You’ve received budget approval, and it’s time to get your company’s new website project underway. Where do you start?
It takes cooperation between your company and the web developer or marketing agency with which you’re working to ensure the process is smooth and efficient. While they’ll be doing the bulk of the heavy lifting, you do have responsibilities in the early stages of development to help them get started.
The first step is providing your developer with access to your existing site and any essential assets associated with it. Any marketing agency or web development company worth their salt should be able to provide you with a list of assets they need access to.
Regardless of whether or not they ultimately provide you with said list, you can be prepared by collecting essential information early on and having it readily available.
Not sure what you need? Worry not. In this article, we’ll provide a list of the commonly required items to get a new website project underway. We’ll briefly explain what they are and let you know how to find everything you need.
Domain/Registrar
Your domain is another name for your website address. You may have purchased it with your website hosting, or it may be registered with a separate domain registrar (GoDaddy, for example). You will need to provide your developer with the login credentials provided to you by your domain host.
If you need help identifying your domain host and/or locating your login credentials, click here.
Hosting Credentials + cPanel
It’s common for the same service to handle your domain name and hosting. However, some hosting companies will provide you with a separate username and login URL for your hosting cPanel (control panel). Your developer will need this login information as well.
If you need help locating your login credentials, contact your domain host’s support team.
FTP
Anyone working on your website or backing it up will need credentials for your FTP (file transfer protocol). FTP is a tool for adding and editing your website files. In addition to the login credentials, record the extra information required to connect (SFTP, SSL, TSL and Port) if your web host uses secure FTP.
If you need help locating your login credentials, contact your domain host’s support team.
WordPress
If you have an existing WordPress website that will be worked on, the developer with need an Administrator login. You can either provide them with your existing login or, for security purposes, create a new Administrator account for them that you can remove when it’s no longer needed.
For WordPress account recovery help, click here. To learn how to add users to your WordPress site, click here.
E-commerce
If you have an E-commerce website, the developer will need access to your payment providers (Authorize.net, for example) in order to generate API keys (application programming interface). They will also need access to your shipping accounts (like FedEx) to pull rates.
If you need help locating your login credentials, contact the support teams of your respective payment and shipping providers.
Google Analytics
While the previous sections detailed items that are essential to get your new website up and running, it’s not necessarily the end of your task list. Once your new site is live, you will most likely promote it and traffic will spike. Take advantage by ensuring you have tools in place to measure traffic, track digital behavior and engagement and build custom audiences for future marketing efforts.
The first tool to consider is Google Analytics, which, if you’re not familiar, tracks and reports detailed web traffic information such as session duration, pages per session and bounce rate, along with information on the source of the traffic.
If you already have a Google Analytics login created, share it with your marketing agency or take steps to give them access. If not, they can either do it for you or you can do it yourself by clicking here.
Facebook Pixel & LinkedIn Insight Tag
You’re doing your company a disservice if you aren’t marketing on social media, especially Facebook. Here’s why. The powerful targeting tools within Facebook and LinkedIn’s advertising platforms are made even more useful when you create custom audiences of your website visitors. To create these custom audiences, you need to implement the Facebook Pixel and LinkedIn Insight Tag.
For background on the Pixel and Insight Tag, click here. If you want your agency to set them up for you, provide them with your login credentials. To set them up yourself, click here for Facebook and here for LinkedIn.
Start Compiling Your Credentials
Now that you’re familiar with the common assets necessary to get a new website project underway, you can start compiling a list of all your credentials to share with your web developer or marketing agency. If you’re unsure if you’ve shared everything you need, ask. Providing all the necessities upfront will prevent project delays later.
Have additional questions about website design and development or want to learn even more? Call us at 815.431.1000 or submit this form to contact us. You can also visit the Web Design & Development section of our blog.
