Running a site
What you should receive when the website is finished
Launch day is when most owners find out what they did not ask for. This is a checklist of what to hold at the end, so that the site is yours to run, change or move.
A website that works on launch day but cannot be changed, moved or understood by anyone except its builder is half a website. The point of a handover is that you, or someone you choose, could take over. Ask for each item below in the proposal, so that it is part of the job and not a favour.
Accounts and access
- Domain name. You are the registered owner, your email is on the account, and you have the registrar login. See who owns your website, domain and hosting.
- Hosting. The account is yours, or you hold a role that lets you change settings and transfer it. You know what it costs and when it renews.
- Analytics and Search Console. You are the owner of any property set up for you. In Search Console only an owner can add or remove users, so a developer should hold a lower role, not the only owner login.
- Any other service the site relies on, such as a form service or an embedded map: who holds the account, who pays.
The site itself
- The finished files, in a form you can give to another developer, and a note of where they are kept and how the site is published.
- Your content in original form: text, photographs, logo files and documents, as you supplied them.
- Design files and fonts, with their licences, or a statement of what is yours to reuse.
- A list of pages and their addresses. For a redesign, also the list of old addresses and what each now points to.
Documentation
- A short description of how to make the changes you will want most, such as editing a price or adding a product, or an agreement about who will make them and how they are requested.
- A list of the things that need renewing or updating, and when.
Support and what happens next
- The period in which problems are fixed free of charge, what counts as a problem, and how to report one.
- How a change outside that period is requested and priced.
- Whether any maintenance is offered, what it covers and what it costs. What a maintenance plan should include explains how to read one. Nothing should renew or bill without your agreement.
Your own routine afterwards
- Note the renewal dates for the domain and hosting.
- Keep a copy of the files somewhere that is not the host’s account.
- Check the contact routes, the phone link, the WhatsApp link and the form, every few months.
- When the developer’s work ends, remove any access you gave them that you no longer need.
What Website Craft Room states
The site goes live on the domain and hosting you provide, so those accounts stay in your control. Your package then includes a stated period of post-launch bug support: 14 days for Essential, 30 for Growth and 45 for Complete. Which files, documents and design assets you receive, and who owns them, should be written in your proposal; ask for the list above to be included.