**TLDR; I need to give a list of questions to the previous company that was managing the website and not look stupid by thinking of something new every few months. What is the important information?**
*\*\*\* I am NOT a website builder, I am someone who has built websites in the past and handles a handful of small business’s websites SEO and other digital marketing, I’m a marketing ops person at my regular job and working on certificates to move into digital, which is why I’m helping some friends and friends of friends who have small businesses. They all know I’m learning and just applying what my courses are teaching to real life, to build my portfolio \*\*\**
So a friend ask me to take over their WordPress template website (I’m a wix person don’t judge) but did some research and it looked similar enough to wix that I could pick it up easily enough. This was mostly just updating descriptions every once in a while and making sure there aren’t any errors. There wasn’t supposed to be any coding.
Well now I am in the backend I am completely overwhelmed. First off, the company that built it uses the same design they do for all their websites, just changes the content, and there were warnings all over the place. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many error messages. Nothing has been updated in 6 months, there’s a lot of work to be done which is what I’m here for but that PLUS learning to edit the code and navigating WordPress has been a nightmare. I have no doubt I can do it, it’s just a LOT.
They host the website themselves, but it still opens into WordPress, they have the domain information, they own the third party apps.
I basically am overwhelmed but need to get some information from them, but through my friend who will be contacting them, so I don’t want to show them that I am stupid (I am) and ask for things every few months.
Basically I’m worried things like the domain could expire, they might stop hosting it, there would be downtime that could interfere with the business. I’m sending a list of questions and want to know what are the things you would ask? What are the normal protocols for changing owners?
[ad_2]
Be prepared to pay this previous company for their time when you go crawling back asking for help.
I’d be happy to help a bit, but will need more info. DM me if you want to.
I can take a look. Feel free to message me!
I’ve taken over a few sites over the years, it’s rarely simple but there are a few things that you should prioritize.
First, secure the domain registration. If need be, you will have to get the transfer code and move it to your own registrar.
Secondly, get a copy of the site files and the latest database. If you have access to the backend, install a plugin like Duplicator or one of the other WP backup options and get a copy you can use for local development.
Third, find out what’s going on at the current host, php and mysql versions in particular, and also establish how long is left on the plan. This will determine how quickly you have to move everything.
Fourth, set up a dev site locally that you can work on, using a copy of the files you collected earlier, not the originals, and make sure it uses the same PHP version as the running site.
Fifth, after you get it working, update wordpress first, then update the plugins one by one and check each time that it still works, then update php to the version on your new host
Sixth, deploy updated site to new host.
I realise this hasn’t answered your original question directly, but it’s more of a process checklist that you will have to go through.
There are plenty of guides available online to deal with the individual steps.