Pitfalls to WordPress Admin Access
As a new business owner or entrepreneur, having a website is a crucial step towards establishing and building a profitable online presence, building your brand, and reaching a wider audience.
Over the decades, I’ve been a part of many business’ rebooting projects where they’d literally go from the brink of bankruptcy to reinvesting profits within weeks to months.
On the flip side of that, when I was starting out for those first few years, I also witnessed many clients seemingly anxious to wrest control of the site so they could make changes that destroyed the efforts we’d put into place and were seeking to nurture.
While it’s tempting for a business owner to have complete control over every aspect of your website, including administrative access, there are compelling reasons to refrain from doing so.
In this blog post, we’ll explore multiple reasons why business owners and entrepreneurs should avoid administrative access to their websites and instead rely on professionals for these responsibilities.
1. Protecting Your WordPress Website from Accidental Errors
When you’re starting out, it’s natural to want to make changes and updates to your website as you see fit. However, having administrative access comes with risks, especially if you’re not familiar with web development or content management systems (CMS). With administrative access, you can unintentionally:
- Delete critical files: Accidentally removing essential files can lead to website malfunctions, broken pages, design standards thrown into disarray, or even complete shutdowns.
- Modify code or configurations improperly: Small errors in coding or misconfigured settings can create significant problems that might require costly and time-consuming repairs or cause serious security breaches.
- Disrupt user experience: Altering the layout, design, or content without understanding how these changes affect user navigation can confuse visitors and harm your business’s credibility.
By simply staying away from administrative access, you can minimize the likelihood of such costly errors taking place. Leave the technical tasks to experienced developers who know how to avoid these sadly-common pitfalls.
One example of disruption of user experience comes from a ten-year client I had. This client had gone from having no website at all and financially struggling to having a website I created that listed on the first page of Google for local businesses of their type in three different places for at least ten years. This resulted directly in increased revenue in the tens of thousands of dollars annually, government contracts, and an influx of new clients they’d never seen before.
In this instance, the client insisted that after years of increaed profitability that they be able to prominently feature a beloved dog on the front page of their site, so that everyone could see and honor the beloved dog. I tried to explain to the client that adding an enormous photo of their dog, while heartwarming, had nothing to do with their business or clients and could detract from their established professionalism and confuse new customers as to the nature of the business and is air of professionalism and seriousness.
After a few discussions, I agreed to add the photo of the dog on the condition that it be done discreetly and tastefully and not detract from the standing we had worked so hard to build; rather than “in your face” to the extent that it would detract from visitors recognizing what the business actually was to begin with.
2. Avoiding Security Risks
Administrative access means having the highest level of control over your website, including the ability to manage user accounts, change passwords, and access sensitive customer data. If your account is compromised, it can lead to severe consequences, such as:
- Data breaches: Hackers could access and steal customer information, leading to legal issues and loss of customer trust.
- Getting locked out: Providing administrative access to your site leaves you open to being locked out, having pages or posts changed or even removed, plugins you don’t need or that could be malware or break the site uploaded.
- Website defacement: Cybercriminals could alter or deface your site, which would negatively impact your brand’s reputation.
- Malware and ransomware attacks: If an attacker gains administrative control, they can install malicious software that compromises your website’s functionality.
As a new business owner, you likely have numerous responsibilities, and managing website security across multiple levels of potential access shouldn’t be one of them unless you have extensive time to study website security as it relates to multiple potential points of entry.
Delegating administrative tasks to professionals ensures that your website is maintained with robust security measures, including strong password policies, regular updates, and ongoing monitoring for vulnerabilities.
Here’s an example story that took place during the years I was starting out in digital marketing: I’d met a local business owner in Colorado who ran a profitable dating service serving local singles. He approached me after I’d taught an SEO workshop and asked for help with his dating service website. So I offered him a complimentary consultation up to one hour over a cup of coffee at a local area cafe.
This gentleman’s approach was to meet others at nearby pubs, where he would offer them bar food, a few drinks, and then if they seemed interested, he would ask them to help him manage his website, its pages, its Search Engine ranking, its eCommerce, uploading photos, remove spam listings, and more.
The issue he was running into at this point, he told me, was that due to providing administrative access to so many people he’d met at local bars, the site now had plugins that seemed to cause odd things to happen to the site, lock him out of access at times, caused some parts of the website to look and operate differently from others, and he didn’t know what to do and asked me if I could help him. I assured him that I could help but only with the caveat that he run his business and allow me to run mine – in other words stop giving administrative access to those who were not experts while expecting positive outcomes. A few weeks later, he contacted me again, explaining that his site had now been taken over by one of his bar friends who wanted thousands of dollars to return administrative access to him. The bar friend, the business owner explained to me, said they didn’t feel beers and hot dogs were sufficient payment.
Needless to say I wanted nothing to do with this drama, wished him well, referred him to a security specialist I knew and departed; fairly certain that this dating agency owner would refuse to invest a penny into restoring the site. Sure enough, a month later the entire site was gone and its database deleted.
