Ep14 – How to Avoid Being Held Hostage by Online Agencies When Chasing Login Information

Podcast – SEO Point

Transcription

John: Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Works Media Podcast. I’m your host John Romaine and joining me is…

Byron: Byron Trzeciak.

John: This is Episode Number — what Episode number are we up to? Is this 13? No, it’s not, 14!

Byron: Fourteen I was going to say 12 so —

John: I think you’re about two weeks behind. I think we’re on 14 and in today’s Podcast we’re going to be talking about common frustrations for business owners when it comes to Web design.

Byron: Beautiful, it’s a good topic. Yeah, good mate, how are you?

John: Yeah, I’m good. I want to just check the episode, no, we were right, Episode 14.

Byron: Wow.

John: Episode 14.

Byron: You get the prize this week, that was my one question for the Podcast and I said 12 so —

John: 12, we did 12 I October. Oh God, at least someone’s — is anyone taking notes?

Byron: It’s just that we’re pumping out content so fast John that I just can’t keep up.

John: You know when you’re running down a staircase and you actually take more steps than there are stairs?

Byron: Absolutely, yeah.

John: That’s what’s happening here.

Byron: You’re probably still running and I’ve probably tripped and face-planted halfway down I think so —

John: I’ve done that on the way up plenty of times. You know when you get to the top of a staircase and you take an extra step thinking there’s another — And that always happens when you’re carrying like, you know, six dozen eggs.

Byron: Yeah, exactly.

John: Your mothers, your grandmothers, expensive chinaware.

Byron: Exactly.

John: Never happens any other time.

Byron: Your best corduroy shorts and Crocs, you know?

John: Oh God!

Byron: Instant tear in them.

John: You had to go there didn’t you? I’d like to cover just one episode without talking about underpants and rubber shoes.

Byron: Are you seeing any extra attention on your Web site from corduroy’s and Crocs yet?

John: I don’t know but I’m sure we’re going to — I’ll check Webmaster tools and my site will start performing for those terms you watch.

Byron: It’s not negative SEO its negative keyword SEO.

John: Its blatant keyword spamming within our own Podcast; God.

Byron: Oh dear.

John: Well yeah, today I wanted to talk about something that I see quite often and this one isn’t really touching on SEO per se but talking about common frustrations for business owners when it comes to working with, you know, Web designers or freelancers or agencies. I mean, I’ve been working in that space, well since 2007 and I know you still do a lot of that.

Byron: Yep.

John: And there was something that caught my attention in Flying Solo this week and it was a woman that was asking, you know, she was asking for access to her analytics.

Byron: Okay.

John: Yeah, she wanted to know like how’s my site performing? She had had a site built and she got tied into some contract through a two-man operation and they tied her into a 12-month contract and she had no access to her usernames and passwords.

Byron: Yep.

John: So I’m not sure how it all came to be but she must have just handed over the money, they registered a domain and organized hosting, built her site and didn’t provide her with any sort of logins or user credentials. So now she’s in a position of, you know, I’ve got this site that I don’t own and I don’t have access to.

Byron: Yep, absolutely. Yeah. It happens more times than you’d like to think. I’m not sure whether it’s just the Web designers thinking that business owners maybe don’t have the technical requirements to get access to these accounts but, yeah —

John: You would have seen this surely Byron.

Byron: Yeah, absolutely. Especially see it if you’re doing a Web site redevelopment or redesign and you can see that analytics is configured and you want to use the same account to configure on the new Web site and that’s often where I run into these problems. Obviously, you know, from the SEO side of things as well that’s typically something that we’ll ask, you know, within the first few conversations to start getting that information.

John: Yeah, that’s right because you’ll need in order to determine, you know, the performance of how your campaigns tracking, you’ll need access to the data and I referred to it the other day as the Bermuda Triangle of the digital space because, you know, you’ll have – it’s normally like three points especially when there’s SEO involved as well as Web design you’ll have in one corner you’ll have the business owner and then in the other corner you’ll have the SEO agency and then you’ll have in the third corner, if there’s such a thing as there corners, they’re kind of like squares but they’ve only got three corners; often referred to as triangles, the Web designers.

