Tips for Passing a Finished Site to a Client Pain-Free
Once you’ve completed a project and you’re ready to pass the website along, it’s important to follow a systematic process that ensures a smooth transition so that your client is happy and that you are paid on time.
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Before Giving Access
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You’ve built out designs, you’ve likely gone through a few revisions, and now you’re ready for the handoff. Before you give the client access, there are some precautionary measures you can take to:
Ensure payment is received.
That the client is prepared for ownership and overall satisfied with your service.
80 Percent Rule for Collecting Payment
The 80 Percent rule requires asking for payment once 80 percent of the website is complete. The main benefit to this is that it will allow clients to see how the project has come together at almost its full state, but with the room to add any changes (without causing you to undo a ton of work). Once payment is established you’re free to complete the rest of the website to their specifications, hand over ownership, and set it live.
Transferring ownership in Squarespace is a two-step process.
Just be sure that you don’t give backend access to the site until you’ve received payment. This approach works well on the client’s motivation because they want to take ownership to move things forward.
Offer Training
Setting your client up with a send-off package of help will add not only a higher level of service to your name, but will be a safety net for any potential errors/site crashes brought on later by the client or another designer.
Recording tutorials for simple tasks, edits, and a rundown of backend features with a screen share app like Loom can be all you need to create guides for:
Changing text
Adding images & videos
Creating new sections
Starting a blog
Touring through the site
Eventually, you may find it beneficial to create a course that includes some of the basic topics you get asked about all the time.
Start the Site Subscription
Before you connect the domain, start the subscription to the website. Be aware that when paying for the subscription, the vast majority of your clients will likely be on a business plan. Starting the subscription is especially important if you have a live site. The reason is simple:
If you connect the domain and your client has not paid for the subscription, the site will still have a password – and you don’t want this to happen, if it is already a live domain that you are moving.
It’s a good idea to follow this approach even if it’s a brand-new website.
Set Site to Public & Connect the Domain
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Keep the site password-protected until it’s time to go public – then when it is time, be sure to take the intentional step of setting the site public.
Then, connect the domain. Unfortunately, this isn’t a straightforward step with a typical time length! The reality is that it cOULD take thirty seconds, twenty minutes, or two days to complete. That’s just how the Internet works. So my advice is to be patient when completing this important step.
Your domain needs to be connected to Squarespace via the DNS records.
There are five records; be aware that all five records need to be there. Old records need to be deleted. Once this is taken care of, you are ready to have the site go live!
A Few Reminders
Once you’ve gone through the previous steps, there are a few things left to take care of, some of which will happen naturally:
Your SSL security will be built to keep the site secure.
SSL security is important for all sites, but especially for eCommerce ones. Make sure it gets set up properly from the beginning.
For the purposes of Squarespace SEO, make sure that Google Analytics and Google Search Console are set up – this is necessary to tell Google that the site is live.
Submit the sitemap via Google Search Console.
About Redirects
Are you transferring a site? Let’s say the old site had 20 pages, but the new one only has 10 pages. You’ll need to set up 301 redirects.
Squarespace has a lot of helpful information you can review to walk you through how to do this. Setting up 301 redirects is a fairly simple process – you just have to make sure you set those up on the backend.
Final Points
We’ve covered a lot here, but the sooner you establish a seamless process for passing a completed project to a client, the easier and faster it will become. Here are some final points to consider:
Always have the client pay for the site – don’t pay for it yourself and then try to get reimbursed.
Setting the site public takes two clicks – you can either do this for the client, or you can teach the client how to do it.
Connecting the domain with GoDaddy is really easy. It’s kind of easy with Google domains. With any other company, it requires a bit of work. It’s best if you offer this step as part of your service for the client.
Be aware that you can charge for doing SEO work for your client.
Once you’ve submitted the sitemap to Google Search Console, you are done, and you can send a congratulatory email to your client letting them know all the steps have been handled, their site is live, and they are now in full control.
Contact Us
If you’re unclear about the steps you need to take to finalize the site for your client, we are available for help. We’ve completed these steps thousands of times and we can easily help you with the ones you’re not clear about.
We make a ton of free resources available to help developers, and you may find the answer or solution you’re looking for in one of our guides!
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