Why control
What do we mean when we ask the question about being in control of your website? Fundamentally we think all small businesses should be in total control, because if you’re not then you’re at the mercy of the web agencies. Many of these web agencies are decent and honourable but some of them aren’t. If you’re a typical small business person then you don’t want to be a web expert – you leave that to someone else, so you put yourself in the hands of experts.
Unfortunately some of these experts can use jargon and technology to mask some unsavoury practices. For example they routinely over-charge for maintenance of your website, which often involves charging for what are essentially automated processes, that they have no involvement in, whatsoever. They tend to charge a great deal for making even minor changes to the website. I even know of one agency who charged the client every time the client wanted to put up a new post.
What happens when you’re not in control
When you’re not in control of your website there are some very serious problems you can face. Apart from being susceptible to over-charging there are a couple of things you could turn you from client into victim.
First, if you fall out or disagree with your web company they can hold you to ‘ransom’ over your domain name, if you didn’t register the name yourself. They could potentially resell your domain name or simply hold on to it, meaning that you have to go and find a new one, which may not be ideal. It sounds a bit far fetched but it happens more than you imagine.
Second, we’ve come across situations where web agencies demand fees from you for stuff that is essentially free. We had one customer who were paying £4000.00 per year for a proprietary Content Management System, which turned out to be WordPress, which is free!
How you can tell if you’re in control.
Here’s a checklist of items – if you answer yes to all of them, then you’re in control.
- Did you register your domain name yourself?
- Do you know who is hosting your website?
- Do you know which Content Management System you use?
- Do you have unfettered (Admin) access to the CMS?
- Do you know which major plugins you use?
If you answered Yes to all of the questions above, then top of the class, you can go on your way safe in the knowledge you’re in control.
If you didn’t then maybe you need to think about your web agency and ask them a few questions.
Remember although they may have purchased your domain name and control hosting and the CMS they are duty bound to hand these things over to you. You paid for them you own them. If they argue set the lawyers on them!
As an absolute minimum you should own your domain and have access to your back end, be that WordPress or something else.
If you don’t want to head off down the route of litigation there are other ways. Our next blog is going to talk you through how you get yourself out from under the yolk of a web agency who are ripping you off.