. Whereas if you have access to your hosting company, a call to your host can often fix the problem and save you a hefty tech bill.
2. Have FULL ADMIN Access
Most commonly, when we take over a website, if the old company gave login credentials, they will not be full admin access. This is again, often done by web design companies, with a “well, this is for your own good so you don’t mess things up” explanation. But the reality is, it keeps you stuck with them because you don’t have the ability to do critical tasks on the website such as add features, change the design, add users, etc. We have even seen, in some cases, when we do test a customer’s logins and discover they aren’t full admin logins, the former web company will be completely unhelpful, unresponsive, or try to hide the fact that they didn’t actually provide full access. Always ensure that a web design company is willing to give you full admin access to your web builder, your website hosting files and domain name account.
3. Keep as Much In Your Own Accounts As Possible
Many of the issues with access above can be avoided by simply requesting that things be set up in your own accounts. In this way you never have to worry about a designer holding you hostage. However, we understand that hosting a website can be overwhelming and managing your accounts may not be desirable. We do manage hosting for many of our clients; however, we always give the option to have the client own the hosting accounts and we recommend only doing business with web companies who show no resistance to the option that the files and domain all live in accounts they don’t control. If a web design company gives pushback to the idea that you manage your hosting accounts or insists that they always require you host your site with them, that is a red flag that will almost certainly turn into an issue down the road.
4. Know Your Web Design Platform and Why It Was Chosen
We have seen it all in 20 years as a web design company. There are countless instances where people have been sold a complex, custom-built web platform that they didn’t really need. There are so many user-friendly web design CMS platforms out there today such as Wix, WordPress, Shopify that make it easy to make simple edits and posts. These DIY website builders may not be easy enough that you want to build your website yourself; but they do make it easy enough that you should be able to make edits yourself. Complex, custom-built website platforms are rarely needed. Platforms like WordPress are open-source and able to build sites of almost any complexity while giving you the tools to easily make your own edits and not have to always run back to your web design company when you need to make small edits or add features. Your web design company should empower you to run your business efficiently, not be an obstacle to progress when you need to make updates in realtime.
When we discuss what platform is best to build a site for a customer, we take their functionality needs and ongoing maintenance into account to deliver a recommendation that will meet their needs on every level. There are times when a custom platform is the best option – typically for very technical and enterprise-level buildouts. However, for 90% of websites, we will very rarely recommend a platform that isn’t user friendly or that the customer can’t use with little technical expertise. We always let the customer know the rationale for the website platform we recommend, whether it be of a technical, budgetary or ease-of-use standpoint.
5. Watch Out for Custom Themes
Similar to the above, we’ve seen countless instances where a customer will ask for a platform they know, such as WordPress, only to have the web company deliver a website with a custom theme that essentially takes away all the typical user features of the platform. So the customer may sort of technically get a WordPress or a Shopify site… but not really. The features, the page layout tools, the Admin functionality and essentially everything you need to avoid the pitfalls above has been sneakily taken away by the custom theme. In some cases, we’ve even seen the page content in a “WordPress” site doesn’t even exist on the customer’s site, but is being called from an unknown hosting site – so essentially the web design company delivered nothing but a WordPress shell and the illusion that the customer was getting a site and hosting they could access.
Always ensure, if getting a platform such as WordPress or Shopify, that the web design company tell you the theme they are using and if it is a custom theme or one that is commonly available.
If you follow the 5 tips above, you should wind up with a website you can use and update without ever being held hostage by your web design company. Contact Dynamic Wave Consulting to start a conversation about your website design that will empower you and build a relationship of collaboration and trust with your web design company.