Keep Control of your Online Presence

In every industry, there are good & bad service providers. I have worked in digital for 30 years and come across shady operators but in 2020, the industry is exploding with new digital agencies and many without any experience in digital… I am not sure if the issues I am seeing are down to lack of knowledge or agencies taking advantage of clients with limited digital experience. It’s one of those things that makes me angry! Here are my tips on how to keep control of your online presence!

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Secure your online presence

Your online presence is usually made up of a website, social media accounts and various other logins.

If you don’t have an online presence yet need help with a domain & social media handles, check out my blog on Choosing a Website Domain

1. Your Domain Name

The number 1 most important part of your online presence is your domain name. It’s your business address on the internet so never hand over the ownership to someone else. I regularly see domains transferred to agencies or web devs but we don’t need to own them, we just need to have access to them.

How to buy a domain or set up an account so your domain can be transferred to you

Head over to NameCheap.com to set up an account. You can purchase domain names or have them transferred to you simply and easily. Transfers to Namecheap are easy to do and list the 3 steps of how to transfer on their website.

2 Website Hosting

We have care plans that include hosting but if you wish to self host after we build your site, thats totally fine with us.

We work with 2 hosting companies that allow Collaboration Access so we can have access without needing your account details. We can set up your website, hosting, CDN, SSL etc and you can remove the collaboration after the project is complete.

WPengine

WPEngine is highly recommend -if you are self-hosting. They have the best customer service we have encountered, they are safe, secure and have some great features for self-hosting clients.

Recieve 3 months free on an annual plan

It’s easy to purchase. Simply choose the package you need (the first one is right for most), use the generic settings & pay the annual price

SiteGround

Siteground is a 1 stop shop and they sell domains + include email in their very well priced packages. The customer care isn’t my favourite but if you aren’t doing much other than some text changes to your website, these guys are all you need.

Whilst WPengine is the best hosting, we have used Siteground successfully for many clients.

Their user panel is very simple for beginners and there is a lot of inclusions such as email.

There is an Australian Data Centre which is great if you are Australian Based

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These screenshots of Siteground to guide you through the purchasing WordPress Shared Hosting

To use collaboration you will need to purchase either GrowBig or GoGeek

• GoGeek is the best package as it has priority support + other techy stuff that is useful for a fast website.
• GrowBig is ample tho if you want to keep your costs down.
• StartUp doesn’t offer Collaboration so if you wish to use this package there are 3 options
  • You provide your login
  • You set up the hosting and provide a migration code
  • You set up the hosting and provide an administrator login to WordPress

Please note that the pricing shown is for your initial purchase so if you buy 12 months of GoGeek you will pay $14.99pm ($197 annual) but in 12months the rate will go up to $49.99. So Purchase 2 years if you wish to get the low prices locked in.

I suggest purchasing SGScanner as this helps with your website security

How do I add a Collaborator?

To add a collaborator to your site, go to your Client Area (click on your profile icon in the top right of your screen) then select Manage Users. Then, click on the Add New User button and a pop-up window will appear where you can select the collaborator option.

If you need any help when you setup website hosting please get in touch and I can walk you through the steps on a phone call