So you’ll have like this Bermuda Triangle of, you know, what’s the username and password for this? What’s the username and password for that? Ah — and the business owner will come back, I don’t have access to that information because the guys over at X, Y, Zed Web design they did all of that for me so I don’t know what any of the logins are so I can’t get that to you and then, you know, worse case scenario is when business owners are held ransom for their own information and this is something that, you know, essentially that was the case in Flying Solo. And, in fact, I’ve seen this quite often where business owners will find themselves in this position and they, even upon requesting the information, they can’t get it because they’ll be dealing with, you know, I’ve got to be careful what sort of language I use, but dealing with people that say, oh look, you know, you signed up to a 12-month contract, if you want access to this information well, you know, too bad, so sad! You can’t have it until the end of the contract.

And when that happens it gets really messy because the business owner, you can imagine how frustrated a business owner would be when they’ve paid all of this money, they’ve got a Web site but they can’t access anything because they don’t have any of the user credentials.

Byron: Yeah, that’s incredibly frustrating. I haven’t run across that scenario yet where I haven’t been able to get some form of access. I mean, at least if you can get access to the Web site you can change your Google Analytics and change your Webmaster account if required but, yeah, when you’re locked into contracts there and they won’t give you a look in that’s definitely a bad situation.

John: Yeah, I’ve seen it a lot. I’ve seen it, you know, quite often and when that thread popped up on Flying Solo I thought, this is a great subject to talk about because, you know, there are so many business owners out there in that position.

I don’t know how to log into my site, I don’t know how to access the information, I don’t know how to get any reports, my Web guy does all of that. You know, I don’t have any sort of access. That’s really lousy. Something else that I’ll see quite often is Web designers, you know, when they go about — and I’m not bashing Web designers, not all Web designers do this, but it happens enough to talk about. Web designers that go about registering the domain in their name on behalf of a client, that’s absolute madness and business owners, if they don’t know any differently, will say, okay, yep, go ahead, you do everything because they either don’t know how to do it or for whatever reason they might be time poor or whatever else they say. They just hand everything over to the Web guy and say, okay, go for it, let me know when the Web site’s ready.

Byron: Yeah.

John: And that gets really messy because then they don’t even own the domain name and that’s where, you know, if something goes pear-shaped it can get really ugly and the — that person is entitled to the domain name because it’s under their name and they can say, look, you know, you still owe us for work that we did six months ago that hasn’t been paid or you said you wouldn’t cancel out of the contract or, you know, whatever the case might be so if you want your domain name you have to pay us $5000 or if you want access to your Web site you’ll have to pay us.

Byron: Yep. That’s a really interesting one, I mean, if you purchased the domain name for your client and you did it in your own name and it just so happens to turn into the next eBay for example, I mean that would be pretty interesting the kind of conversations that would generate I’m sure that people would come out of the wood works with that kind of success.

John: Yeah, see, the way I do it and the way that I’ve always done it is that I will get credit card information from the client and I’ll go about registering, you know, organizing hosting and the domain name registration using the clients payment information but I’ll do it in their name because after the jobs completed and if they decided to go elsewhere or, you know — I mean, people seem to drift part, I know clients that I’ve had five, ten years ago I don’t hear from anymore not because I don’t want to but it’s just the nature of the business, you know, people sort of go about working together and then they might sort of drift apart.

Byron: Yep.

John: I don’t want the hassle of having their domain name, I don’t want to be getting bombarded with, ah, your domain name’s due for renewal, like, you know what I mean, just put it all in there under their name so that when, once, the jobs completed the projects finished they can go and take it. I mean, they’ve paid for it, it’s their assets, it’s up to them to, you know, own and manage it.

