Running a business is more than a full time job – it is a way of life. While many typical day jobs end when 5:00 comes around, small business owners usually have to put in 20-40 hours of extra time each week to keep everything running smoothly. Those who are just getting started often put in even more during their first 2-3 years (and we empathize). Anything less and you’ll be left with a to do list that has spiraled completely out of control.
This is one common reason people entrust something as critical as their website to experts like us – they simply don’t have the time for another option. Unfortunately, many freelancers and independent developers prioritize making a quick buck over helping you. By the time the dust settles, your money is gone and your place on the Internet may have little more substance or traffic than the occasional tumbleweed drifting across it.
During our years working for major providers like hibu and GoDaddy, we’ve heard a lot of horror stories from customers who have been burned by these unscrupulous individuals. Some thought they were saving money, others were betrayed by someone they believed to be a trustworthy partner, and a few have even been led astray by big industry names.
Both my business partner and I come from families that ran small businesses, which made hearing tales like these all the more scary and heartbreaking:
• “I hired this developer from ‘x’ website, and now my website is broken.”
• “I need to make this change to my website now, but my developer is based outside the US.”
• “My developer is only halfway finished with my website, and they’ve stopped responding.”
• “My developer built this site for me, but I don’t know how to access it.”
• “The relationship with my developer ended badly, and now they’re sabotaging my business!”
We’re going to go over each of these scenarios in broad strokes and offer advice for how to proceed if you find yourself facing them. Our goal here is to help you avoid becoming a statistic, because stories like these were common enough to come up every day during our time with bigger firms.
Jump ahead to:
When starting a business, you usually have limited resources to work with. Prioritizing how to allocate them is often very tricky, as running a business requires skills you may not have gained while becoming an industry expert. While my opinion is a bit biased, I firmly believe that there are few things more important than your website and online presence as you establish your company.
A lot of newer or especially entrenched business owners disagree with this idea, either believing a website can be slapped together in an hour or two, that a website isn’t as important or effective as traditional advertising, or that the skill set needed to build an online presence simply isn’t valuable. These misguided viewpoints often lead people to mediocre WYSIWYGs or sites like Fiverr and Upwork to find a cheap web developer.
It’s barely qualified as a lunch budget.
Those in the know are probably shaking their heads at this point, as you should not skimp when it comes to SEO or a web developer under any circumstance. Places like Fiverr should always be considered four letter words as far as your business website is concerned, as they are breeding grounds for both scams and poor quality. If you think you’ve found someone who is going to get you on page 1 of Google for $5, trust us when we say you haven’t.
Your best case scenario with places like Fiverr, Craigslist, and similar sites is using them to hire someone for small, specific tasks like installing a WordPress plugin or helping you complete a Google business listing.
That being said, even small tasks like these can have extended consequences when placed in the wrong hands. The risk of having critical website online presence elements held hostage is very real, as is the potential for unintended damage that makes your existing issue worse.
Before considering a developer from a freelance website that is offering to do what you need on the cheap, do some research on them to see if they have a reputation. Ideally, they will have also established an independent online presence for themselves. Limit their access to your content where possible, and don’t trust them with anything you aren’t prepared to lose.
Finally, take a full website backup before you have anyone start working on your behalf. An ounce of prevention is always worth at least a pound of cure online.
If you are already in a situation that has gone poorly, start by changing any logins for your hosting, website, FTP, SSH, overall account, and/or anything else you supplied access to. While this won’t undo existing harm, it will definitely assist you in preventing further damage.
After you’ve done this, consider restoring from the aforementioned external backup (and change any website passwords again after doing so). If you don’t have this or are dealing with a situation where information is being held hostage, reach out to the website company you are working with for additional assistance. Most will do what they can to help you, but sometimes there is only so much that can be done.
Foreign developers attract the attention of a lot of US businesses because they charge comparatively less than our domestic counterparts. Some are even pretty good at what they do. Before you consider hiring one, however, there are a few potential barriers you should be aware of.
The first is language. While many foreign developers speak English, it is almost always as a secondary language and there is extreme variance in fluency. Inaccurate translations can lead to awkward phone conversations, confusing emails, and obvious spelling or grammar errors on your website. As problems pile up, so too will the delays for a finished product.
These delays will be aggravated by the second hurdle foreign developers bring to the table – time difference. There is an 11-14 hour gap in time between the US and India, a 13-16 hour gap for the Philippines, and a 7-10 hour gap for Ukraine. Getting prompt responses to issues or questions that arise for your website will be difficult outside your sleeping hours, and if you have a promotion or event that requires your website to be perfect, you could easily be down at a critical time.
Legal accountability is the final obstacle you may have to overcome. Foreign countries are not subject to the same laws and regulations as the US, which can make it very easy for someone to either do the bare minimum for your job or simply disappear before you see a finished product. The loss in revenue in either case is never worth the money you tried to save by cutting corners.
Much like the first scenario, research, backups, and limiting developer access are the best preventative measures you can take. This way, if something gets damaged beyond repair or you decide to find someone who responds more quickly, you can change passwords to lock the first developer out, restore from a working version of your content if needed, and find someone who is better suited to the needs of your business.
