Don’t Let Your Web Designer Own Your Domain and Accounts

We’re currently working with two businesses who are suffering because they don’t own their domains; their web designers do. Both are trying to move their websites, but they’ve hit a roadblock because they don’t own their domains. We’ve worked with companies in similar situations many times over the years, and I get angry each time. This problem would be easily avoided if companies registered their own domains, rather than letting their web designers (or other professionals) do it for them.

There are many other accounts that businesses should have access to, but too often don’t. They let web professionals maintain control, assuming that their relationship will always be healthy. These include accounts for hosting, WordPress, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console. Let’s look at the right way to handle these.

If you let your web designer own your accounts, you’re at their mercy. They can charge exorbitant fees to make simple changes. Or your business relationship may end for any number of reasons, many of which are out of your control. The relationship could go sour, they could quit, they could die, etc. When you need to make a change and need access, you’ll be dependent on your web designer responding quickly and being willing to make the changes. You simply can’t count on both of those at all times. When you own your accounts, you don’t need to worry about those.

The best approach, and the one we advocate, is for you to open your own accounts in your business’ name. Then, you can give the web designer access as necessary. If the relationship ends for any reason, you’re free to find a new web designer and give them access.

You should register your own domain, in your business’ name. You should own the account and have access to the domain registrar’s control panel. Our favorite domain registrar is Hover, because they have a simple, uncluttered interface, and WHOIS privacy is included.

This is the most critical piece. Even if you lose control of your WordPress site and hosting, as long as you have the domain, you can point it elsewhere and be back online.

You should open your own account, in your business’ name. Be very careful about buying hosting from your web designer, as that ties you to them. If you go that route, ask for as much access as you can have (to the control panel, SFTP, database, etc.), in case you need to this access for yourself or another professional in the future.

If you’re shopping for hosting, we recommend SiteGround for most small businesses, and WP Engine for sites with higher security and traffic requirements.

You should have your own account. In fact, each person in your business who needs access should have their own account. Sharing accounts makes it harder to tell who did what, and to restrict access. It’s OK if your web designer doesn’t give you an Administrator account (especially if you don’t need it), but they should give you an account with an appropriate level of access (such as Editor, or a custom role).

Premium plugins and themes are those that you buy, and have a license for their use. In general, it’s best that you buy them and have the license in your name, so that you can re-download and contact support directly if necessary. Give your license key (or account credentials) to your web designer as needed.

However, there are some plugins and themes (such as StudioPress’ themes) that have developer licenses, making it less expensive (or free) if your web designer buys for you. If you go this route, be aware that if you end your relationship with your web designer, you may need to purchase your own license at renewal time. If that happens, you can usually keep the plugin or theme in place, and just update the license key, which is fairly painless.

To hear both sides on this topic, see Should Client or Builder Buy Themes and Plugins?

It’s fine if your web designer sets this up, as long as they set up a separate account for your business.  not necessarily a separate Google account. That keeps your data separate from the data of other sites. They should also give you Manage Users and Edit permissions at the Account level. That way, you have control over the account, and can add and remove users.