Byron: Yep. Yeah, I had an interesting one at one stage where I was doing some SEO for a client and I wanted to get access to the information and I was going between the Web developer myself and, again, not bashing Web developers here but the Web developer was using the in-built cPanel stat like AWStats and I forget the rest of them and he was basically informing the business owner that his site was getting like 300 hits a day whereas in Google Analytics all I was seeing was 60 hits a day or 40 hits a day, you know, the numbers were far different so that’s another problem I find is where the business owner might be receiving the wrong information because a Web developer might be using different stats or maybe that’s all they’ve got access to, maybe that’s all they’ve been given, so, yeah. I always recommend to go with Google Analytics.

John: Yeah, always go with Google Analytics. AWStats is about as accurate as throwing a phone in a headwind, a strong headwind, it’ll come back and just slap you in the face.

Byron: Exactly, yeah.

John: But, yeah, that’s a common one and I think when that happens, I mean, let’s face it, I’m pretty familiar with AWStats and it’s absolutely useless and it always overinflates the data, the numbers are always well and above what they really are and I think that can be, you know, you get some freelancer that’s working in a back bedroom somewhere at home and, ah, I don’t have that data available within Google Analytics but here’s the AWStats, you’re getting 5000 hits a day and that’s enough to get the client excited and then the discussions over.

But that information, that data, is absolutely worthless.

Byron: Yep.

John: But, yeah, that’s, again, that comes back to the Bermuda Triangle. You get the client, the SEO agency and the Web design guy, or agency, all sort of, you know, pulling and pushing in each corner trying to all work together and make it happen and it can get really messy but —

Byron: So I mean, in terms of business owner out there, what are the type of accounts you feel that they should have, you know, from the day their Web site gets built John?

John: Yeah, look, the solution is this, if a business owner has a Web site built they should receive from either the freelancer or the agency that has built the site, they should receive password inventory or some form of documentation that lists all of their user credentials. Nothing does my head in more than when I speak with a client and I say, what’s the FTP login? We don’t know! What’s the cPanel access? What’s cPanel? And you end up going backwards and forwards and you play email ping-pong. You can play email pin-pong for a fortnight. So once the —

Byron: That’s when they start getting like their 15 different accounts and they just send them all to you and, no, no, not your NetBank account.

John: I don’t know what my cPanel logins are but here’s my login for the ATO, try that.

Byron: Will this help?

John: Yeah. So, you know, I always send a documentation to the client saying fill this out in it’s entirety, don’t send me anything via email because it just makes it impossible having to dig through 50 emails trying all different usernames and passwords but the solution, getting back to my point, the solution is when a business owner works with a Web designer upon completion and handover of the job, okay, so the job’s finished, the money’s been paid, everyone’s happy, they now have a Web site that they’re ready to use, they should receive from the people that built the Web site a document of sorts that has all of their usernames and passwords in it for everything; so it’s all centralized in one document and I do this with my clients so that they then have some idea of how to go about logging in and it makes it easier for others working in the space, I mean, if the business owner decides in six years time, ah, we need to do a redesign, they go to another Web developer, they don’t have this problem of back and forth, back and forth with usernames and passwords, they just say, ah, here’s a document that these guys provided, bam, and it gets done.

So, all of the usernames and passwords for everything should be in that document and, of course, business owners should take great care with that to make sure that it doesn’t end up, you know, in the wrong hands but, yeah, Google analytics, logins, the cPanel, FTP, the logins for the Web site, Webmaster tools and maybe even all of your social accounts as well.

Byron: Yep, true.

John: It comes down to how much information you want to store in the one document but just keep it safe and keep it all central but, yeah, definitely two things that every business owner should be using is Webmaster tools and analytics.

Byron: Yep. And how much do you think business owners should like understand, like how much should a business owner know about these particular tools, for example, you know, is it something that they – when they get these accounts they should log into and just familiarize themselves with some of the basic aspects of these tools or do you feel that’s just unnecessary and it should just be about having the access first and foremost?

John: Just have access.

Byron: Yep.

John: To begin with, you know, I really felt for that woman that was asking in Flying Solo, she was like I spent all this money and now I can’t even get access to my own Web site. That’s really lousy; have access to being with and look, let’s face it, most business owners when they log into Google Analytics it’s like, you know, not all but most login and it’s kind of like a deer staring at the headlights, they’ve got no idea what they’re looking at or what they should be looking for.