3. Focusing on Core Business Activities
Running a business involves juggling numerous tasks, from marketing and sales to product development and customer service.
Adding website administration to your list can be distracting and time-consuming, diverting your attention from more critical business activities- especially if you are not already an expert in programming, plugins, design, and content creation.
Some of the common time-consuming tasks involved in website administration include:
- Performing (or even repairing outcomes from) regular updates to the CMS or plugins
- Troubleshooting website hosting issues, crashes, or downtime
- Monitoring for potential security threats (such as hacking attempts, malware injections, or spam comments if you have those enabled)
By avoiding administrative access, you can focus on growing your business, cultivating long-term relationships with vendors and customers and local business associations, developing strategies, and serving your customers, while experts handle the website’s technical aspects. This lets you be the expert running your business instead of being deluged with more work in completely new areas.
One example of this comes from a woman I met many years ago who ran a profitable custom candy store where she sold customizable candy of all kinds through a successful eCommerce site with relevant local SEO terms.
Rather than pursue catering and special event contracts with local associations and organizations that were immediately obvious, the business owner spent the majority of her time busily tinkering with the eCommerce site a developer had created for her. The business owner didn’t want to pay for monthly site maintenance as she didn’t understand the need for it so instead opted to try to maintain the site herself.
After a few brief months, the eCommerce function that had made her so much revenue in the past no longer worked and looked different from the rest of the site’s design and somehow now had a different database connection.
After a few months of continued financial losses and SEO downgrades from Google (as her website was no longer secure and featured pages and posts with confusing links to other databases she couldn’t explain) the business went broke and disappeared.
4. Ensuring Consistent and Professional Website Management
A well-functioning website needs regular maintenance to ensure it operates smoothly and meets user expectations. This includes performing updates, confirming crucial renewals, optimizing loading speeds, managing plugins, and fixing bugs. Without proper technical knowledge, it’s easy to make mistakes that can result in:
- Inconsistent website performance: Failing to keep the site updated can slow it down or cause compatibility issues.
- Unprofessional appearance: Broken links, outdated content, and malfunctioning features can make your website appear untrustworthy and unprofessional.
By allowing professional web administrators to manage your site, you ensure a consistent user experience and minimize the likelihood of technical issues.
This level of professionalism can also improve your website’s SEO rankings, as search engines prioritize well-maintained websites with fast loading times and minimal errors.
One example of this was when I worked with a coffee vendor in building them an extremely profitable custom coffee eCommerce site that took the family from struggling to survive to buying a new house.
Once the family had reached greater levels of financial gain, the primary owner refused to renew the site hosting and domain name seeing no reason to pay for what he insisted should be free and told me he had been told could be outsourced for free to other providers somehow.
Of course, once he had refused to renew hosting the site was simply gone. I had several back-ups but the gains he had main in Google rankings were gone and the steady subscriber base we had worked to build was also gone. Since he had also let the domain name (the “dot com”) lapse, he couldn’t regain the URL even if he’d wanted to. After some time he tried to recreate our past success with DIY efforts but never fully bounced back to what we’d had before. Had the client let me provide a maintenance package, I would have updated renewals accordingly.
5. Reducing Liability and Legal Risks
Data protection laws, such as GDPR and CCPA, impose strict regulations on how businesses handle customer data. If you have administrative access and accidentally expose sensitive information or fail to implement proper security protocols, your business could face legal penalties. For example:
- Failing to secure customer data: If a breach occurs due to your administrative mistake, you could be held liable for damages.
- Inadequate privacy policies: Ensuring that your website complies with data protection regulations requires a deep understanding of these laws.
Handing off administrative tasks to professionals who understand compliance requirements reduces your risk of legal complications, allowing you to focus on building your business.
6. Leveraging the Expertise of Web Professionals
Web development and maintenance are specialized skills that take years to master. Professionals have the expertise to anticipate problems before they occur and implement solutions efficiently when issues arise. The benefits of relying on experienced web administrators include:
- Faster problem resolution: Professionals can quickly identify and fix website issues, reducing downtime.
- Access to advanced tools and technologies: Web experts use specialized tools to monitor performance, manage updates, and secure the site.
- Strategic improvements: An experienced administrator can suggest enhancements to improve your website’s usability, accessibility, and SEO performance.
By leaving administrative access to those with the relevant skills, you ensure that your website is managed optimally, giving your business a competitive edge.
Conclusion
While it may seem counterintuitive to relinquish control of your website’s administration as a new business owner, the risks of maintaining administrative access far outweigh the benefits. By focusing on your core business activities and entrusting website management to skilled professionals, you can avoid common mistakes, enhance your site’s security, and ensure a consistently professional online presence.
Letting go of administrative control is not about surrendering ownership of your website—it’s about protecting your investment, maintaining your brand’s reputation, and setting the foundation for long-term growth. So, take the smart approach and delegate website administration to experts who can help you achieve your business goals without unnecessary risks.