This Mistake Could Cost you Big Bucks

Are you, as a small-business owner, in control of your business details? What do I mean by this?

Here is a story that will illustrate how we tend to let our web designers, marketing firm and business coaches be in control of the details….

I woke up yesterday morning with the sudden need to look at the website of one of my clients. It is not a website that we are in charge of here at Clear Simple Marketing, we only deal with this client’s marketing needs.

This is my client’s busiest time of year AND we are currently running several promotions for her. Perhaps because of this I couldn’t shake feeling the need to check her website, so I did, and it was down. My heart rate picked up and I reached for the office phone and my cell phone. I began texting and calling my client, ICANN, her web designer, and the host of the parking page that was serving as a replacement to her website.

Summing up a long story (and upsetting day), my client had several years previous relied on a web designer (who she was no longer working with) to host her website. To add to the dilemma this web designer had moved my client’s domain name to a new hosting company.

My client’s domain name had expired, and because she didn’t know where it, or her website, was being hosted she didn’t know how to renew it. The web designer who she had previously worked with was receiving all of the renewal notifications, and this designer who was no longer in business, had not been forwarding them on to my client.

In addition the web designer had put the Privacy Control on the domain name. So to make things worse there was now no way to track it. 

As a side note – Using the Privacy Control makes situations like these impossible AND it leads people to believe you are hiding something ( a lot of times spammers use the Privacy Control). DO NOT use the Privacy Control with your domain name.

After a long day we were able to locate the missing web designer and gain control of my client’s domain and hosting account. Now in order to avoid further issues her domain and hosting have been transferred to her current Godaddy account. HER account, not her web designers. Now her email, web hosting and all her domains are in ONE place.

It is not unusual for web designer to want to host your domain or website. It makes you need them. To me using this as a client retention tool is awful business. At Clear Simple Marketing when setting up websites for clients we ALWAYS require them to have their own hosting and domain account.

Second side note—For both INCREDIBLE US based customer service, and a place you can easily setup an account and transfer all your domains and hosting to, I recommend using Godaddy. There you can host all of your domains and accounts.

As the owner of a small-buisness it is important for you to be in control of your business details -- ALL OF THEM.

By putting our clients’ information in an organized straight forward spreadsheet we are able to email them the accounts, directory listings and profiles that, as a marketing firm, we are frequently setting up on their behalf. We ALWAYS make sure they have this information to keep on file. When changes are made to their accounts new versions of their spreadsheets can be emailed to them.