Most probably make the mistake of — and this is a real habit, I see business owners doing this all the time, they log in every five minutes, how much traffic have we got? How much traffic? They just obsess about traffic but at least, you know, have access.

As to the level of, you know, knowledge and insights they should have within these tools, well that depends upon, you know, who they’ve worked with, perhaps the level of training they’ve been provided with; you know, most places probably won’t go into that, they’ll give them access but if you start talking about training well then that’s something else.

Byron: Yeah, exactly.

John: But just at least have access.

Byron: Yep.

John: Yeah.

Byron: Sounds good, yeah.

John: You got any stories Byron that — any nightmares? I mean, I’ve got plenty.

Byron: No, I think that my biggest one would be the difference in stats there. Now that caused a little bit of a riff fighting between the results that I was seeing compared to what somebody else was seeing so that was the biggest issues I’ve had. I mean, I think most clients I get that have a Web site already then there’s usually, as you say, like there’s always some back and forth to find those accounts and it either means going back to the old developer or the client’s got to dig through a bagillion emails that have happened since that email was sent to them.

John: That’s the worst case. There’s nothing worse; business owners say, ah, I don’t know, we set up the hosting account five years ago, I have no idea where that information is. It just gets so messy. Get it all together. Yeah, having to dig through emails is just the worst. You know, for any business owners that are listening to this Podcast right now, get one of your team members, set them aside, give them half a day of something and get all of your usernames and passwords and contact information and everything you’ve got, put it all in one document so that it’s centralized. Believe me, it will be the best thing you’ve ever done because it’s so painful when I work with clients and I say, ah, look, you know, where’s the login for the management console here? Ah gee, we’ve got no idea or they don’t even understand what it is but, yeah, and you know, I guess the other thing is having control of the data because I’m working with a client at the moment where they’ve got data up and — they’ve got about three year’s worth of data that they can’t get access to because it’s being held hostage by the Web team so they’ve got to essentially start over, kill that and start with new data. So they’ve kind of lost access to all of that data.

Byron: Yeah, that’s a big problem I think. I mean, obviously, you know, you can easily go and create a new Google Analytics account, a new Google Webmaster’s account but it’s going to take time to get that level of detail about your Web site, you know, peak levels of traffic, conversions, bounce rates, all that kind of thing, you know, especially if you’re launching a new Web site, there might be a complete disconnect there but it is really good to have those older stats there especially if they go years back. I mean, you never know what they might come in handy for.

John: Yeah. Historical data is really valuable and if you get to a point where a relationship breaks down and you need to — you can’t get access to the information and you’ve got to kill it and start with someone, start with new data, with someone new, losing all of that historical information; that’s not a good place to be in because, you know, you won’t know how your sites performing and essentially you’ll have to wait until you start getting more data before you start making decisions.

Byron: Yep.

John: So historical data is, yeah… And just talking about ending relationships, one piece of advice I always give to my clients is that, or even prospects they’re called, because, you know, let’s face it Byron we get a lot of calls, ah, I was working with an SEO company and they ripped me off, blah, blah, blah.

Byron: Yeah.

John: Always try and end a relationship with an SEO company and even, you know, a Web development company, always try and end it on good terms even if you aren’t happy because the ramifications that can come about, especially with SEO agencies, I mean, I haven’t seen any cases of this but it would be really easy for your site to be affected in a negative way if you were to end it on bad terms and pack up everything and perhaps go to another agency.

Byron: Yeah.

John: So there’s always that level of uncertainty there and I always just say to my, you know, prospects and existing clients like just — even if you’re not happy, just end it on good terms, say that you want to put your campaign on pause at the moment or for — just give them, don’t say, ah, this is terrible, you’ve ripped us off and we’re going to take you to court and we’re going with this new company. It can get really, really ugly.

Byron: Yep, definitely.

John: So just try and end it on good terms and go about, you know, doing what you need to do.

