Are you looking for a WordPress developer to build your website?
Or perhaps you’ve already hired a website developer to build your website.
Whichever the case, you must make sure that your website developer hands over the website to you properly after its completion.
Why handing over of a website is so important?
- You get full control of your website.
- You can make the required changes to your website.
- You don’t need to rely on a single website developer if you aren’t happy with him.
- Your new website developer can easily take control of your website.
Handing over of a WordPress website may involve several things. If you are a novice webmaster and building your website for the first time, you may not know the important areas that you must take control of.
But you don’t need to worry because, in this blog post, I have shared 5 important things that you must take over from your web developer during the handover process of your website.
#1 Essential login details
After your WordPress developer finishes your website development, you need to ensure that you have taken all the necessary login details such as:
- WordPress admin credentials
- Database access details
- Any 3rd-party tools login details such as Google Analytics etc.
Also, if your website developer is hosting your website and domain name as well, you need to get the below crucial information from him:
- cPanel username and password
- Hosting login details
- Domain login details
If you don’t take all the necessary login details of your website such as the control panel, your new developer may not be able to make the new changes to your website or redo your website.
#2 Source codes
What is the source code?
A website’s source code is a set of executable codes that can be deployed to a server or any platform in order to run them & render the website.
In other words, source codes contain the executable programs/scripts that show up your website to the users (client-side) when deployed and executed on the servers (server-side).
Why it’s important for you to take over the source codes from your programmer?
- You get 100% control over your website.
- You don’t need to rely on any single developer.
- Your new website developer can easily take over your website and start making changes.
It is therefore a crucial step in the handover process to take over the source codes from your developer.
#3 Licences
It is very much likely that your WordPress developer may have purchased your website’s theme and some of the plugins that have been used to build your website.
Most of these plugins & themes come with a purchase license code or key. If you don’t have these important details about your theme and plugins, you may not be able to upgrade them in the future.
What’s even worst is that you may have to purchase the required plugin(s) or theme to keep your website going. This will unnecessarily increase the cost of your website development.
Therefore, after your website development is completed, you must ask your developer to handover all the required license details to you so that you can take control of your website even if your previous developer is no more working with you.
#4 Source files of designs
Taking control of the website’s source codes is not enough. You may be required to make some changes to the graphic elements of your website in the future.
If you don’t have all the required source files of your website design, you may not be able to do any cosmetic changes to the graphics of your website.
Let’s take an example here.
You may want to change the color theme of your website in future for which you need some graphics like button, header image, etc. to have a different background color.
Your new designer may not be able to make the required changes if you don’t have the source files of your website design.
It is therefore crucial for you to grab all the source files of your website design during the handover process of your website.
Here are some of the important designs for which you must have the source files:
- Webpages layout
- Logo
- Header design
- Backgrounds
- Any other graphic that has been used on your website.
#5 Manual
With the help of an easy-to-use CMS platform such as WordPress, you can easily make minor changes on your website without the help of any developer.
You can manage the contents of your website, you can change the images and you can also add new pages to your website.
You don’t need any technical knowledge to make these changes to your WordPress website. All you need is a manual from your web developer that you can refer to while making the changes.
Therefore, you must make sure to take the manual from your web designer or developer as a part of the website handover process.
The website’s instruction manual must specify at least the below items:
- How to change the contents and images on your website.
- How to create new pages on your website.
- How to manage the navigation/menu of your website.
- How to delete any pages on your website.
- How to manage (edit, add, and delete) the products on your website in case of e-commerce stores.
- How to create discount coupons and check orders, in case of e-commerce websites.
If you don’t have the manual to operate your website, you may have to hire a developer even for making small changes to your website.
So, do make sure that while handing over your website, your developer provides you with the manual too.
