You’d think that was trite advice, I mean, who wants to be in a hostage situation? But law firms everywhere are paying people to keep them hostage although they often don’t realise until too late…
We are often approached by law firms that want to use a new digital marketing/web development agency and want Orion Legal Marketing to take over their website and/or build a new one for them. But what some of these law firms don’t realise is that they are being held ‘hostage’ by their incumbent suppliers. Here’s how:
- They don’t own their own domain name (their agency does)
- They can’t get access to their website
- Their website has been built using a bespoke content management system (CMS) developed by their agency
- The website theme or licenses used on their website are registered to their agency
- They don’t know where their website is hosted or can’t get access to the account
- They don’t know the logins for their social media accounts or aren’t set up as administrators
- Some firms don’t even own their website and are actually unwittingly ‘hiring it’.
If this is the case, your web development agency can make it very difficult, and costly, for you to regain control of your website and social media accounts.
Now we don’t want to suggest every web/digital agency does this, they don’t. And some clients like to hand all the ‘technical stuff’ over to an agency to deal with, hence these issues arise. But before you sign a website contract, just make sure you have read the small print.
Know what you are buying, who owns what, what would happen if you cancelled the contract and how easy it would be to move agencies should you wish to in future. And if you go ahead and sign, make sure to keep a note of all logins, especially your domain, hosting and CMS log in. Just in case.
Be the master (or mistress) of your own domain. No one wants to feel trapped.
At Orion Legal Marketing we make sure your website is yours. Every bit of it. And if we have to act as hostage negotiators, we can normally find you a safe and secure way out of the situation. We are here to help you.
If you would like to discuss how we can help you put the right marketing strategy in place for your law firm, ring us on 0118 380 5980, email us at enquiries@orionlegalmarketing.co.uk or fill in our CONTACT FORM. We’ll be happy to offer you an initial free consultation to discuss your needs and the marketing strategy that would best suit your business.
