Do you know how to log in to your website? Do you have social media pages for your business but don’t remember who set them up for you? Can you tell me where your website is hosted? A lot of clients we work with don’t consider themselves to be “tech savvy,” and that is 100% fine. After all, they’re hiring tech and marketing savvy folks so they can focus on their strength – caring for seniors. But all too often, people working with a web development or marketing firm give up some very important access that they absolutely should have, tech savvy or not.
There are some pretty horrifying scenarios out there of small business owners who have entrusted their online marketing and web development to contractors or even well known marketing firms, only to realize down the road, either when they want to change firms or take over some web editing on their own, that they do not have full access to their own accounts. As a business owner, it’s absolutely essential that you have full access to your website, host login, social media accounts, etc. Let’s explore why…
Your Home Care Website
It is normal for home care agencies to outsource website development, content creation, and maintenance to a marketing firm. What is not normal is a marketing firm only providing the agency with a basic login to their own site. A basic website login is often not enough to make bigger site changes. Even if you won’t be making edits to the site yourself, as the owner of your website, you should have administrator status, which gives you access to all areas of the site. Other user levels provide limited access to your site, only allowing you to edit certain pages.
Not sure what level of access you have? If you are an administrator, when logged in to your WordPress website you will have access to your full dashboard. You will be able to see and access users in your dashboard sidebar, and in that area you will be able to check your own user status, add users, change the user status of others, etc.
Your Domain/Web Host/FTP Access
Domain names, web hosts, and FTP files are generally not something you will personally have to deal with on a regular basis. In fact, your web developer will typically handle these areas on your behalf. However, it is vital that you know your logins to these areas. This will ensure that you have full control over your site and your files if you ever decide to change web developers.
A domain name is a name like “homecareagency.com”. It is the means by which visitors reach your website. When you or the person you hired originally developed your website, one of the first things that would have been done is to register a domain name, which typically involves the payment of a small annual fee to a company called a domain name registrar, like GoDaddy, HostGator, and BlueHost. To put it simply, your domain name is like your street address, your host is like your plot of land, and your website is the house that is built on that plot of land. You pay a small annual fee for your domain name and then a slightly larger fee, either annually or monthly, for your hosting service. You need your username and password for your domain account AND your host account, and sometimes you also need a pin number as well to access support by phone.
Without full access to your domain name, you may not be able to continue to pay the monthly fees, and if you don’t pay the monthly fees, the domain name expires. If your domain name expires, a competitor can snap it up. Similarly, if you don’t pay your host, your website will be deleted, or if your site gets hacked, you won’t have enough access to fix it.
Want a simple explanation of differences between your domain, host, and website? Our own Marissa Snook put together this adorable little explanation for your convenience.
Social Media Accounts
Again, it’s common these days for companies to have outside marketers setting up and running their social media accounts. If you have someone else setting up your social media accounts, be sure to give them either the profiles or email addresses you would prefer they be set up under and make sure they share all login information with you, so that if/when you take over posting yourself, sign on with a different marketing firm, or want to close down a social profile, you will have the power to add or remove administrators, delete accounts, etc.
Break Out of Website Access Prison!
Having full access to your website, hosting account, files, and social media accounts means having control over your brand. When signing with a web developer or marketing firm, be sure that you make it clear that you require full access to all your accounts and be wary of anyone who tries to steer you toward limited access. Click here to download a free list of log-ins that all home care agency owners and operators should have.
At corecubed, we know how important it is for our clients to have complete access and control over their digital properties. Contact us to learn how working with our team helps keep you in control.