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The owner's guide

What you end up owning, what happens on the day we hand it over, and how to change your own website afterwards. Written for people who do not work in websites.

Contents

Contents

Who does what

Almost all of this is ours. Your part is short, and none of it needs any technical knowledge — but it cannot be skipped, because it is the part that makes everything yours instead of ours.

Designing and building the site

We do it

Choosing and checking a domain name is free

We do it

Paying for the domain

Yours

Your ABN, for a .com.au name

Yours

Filling in the sign-up forms for all three accounts

We do it

Clicking the confirmation link in each email

Yours

Connecting the domain, the hosting and the form together

We do it

Putting the site live and testing it

We do it

Setting your own password on each account

Yours

Your whole job, in one line Give us an email address and an ABN, click three confirmation links, and choose three passwords. Everything else on this page is us.

What you end up owning

Three accounts and a folder of files. All three accounts are in your name, with your email on them and a password only you know.

  • Your domain name. The address people type. Around $20–30 a year, paid by you to the registrar. Nobody else can take it while it is renewed.
  • Your hosting. Where the site actually sits. Free at the size of a one-page site, and it stays free.
  • Your enquiry form. The thing that emails you when somebody fills in the contact form. It sends to your inbox, through an account in your name.
  • The files. The website itself, and your photographs.

There is nothing to renew with us and no account of ours that your site depends on. If you never speak to us again, it stays up.

Before we start

Three things to have on hand before the call. It takes about half an hour altogether, and most of that is us typing.

An email address you will still have in five years

This is the important one. Every account gets built on it, and it is how you prove the domain is yours if anything is ever disputed. A personal address you have had for years is better than a new one made for the business, and far better than one that belongs to an internet provider you might leave.

Your ABN, if you want a .com.au name

Australian rules require whoever holds a .com.au to have an active ABN or ACN connected to the name, and it has to stay active for as long as you hold the domain. A sole trader's personal ABN is fine. We cannot use ours — the rules require it to be the business the name belongs to.

No ABN? Two options, both fine. Applying for one is free and takes about fifteen minutes on the Australian Business Register. Or we use a .com instead, which has no eligibility rules at all and costs about the same.

A card, for the domain

The domain is the one thing with a running cost, and it needs to be on your card so the renewal is yours and never lapses because of us. It is the only payment detail anyone will ask you for.

Your domain name

The address people type to reach you. We check what is available and fill in the form; you pay and confirm.

  1. We find you a name that is free

    Before the call. Usually your business name and suburb in some combination. We will bring you two or three that are available so you are choosing, not hoping.

  2. We fill in the registration

    Your business name, your ABN, your email, your address. You are listed as the owner of the name — that is the part that matters, and it is why we need your details rather than ours.

    your registrar · new domain
    Registrant name
    Your business name
    ABN
    Your ABN
    Email
    The address you gave us
    Check these three are yours, not ours
    The only screen worth reading carefully. If any of those three say anything other than your business, stop us.

  3. You pay

    Your card, about $20–30 for the year. Turn auto-renew on while you are there. It is the single most useful switch on this page.

  4. You click the confirmation email

    The registrar emails the address you gave us to check it is real. Click the link. If it does not arrive within a few minutes, look in spam.

The one thing that can really go wrong If the domain lapses, the site goes dark and somebody else can buy your name. That is why auto-renew goes on now and why the card should be one that will not expire and be forgotten. Put a yearly reminder in your phone as well.

Your hosting

Where the site actually lives. Free at this size, and it is an account in your name so we can hand it over and step away.

  1. We create the account on your email

    On the call, so you can see it happening. We use a temporary password that you will replace in a minute.

  2. You click the confirmation email

    Same as before: they email you to check the address is real.

    your inbox
    From your new host
    Please confirm your email address
    Confirm email One click, then back to us
    Two of these arrive during the call, one for hosting and one for the form. They look almost identical.

  3. We put the site on it and connect your domain

    This is the fiddly part and it is entirely ours. When it is finished, typing your domain into a phone brings up your site.

  4. You set your own password

    You change it, in front of us, to something we have never seen. Write it down somewhere real. From that moment the account is yours alone.

Your enquiry form

The thing that emails you when somebody fills in the contact form on your site. Same pattern: we set it up, you confirm and take the password.

