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Making Sure Your Website is Really YOURS: a Survival Guide for the Non-Technical Business Owner

Web design and maintenance presents a unique challenge for many small businesses being not only a highly technical asset but also one of the most public and crucial elements of a successful marketing strategy. Many entrepreneurs in non-technical businesses don’t understand how their websites work or how they would access them in the event of an emergency or personnel change.

In my years working with small business owners, I have seen more than a few lose control of their sites, have their sites disappear from the web or have to wrest their intellectual property away from an unscrupulous web designer or agency.

These problems are highly preventable if the proper precautions are taken to make sure that your website remains YOURS.

Step 1: Your website is part of your business; learn the basics
Take the time to learn the basics about how websites work. No matter how non-technical you are, understanding website 101 will make you a better shopper for web service providers and less likely to be taken advantage of. Terms you should be familiar with include URL, DNS, IP, Host, Server, SSL, HTML, CSS, FTP, PHP, SQL, Linux, .NET, CMS, SEO and PPC. In an emergency, understanding this can be every bit as important as understanding the basics of your financial statements.

Step 2: Buy your own domain name!
Make sure you own your domain name – buy it yourself through GoDaddy or a similar service. NEVER allow a developer, designer, consultant, hosting company or other third party to purchase it on your behalf. If someone else purchases a web domain in their name, they own it – not you – and they may or may not be willing to transfer it over to you whenever your relationship ends.

Step 3: Make sure you have access; you never know when you’ll need it
Make sure that your hosting company and/or developer or designer provides you with all the necessary passwords and credentials to access your files directly should you ever need to. Note that this is not necessarily an indication of mistrust in your web people – the unexpected can happen and should your developer ever move, go on an extended vacation or become sick or hurt, you could have a problem. Specifically, you should have: an FTP login, a login for a web-based hosting administration panel and a login for your content management system, if you have one.

Step 4: Make sure you have means of denying access; you never know when you’ll need it
Your team of employees, consultants, web developers and/or designers will change over time. Whether someone leaves your employ by force or of their own accord, you need to be able to take their keys to your website away just as you would their keys to your office.

Step 5: Get it in writing
Make sure you have a written contract or service agreement with anyone/everyone who works on your site. Your agreements should not only clearly define the scope of what that person/firm is being hired to do for you, but also the ownership of intellectual property (design, code, source files) created on your behalf. And when your developer or agency presents you with a contract, service agreement, or terms and conditions, be sure to read everything carefully before you agree.

It may seem morbid or fatalistic to “plan for the worst and hope for the best,” but considering these scenarios ahead of time will not only help you prepare, but may also help prevent them from ever becoming reality.

Erik Wolf is the author of Marketing: Unmasked (available on Amazon) and founder of Zero-G Creative, an Alpharetta-based small business marketing and web design agency. For more information, visit zerogcreative.com or contact Erik at erik@z-gc.com.