This is one of the worst possible scenarios for any business, and I’ve spoken with enough victims to tell you it happens way too often at a variety of price points.
There’s no denying that a large price tag will often lead you to the conclusion that you’re getting something special in terms of content and/or expertise. Large companies or niche industries often need to consider special security requirements, federal laws, or unique functions in order to operate, so finding a developer that can deliver what they require is easily worth this much or more.
Most small and medium business owners don’t need any of these things though, and you should be raising your eyebrows if a developer is charging more than $4,000 to build your new website. WordPress is an ideal environment for building the business website you need, and only the most robust sites on this CMS (Content Management System) should take a developer longer than 2-3 weeks to develop.
Fortunately, there are 3 things you can do to help protect yourself from overspending or getting ripped off:
Once you’ve done your homework and eliminated the companies with no online presence or a slew of recent negative reviews, reach out to your prospective developers with any questions you have about their services. If you aren’t sure of what to ask, you can start with this primer we put together and build on it during your conversations.
If your developer starts talking about coding from scratch, isn’t offering reasonable explanations for anything that seems out of place, or is trying to strongarm you into an exorbitant maintenance package, these are early warning signs that they are not the correct person for your needs.
I’d also recommend asking them for a contract or terms of service that clearly spell out what you’ll be receiving. Any developer or company that fails to do this should be dropped like a bad habit, as you’ll have very limited legal recourse should they fail to deliver.
If you are already in a situation where you’ve been scammed during a web design or SEO project, I regret to inform you that you are probably in a difficult bind. You’ll either have to cut your losses and look for a new developer who will do the work correctly or hire an attorney to help recover what you paid. The amount of money lost will dictate which is the better option.
This problem typically comes in two flavors. The first is relatively benign – your site was built to your specifications some time ago, but you’ve lost contact with the developer since then. Depending upon how long ago it was built, rebuilding it may not be a bad option for bringing it up to date. After all, 5 years may as well be 5 decades when it comes to the look and SEO of your business website.
Make sure you have access to your domain before doing this, as you don’t want to lose the SEO benefits you’ve accrued with Google since purchasing it!
Hostage scenarios are the second variation of this problem, and they’re as bad or worse than radio silence when it comes to web development. An established website often finds itself the centerpiece of your business model, so any alternative to its loss is going to be your immediate preference – and unscrupulous developers will be quick to extort you to exploit that.
Should you find yourself involved with a developer who is holding your content out of reach to bend you to their will (which usually involves spending more money with them), you need to extricate yourself from their clutches as soon as possible. This may involve legal action, rebuilding your website with someone else, or starting over with a new business brand.
While you can also try to reach out to your hosting provider for assistance, most will not work with you outside of legal action if you can’t access the account where your website resides. While this commitment to security is usually appreciated, it isn’t very comforting when turned against you by a treacherous or missing developer.
Developers that insist on maintaining control of your website once it is built or placed under their care are the mostly likely to create this problem for you, so make sure they can access your content without giving them access to your entire account where it resides.
Beyond that, research, questions, and getting everything (including login details for new websites) in writing is key for maintaining sole control of your content. As with the earlier horror stories, make sure you take a full backup of any existing website you plan on turning over to a developer before giving them any level of access. You’ll thank us later, we promise.
Your restraint might save your website.
Whether or not your suspicions are true, a little care goes a long way when handling a delicate situation like this. Verbally attacking your developer and retaliating to a perceived slight with threats (or execution) of firing them might feel good in the moment, but there will be consequences if you’re caught unprepared.
If you’re right, you’ve tipped your hand to a developer who is almost certainly better at online treachery than you. If you’re wrong, you’ve offered significant offense to someone who didn’t deserve it and wields power over your online presence. Either way, you and your business are poised to lose.
Before acting upon any suspicions, you’ll want to prepare by doing everything you can to lock your developer out of your online content. Change logins and passwords first, then download a website backup to your local computer, and finish by removing any other avenues for access they have.
If your relationship is still civil, have a conversation with your developer at this point to gain a better understanding for the situation at hand. Otherwise, take some time to perform your own investigation or get a second opinion from another expert. Once you have as many of the facts as you can find, then you are equipped to make a decision about how to proceed.
Should the relationship prove unsalvageable, remain polite, but firm in doing what you have to do. Not every partnership works out, but being polite costs you nothing, and can buy as much as your online presence when your developer has the ability to tarnish it. You’ll have prepared as much as you can by this point, so the options for retribution should be virtually nonexistent.
In cases where your temper has done the talking, go through any steps to remove your developer’s website access that you still can, then either restore your content from an earlier backup or see if your hosting provider has a backup they can offer you. Failing these options, you can also go the route of rebuilding your website instead.
Let us tag in to lend a hand! Start by filling out our contact form or by giving us a call at 319-229-5225. Whether you need a new website or help with your SEO, we’ll be happy to go over the needs and goals of your business to provide a solution that is right for you.
Braden is one of the founders of Midwest Websites, and has been professionally writing and developing websites for over 7 years. His blog posts often take an experience from his life and showcase lessons from it to help you maximize online presence for your business.