Byron: And I think any professional Web design company out there they’re not going to let you let someone else just come in and get the accounts, usually that request has to come from the business owner so like if you go and burn your bridges with an old Web design agency and all of the sudden, you know, you come along to John and say, hey John, let’s get started. John asks you for the accounts and you’ve got to – and John says, well, you’ve got to go back to your Web design agency and ask them for those accounts.

John: Oh yeah.

Byron: I mean, you’ve sort of got to creep through with your tail between your legs saying, excuse me please, could I please get my accounts. I’m sorry that I burnt your house down.

John: Those — you know, that car that came past last night and throwing eggs like, that wasn’t me!

Byron: That wasn’t me at all. I mean, I know I was laughing out the window but that definitely wasn’t me.

John: Yeah, no you…

Byron: I didn’t throw it, I didn’t throw it, it was my friend that threw it.

John: Yeah, I was just driving. We just happened to be going past your place of business at midnight.

Byron: Exactly.

John: No, you’ve got to be really careful because that reason especially. You go about blasting someone and then, oh, wait a minute, they’ve got all of our user credentials.

Byron: Exactly, yeah.

John: Hi, my names John from Works Media and I’m just contacting you on behalf of, you know, Mr. Smith who, ah, that asshole — forget it!

Byron: Have you ever had that happen to you where you’ve copped a lashing on behalf of your client?

John: No, not a lashing but I’ve been in a position where, yeah, look, we’re no longer working with that client. Yeah, we don’t want anything further to do with it. So you’re then in a position, oh, okay, well yeah, we’re going to have to kill your site, set up a new host and start over because those guys, yeah, it’s not all cupcakes and candy canes over there it’s going sour.

Byron: Yeah, exactly.

John: So, yeah, try and, you know, end it on good terms and, you know, most importantly you’ve got to have some control. You should have control and ownership over your own site and all of the data that’s associated with it so long as you’ve paid for it of course.

Byron: Yep.

John: But, yeah.

Byron: Yeah, I mean, I think going back to this Flying Solo case, you know where a client does go into, or a business owner, goes into a lock-in contract for 12 months, how important do you feel it is John, and I guess this comes down to the reporting that the agency provides to the business owner but, you know, these days the more I’m seeing is that it does help the business owner if they have some level of understanding of the tools, you know, their expectations, what they’ll be seeing based on that contract that they’ve locked into because, again, if you’re just sort of providing money to somebody and you’re not getting anything in return then that’s where you sort of get into some dark waters.

John: Well, it depends what service you’re paying for. If you’re paying for Web design, why should there be a lock-in contract for that?

Byron: Yeah, exactly.

John: Just build the damn site, get it done, hand over the money, give the person their login credentials via a document, shake hands, you know, have a caramel latte and everyone’s happy. I don’t understand why people get involved in contracts for simple Web jobs, that doesn’t make sense.

Byron: No.

John: I can understand if the client has requested ongoing support perhaps or they’ve agreed to have their site hosted through the Web design agency if there’s been a mutual agreement and everyone’s happy, that makes sense but, yeah, I don’t understand this whole, oh, you know, we’re building a site for you, it’s going to be $12,000, you’ll need to lock in with us for 12 months. What am I actually paying for because it took them three weeks to build the site, like what’s happening for the rest of the 11 months?

Byron: Yep.

John: I don’t understand that.

Byron: No, I mean, I think in the past like, as you said, like with maybe a support agreement, maybe you’d lock in maybe if it’s a cheaper a smaller cost per month if you lock in or a monthly Web design. Again, you know, if you’re doing monthly Web design then you might say, well…

John: But what’s monthly Web design?

Byron: Well maybe that’s…

John: You know, if it falls under and SLA like if they’re having modifications or fixes done that makes sense or just general support but…

Byron: Yeah. I know there’s some agencies out there that are offering like a monthly fix cost for the Web design so you might pay $250 a month and that’s a lock-in for 12 months and most of the Web development happens in the first say, four weeks, and then after that you’ve just got ongoing changes so that’s a way of like reducing those upfront costs for people but…

John: That sounds messy to me, I don’t know.

