It depends on how familiar you are with the website development and web hosting. Business owners do not need to know how to build websites or anything about hosting to start an online endeavor and increase their income.
Do I need a web developer?
It's standard for clients to hire a web developer to create their site and then manage it for them by updating it, configuring various functionalities, and adding content.
Does my developer need access to my client area or cPanel to work on my site?
Yes and no. Here are the two situations that you will most likely be faced with:
- It again comes down to how well you are acquainted with web development or web hosting. A developer could make the website offline or on his personal hosting server and then provide you with the files and databases which you can deploy on your hosting account with HostArmada. Our Support Experts are 24/7 available at your disposal, and if you are in this situation, you can open a ticket and request a deployment for your site. In 99% of the cases, no matter if the site is a custom one or open-source, they will be able to assist you.
- Alternatively, you can provide your developer with access to your hosting account so he can start working on the website directly on the environment it will be hosted.
Both methods have their perks, however, the first option is generally safer since you won't have to share sensitive information with anyone. If you still prefer option two, please consider a few things:
- How well do you know the developer?
- If you have hired him from a website such as www.freelancer.com or www.codeable.io - what are his reviews, ratings, his experience, and does he have a significant customer satisfaction rate.
- How much access does he claim he needs?
- Is there any section of your hosting account you do not want him to see?
- When the above questions are answered, and you are happy with the result, this will most likely determine the likelihood of you giving access or not.
Should you decide to go for it, please keep these things in mind:
- To build your website, he does not require full access to your client area, as it contains sensitive information such as your email address, phone number, home address, and credit card details. You may provide him access through a sub-account which the client area allows you to create and give him access only to your products, enabling him to log into the cPanel. An additional functionality you may provide him with is submitting and viewing tickets so he can correspond with our support team.
- Do not overextend his access no matter what. Only give him the precise amount he needs to do his job!
- After he completes his tasks, remove his access immediately, and change any password you may have provided him with or completely delete any sub-accounts you gave him access to.
I understand the seriousness of the situation, what is the approach I should take?
Here are the different approaches you can go with, depending on your situation.
- If you believe the developer is trustworthy, you can either:
- Create a sub-account from your client area and give him restricted access to your products so he can log inside your cPanel and start working on your site. If he needs to talk to our support team, you can give him access to the support section as well.
- Provide him with direct access to the cPanel. To do that, you can give him one of the following URLs along with your cPanel login information which you can find inside the "Welcome to HostArmada" email:
- yourdomain.com/cpanel
- yourdoomain.com:2083
- serverhostname.com:2083
- serverhostname.com/cpanel
- serveripaddress/cpanel
- serveripaddress:2083
- If you do not feel confident giving him access to both your client area and cPanel, you can provide him with FTP access and Remote Database Access. This amount of access should be sufficient for him to create the site.
- Ask him to build the website on his local computer or personal hosting server and then give you the files and database so you can deploy it personally. As I mentioned earlier, you can also contact our team and ask them to handle the deployment process for you. To enable them to do that, they need the files and database of the website, along with the domain name you wish to place it on. The way you can give them the required data is by uploading it through the cPanel's File Manager or FTP. Alternatively, you can upload it in a third-party storage facility such as GoogleDrive, OneDrive, or DropBox and give them a link so they can download it.