I was approached by Rhonda Weaver with NEWMS about being the speaker for this month’s Escape luncheon. I went back and forth about possible topics that might interest the business owners and managers that would attend. I settled on questions to ask your webmaster or web designer prior to hiring them.
Some of the questions were if they will optimize the site for the search engines, who owns the site, maintenance fees and contracts, social media, and more. The topic stemmed some additional questions as the attendees developed an understanding that they don’t have to be so dependent on their website designer.
One question that was of interest was who owns your site. Many website designers help by setting up a client’s domain name and hosting account. This is great as long as the relationship with your web designer stays on good terms. We suggest that the account be in the client’s name so the client has access. Of course the website designer can have access but if the client ever decides that they want to hire someone in-house or work with another firm they can remove that person as an admin without a huge ordeal and without needing to move all your files and risk potential down time. We have helped clients many times get access to their accounts. It is almost like hostage negotiations at times.
Another topic that was of interest was content management systems also known as CMS. This allows the client to edit parts of the website without having to mess with code. This allows the website owner to have more control and they don’t have to wait for updates to be made to the site.
Some of the topics covered allowed them to leave equipped with steps they could apply to get more control over their website, as well as make better decisions when they need a little help. This opportunity allowed us to achieve one of our main goals as a company; allowing small businesses to get the most out of their website without breaking their budget.
