In a perfect world, we’re all going to enjoy long, satisfying lives filled with happiness, prosperity, and abundance. There’d also be no war, famine, or AI tech overlords.
Ha! We all know the world’s far from perfect. And your web designer could get hit by a bus and die tomorrow. If that happens, would your website stay online? Do you even know what you’d do if your web designer dies?
Well, my friend, I’ve already thought this out for you.
The following are unfortunate—but 100% realistic scenarios—that could happen to your website if your web designer gets hit by a bus and dies.
Scenario 1: You Send Condolences and a Bouquet of Flowers
I’m not sure how close you are with your web designer, but if I got run over by a bus, I’d want my clients to send my mum a bouquet of flowers.
There’s no stipulation in my contracts that requires my clients to do so. It’s just a nice gesture. Because, we all know mothers hurt the most at the untimely loss of their favorite child. Plus, our parents are supposed to pass before their children.
Anyway, this scenario is just a sad one.
It also means your web designer already provided full access to and full ownership of your assets, right?
You should have:
- Admin access to WordPress
- Account control for hosting
- Code ownership in Github
If not, you may want to talk to your web designer right now. You don’t want to go through Scenario 2 or 3 below. A good web designer won’t make a big fuss when you ask for full access to and ownership of your website’s assets (hosting, domain, etc). Now, if your web designer dies, your business won’t be impacted.
Okay, it’s terrible, for sure, but life—and your business—must carry on!
Scenario 2: You Waste Hours Fighting a Hosting Company
“Steve, can you update the phone number on our website?“
“Hello?! Steve? We’ve sent 3 prior emails and tried calling, twice, but never got a response. You okay, buddy?“
Yup, Steve is dead. RIP, buddy.
Now your website is in limbo, stuck on a hosting account that you don’t have access to. But wait, which hosting company did your web designer use?
Did they ever tell you? Does it say so in the contract?
Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t.
Some web designers hide the tech that runs your business website. They do this because they’re no different than a high-school pot dealer. They want you hooked and addicted to their services so you keep paying month after month.
But let’s say you know which platform is hosting your website.
You’ll likely have to open an account, explain that your web designer is dead, show a contract or verify you own the domain. It’ll probably be one helluva headache, but I’m sure hosting companies are smart enough to help you out and set things right.
Although, this is purely hypothetical. I’m honestly not sure what a hosting company does in the event a web designer dies.
By the way, I use Kinsta for WordPress hosting and Cloudflare for my static sites. And all my clients get 100% access and own their accounts.
So, once again, I highly advise that you:
Go have a chat with your web designer and ask ‘em what happens in the event that they get run over by a bus.
Scenario 3: You Lose Everything
This is an extreme scenario. It means you have no idea where the site is hosted and you only communicated with your web guy (or maybe web girl) via email.
In this scenario, the only reason you know there’s a problem is when a customer says:
“Uh, Bob! Your site’s offline. Not sure you’re aware of that or not.“
Hm, strange.
You’ve always paid Steve’s maintenance bill on time. But why is there a “Site owner failed to pay” page instead of your freaking website?
“Steve, what the hell’s going on? Why’s the site offline?“
Usually Steve responds within the hour and there’s never been an issue since the site launched 7+ years ago.
“The fuck, Steve? Are you dead?“
Yes. Yes, he is.
And you can’t afford your website being offline because every day it stays offline is $17,000 or more in lost sales.
What can you do? Sadly, not much.
You can try asking Fable 5.1 or GPT-6 Astra to create a near-identical clone from the Wayback Machine. If it's an e-commerce site, might be a bit trickier than that.
Realistically, everything is gone.
You’ll have to hire a new web designer to replace your dead one.
You Can’t Save a Dead Web Designer, But You Can Save Your Site from Dying If Your Web Designer’s Dead
I think I’m just going to end here. That heading sums things up perfectly, no?
Anyway, if you need honest advice when it comes to web design—and having full ownership and access even if I die—click here to book a 45-minute consult.