  1. We create it on your email and point it at your inbox

    You tell us which address enquiries should land in. It can be different from the one the accounts are built on.

  2. You click the confirmation email

    The third and last one.

  3. We send a test enquiry and you watch it arrive

    We fill in your own form while you have your inbox open, so you see the thing work rather than take our word for it.

    your inbox
    New enquiry from your website
    Name, phone, and what they wrote
    If this does not arrive, we do not finish the call
    Check the spam folder too, and mark it "not spam" if it lands there. That teaches your mail provider to trust the next one.

  4. You set your own password

    Third and last.

Changing your site

Opening hours, your phone number, prices, a note that you are shut for a week. You change these yourself, on your phone, in about a minute.

  1. Go to your own website and add /edit to the address

    So if your site is yourbusiness.com.au, you go to yourbusiness.com.au/edit. Bookmark it.

  2. Type your email and the code we send you

    There is no password to remember. You get a six-digit code by email, the same way your bank does it, and it lets you in for the afternoon.

  3. Tap the thing you want to change, on the page itself

    You are looking at your actual site, not a form full of boxes. Tap your phone number and type the new one. Tap your hours and change Saturday.

    yourbusiness.com.au/edit
    Your site, with the changeable bits outlined
    (08) 5550 1234 tap to change
    Mon–Fri 7am–5pm tap to change
    Save changes
    Only the outlined parts can be changed. You cannot break the layout or delete anything structural, because those are not editable at all.

  4. Press save, and wait about a minute

    It says when it is done. Your live site updates itself. If you change your mind, "put it back how it was" restores the previous version.

What you cannot change here Anything structural — the layout, new sections, a whole new page. That is a job rather than an edit, so ask us and we will price it. The editor is deliberately limited so it is impossible to break your site with it.

And if the editor itself ever stops working Your website is unaffected. It is a separate thing that writes changes to your site; the site does not need it in order to keep running. A broken editor is an inconvenience, never an outage.

Keeping it working

Three things need occasional attention. All three are yours, and none of them takes longer than a minute.

1. The domain renews once a year

Auto-renew handles it as long as the card on file is current. If you get a new card, update it. This is the only one that can actually take your site off the internet.

2. Test the enquiry form every few months

Fill in your own contact form and check it arrives. Silence from a contact form looks exactly the same whether it is broken or nobody is enquiring, which is why it is worth checking rather than assuming.

3. Keep your Google listing right

Your Google Business Profile is worth more than the website for being found, and it is free. Keep the hours accurate, especially at Christmas, and ask happy customers for reviews. If you change your phone number, change it there too.

If something looks wrong

In rough order of how often it actually happens.

The site will not load at all

Nine times out of ten the domain has lapsed. Log in to your registrar and look at whether it is expired — if it is, renewing usually brings the site straight back.

If the domain is fine, check whether it is only you: try it on mobile data with the wi-fi off. If it works there, the problem is your own connection, not the site.

Enquiries have stopped arriving

Send yourself one through the form. If it arrives, they were probably going to spam — find an old one, mark it "not spam", and add the sender to your contacts.

If it does not arrive, log in to the form account and check it has not hit a monthly limit or had the email address changed.

I changed something and it looks wrong

In the editor, "put it back how it was" restores the version before your last save. Nothing you can do in the editor is permanent.

My phone number changed

Change it in the editor, which updates it everywhere on the site at once. Then change it on your Google Business Profile, which is separate and not something the website can update for you.

I have lost the password to one of the accounts

Every one of them has "forgot password", and they all send the reset to the email address the account was built on. That is why that address matters more than the passwords do.

Taking it somewhere else

Written down because a promise that you are not locked in is worth nothing unless the exit is documented.

You do not need our permission or our help, and nothing has to be unpicked from our end, because nothing of yours runs through us.

  • To another designer. Give them the logins to the three accounts and the folder of files. That is genuinely all there is.
  • To a different host. Your domain is not tied to your hosting. Point it wherever you like, whenever you like.
  • Away from the website entirely. Cancel the hosting and the form. Keep the domain if you ever want it again — it is cheap, and it stops anyone else using your name.

If you want us to help hand it over, we will, and we will not charge you for that.