Taking over an existing website

The most common situations

• The person who built the site no longer answers. The logins for the host, the domain name or the admin are lost, or spread across several people.
• The site runs on WordPress, but nobody has updated it in a long time. It's slow, or it got hacked.
• The site is on Wix or Squarespace, and you want to leave. The subscription costs a lot, or you've hit the limits of what the tool allows.
• An agency looks after it, but its maintenance contract costs too much for what it does.

Where I start

The logins first. The domain name, the host, the site admin and the email accounts should be in your organization's name, not a person's.

Then a full backup, before touching anything.

Then the state of updates: WordPress, the theme, the plugins, what is behind or abandoned by its author.

I also look for signs of a hack: added code, accounts nobody knows, redirects to other sites.

Fix or rebuild

Only after that review do you know whether the site should be fixed or rebuilt. A slow or outdated site can often be fixed without starting over.

To leave Wix or Squarespace, the site has to be rebuilt elsewhere. I suggest WordPress most of the time, or another tool depending on the kind of site and what you really need. We bring over your text and images, and we keep your addresses so you don't lose your place on Google.

The audit, to start

The audit costs $750*, whatever the size of the site. Over two weeks, I look at speed, security and updates, your place on Google, accessibility and how it displays on a phone. I don't touch anything.

You get a PDF with the list of what needs fixing, most urgent first, and we talk it over on the phone. If you hand me what comes next, I deduct the price of the audit from my quote.