It’s not so obvious; that we need to record our web site account information to avoid getting ourselves into double trouble.  I’m not trying to be alarmist, but I am kind of alarmed to learn of several instances when a few friends and clients ran into difficulty obtaining access to their domain name registration or web site hosting account data. It lead to problems and created a great deal of unwanted stress – as you can imagine.

One of my friends lost touch with his web designer who moved without notice, and with that connection went access to his web site files. Without this information, he was facing the possibility of rebuilding his site from scratch. Fortunately, through some persistent calls through his network, the web designer was found – way way out west, and the files were successfully transferred from his server over to a new hosting company. Fewf!

In a separate case, a shop owner was offered a quick facebook page, and a wordpress site to get him all set up online. The only problem is that the person who set up these sites (no naming names here) became somewhat elusive when it came time to collecting the usernames and logins.  Had to rebuild everything.

And finally, a case where the web designer became disinterested and was not prepared to finish a site, and decided he wanted out. He outright refused to help with transferring the wordpress site to another server where it could be edited and completed. The site had to be completely rebuilt, all costs born by the client. Nasty.

Now, I am not trying to frighten the novice out there into avoiding a web site or getting online in any way, it’s just that I am particularly incensed that some designers or web developers don’t help their clients out in this area.  I think it is incredibly important ( and just plain good customer service) to spend a little time educating a more novice client on the significance of proper administration of data – that they actually own by the way.

Though it is ultimately faster and simpler for the designer or developer to activate domain registration and hosting services on behalf of the client, it behooves us to ensure our clients receive a record of this valuable information for their safe keeping.  For this reason I prepare a one page sheet with domain registrar information, hosting provider details, and in the case of WordPress, Facebook, Shopify, Twitter and Pinterest to name a few, the usernames and logins for each account.  This way, if I were to suddenly split town without a word (because, say, I amassed a large number of parking tickets and was unable to pay, not that this would every happen to me!) at least my client would be able to run things from their desktop.  The only stress being that they would likely miss having me around…

Here is a basic account summary that Rural Studio shares with my clients immediately after their site is registered and hosted:

(You can read more about this process by visiting the web menu item: Best Practices/ Basic Web Site Admin)