We make a lot of websites here at Sumy Designs. There are a lot of components involved in making a website, but one of the aspects is often accessing your web hosting account or domain registrar.
Do you know where that information is? Do you know your logins?
A lot of times when I ask for this information, people don’t even know who their web hosting company even is.
Just FYI – that is not good!
My New Year’s Resolution for my clients is this: organize your website information. Know where your site is hosted, know where your domain is registered, know about any other website information. Organize it, save it, and back it up.
The Basics
Your website, at a minimum, has a domain and web hosting. You may have bought these items at one place, or you may have bought them at different places. It is not at all uncommon to register a domain at one place and then buy web hosting somewhere else.
That’s perfectly fine, but know where your domain is and how to access it. Know where your web hosting is, and how to access it. Store your logins and passwords in a secure location.
Extras
If you have a website, then you for sure have web hosting and a domain, but you might have extras! And if you do, you should know where these things are and how to access them too. Here are a few examples.
Premium Plugins: Your website might use premium plugins, such as Yoast Premium, Gravity Forms, or add-ons for WooCommerce. If so, you’ll want to make sure you know how to access your accounts. These plugins all have yearly memberships that need renewed.
Monitoring and Security Services: You may also have signed up for extra services like security monitoring from Sucuri or firewall protection from Cloudflare. You should know how to access these accounts too.
Marketing Information: It’s possible you also have a newsletter, which can be integrated into your website, and use a tool like MailChimp or MadMimi. Maybe you have an AdWords account? If so, your web designer may need to access it to get conversion tracking codes. Be sure you know where all these logins are and how to access the account.
Google Analytics, Search Console and Business Listing: If you don’t have these things, get them. They are important for measuring traffic and optimizing your website. If you do have them, know how to login and access them.
Keep those passwords secure
My final note about knowing your logins and how to access your accounts is to keep your passwords secure.
- Don’t use the same password for every account. Each password should be unique, difficult, with a mix of uppercase, lowercase, numbers and symbols.
- Store them securely and encrypted or use a password manager like LastPass.
If you don’t know where all your website info is, look it up and get organized. You’ll be glad you have it all in one place later.
Amy Masson
Amy is the co-owner, developer, and website strategist for Sumy Designs. She's been making websites with WordPress since 2006 and is passionate about making sure websites are as functional as they are beautiful.