Byron: It doesn’t happen very often that’s for sure.

John: It sounds like a labeler type thing.

Byron: Oh it is, yeah, pay your Web site off in installments.

John: Yeah, yeah and then anything can happen in 12 months. I’d rather just do the job, get paid, you know, make sure that everyone’s happy and let the business owner go about running their business and not tying them into any sort of contracts.

I mean, I don’t use contracts within my SEO business. I give the clients some freedom in that regard so that they’re not sweating bullets, oh, you know, what if this doesn’t work, I’m locked in now for two years or what if I, you know – anything can happen in 12 months, you know, they might fall ill. I mean, I’ve had clients that have fallen ill and had to stop campaigns.

Byron: Yep.

John: Locking them in, I mean, what happens then? They’re laying in a hospital bed and they’re locked in for 12 months, I mean, that’s pretty lousy.

Byron: Yeah, definitely.

John: But, yeah, I don’t know, in regards to how much sort of knowledge and understanding they should have, that with the tools of course, that varies between which services they’re paying for. If its Web design well, probably just the basics but if it’s SEO, I mean, I don’t know, you can really go down a rabbit hole there like, ah, we’ve been looking at the data and we’re not happy with this whole — hang on a second, like let’s think about fitting the engine in the car before you start concerning ourselves with the color of the fluffy dice.

Byron: Yep.

John: Your levels of priorities can we way out when you start providing access to too much.

Byron: Yeah, absolutely.

John: Yeah.

Byron: And, again, I think it comes down to the agencies like each month you provide a report to business owners on what’s being forecasted for the next month, what’s been done, you know, what’s changed, what does it look like, what’s the current landscape? So I think if you’re getting – if you’ve got that level of assurance from your agency then that’s really good and you probably don’t have to get too hands on with the tools but if you’re locked in or even if you’re not locked in but you’re not getting any feedback on the ongoing success of your campaign or what’s happening with your Web site then it certainly might pay to just get a little bit of control yourself and poke your head in and see what’s going on.

John: Look, I don’t want business owners to listen to this and get all paranoid and think, oh no, I need to have access to everything and I need to have control of the data and — I mean, I’m talking mostly from a Web design perspective not so much an SEO campaign.

Byron: Yep.

John: A business owner has a site built, they should have access to their site. It’s as simple as that. They’ve paid for it, they’re entitled to it, that’s what I said at Flying Solo.

Byron: Exactly. It’s like getting that shiny Lamborghini in your driveway and say look, that’s all yours! All yours! And you’re like, well, can I drive it? No, no, no, we’re not going to give you the keys to it.

John: Yeah, ah, I was really looking forward to — yeah. I was really looking forward to taking it down, you know, down the Pacific Motorway to the sunshine coast or wherever.

Byron: Oh no, we’ll take it for you! We’ll take it for you and we’ll send you some photos when we get back.

John: You’ve paid for it, let us drive it, okay?

Byron: Yeah. I’m more than happy to do that scenario with you by the way John, you know, you buy the Lamborghini and I’ll keep it safe for you.

John: Yeah, I can’t see that happening anytime soon. You can take my Mitsubishi Mirage for a spin anytime.

Byron: Anybody — any of the listeners out there that want to sponsor a Podcast in a Lamborghini for a day feel free to shout that out and we’ll get that done for you.

John: Yeah, send me an email I’ll give you my address.

Byron: Yeah, exactly.

John: All right dude, that’s half an hour, yeah. Let’s cut it because we know how cranky people get when we talk for an hour and a half.

Byron: Absolutely!

John: But, yeah, in summary, business owners make sure getting a Web site built that you’ve got some control and ownership over the data and you have all of your usernames and passwords and get them all put together in a document somewhere so that you’re not going insane.

Byron: Absolutely. Perfect, well thanks again for your time John, Episode Number 14.

John: 14 we think.

Byron: We think it is and, yeah, we’ll see you again in the next Podcast.

John: See you, speak to you, soon Byron. Cheers!

Byron: Thanks John, see you mate.

John: See you mate, bye.

Byron: Bye.

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