What you must own
- The domain, registered to your business
- The hosting account, in your name with your billing
- Admin access to WordPress
- The code, if anything custom was built
- Backups you can access independently
If leaving your agency would mean losing your website, the arrangement is wrong however good the relationship is.
A guide, not a manual
Two pages: how to add a page, how to add a post, how to update the team list, who to call when something breaks.
Nobody reads a forty-page manual. Two pages with screenshots gets used.
Name an owner
- One person responsible for the content being current
- One person or arrangement responsible for updates
- A calendar reminder, because good intentions are not a process
Unowned sites go stale and unmaintained sites get compromised. Both are ownership problems rather than technical ones.
Give the right access level
Editors for people who edit. Administrator for one or two people only. Remove accounts when people leave, the same day.
Everyone as administrator is convenient and it is how sites get accidentally broken and eventually compromised.
Agree the maintenance
Either someone in your business updates weekly and tests, or you pay for a plan. Nobody doing it is the third option and it is the one most businesses choose by default.
Decide explicitly, before handover, and write down who.