How to hand a WordPress site over to a client

How do you deliver a WordPress website to a client?

You deliver a WordPress website to a client in four moves: sign-off, the move, the logins and the handover note. Each one closes a question the client would ask you later.

1. Get the final sign-off in writing. Name the version of the site the client approved.
2. Move the site. Put it in the hosting account the contract names, if it isn't there already.
3. Hand over the logins. Give each person on the client's side an account of their own. Then you can remove one person's access without touching anyone else's.
4. Send the handover note. List every account, login and file, and what you'll still look after, if anything.

Ownership of the site and its code, the domain name and each login should already be in writing with the client. For ownership terms in the contract, see what a web design contract should say about ownership.

How do you transfer a WordPress website to a client's account?

Agree on the client's hosting account first, then back up the site and move the files and the database into it. WordPress.org's Advanced Administration Handbook says you don't need to reinstall WordPress to move it to a new server, and that you start by backing up the WordPress folder, images, plugins and other files on the site, as well as the database.

Here are the steps:

1. Settle the account. Ask whose name the hosting is in, who pays for it, and who can sign in. Get the client to set up the account in their own name, then add you as a user.
2. Back up everything. Take a full copy of the files and the database before you touch anything.
3. Check whether the address changes. The handbook says a move that keeps the domain and the site's web addresses is simple and can be done, in most cases, by moving the files. If the database and the address stay the same, copying the files and the database is enough. If the database name or user changes, it says to edit wp-config.php so it has the right values.
4. Take care if the domain changes. The handbook warns that references to the old domain stay in the database when the address changes, and that this can cause problems with links or with how the theme shows. It also warns that a search and replace on the whole database can cause problems, because some themes and widgets save values that record how long the address is.
5. Test the moved site. Go through every page, form and login before you tell the client it's done.

What goes on a website handoff checklist?

The checklist names every account and file the client now holds, and how you checked it. Go down the list with the client on a call, or send it and ask them to confirm each line.

On the user accounts, WordPress.org's guide to roles gives an Administrator access to every administration feature on a single site. An Editor can publish and manage posts, other users' posts included, and an Author can publish and manage their own. Contributors can write and manage their own posts, though they can't publish them, and a Subscriber can only manage their profile. The guide adds that installing WordPress creates an Administrator account by itself, and that Settings > General holds the default role for new users. For the client's dashboard, see setting up a WordPress client dashboard.

What goes in a website handover email?

A website handover email tells the client the site is theirs and where everything lives. Keep it short enough to read in one sitting, and keep it somewhere you can both find it later.

Put these in it:

• a line that says the site is live and signed off, with the date
• the web address and the login page address
• each account the client now holds: WordPress, hosting and the domain
• how to reset a password, so they never need you for that
• where the backups are kept
• what you'll still look after, if anything, and how to ask for help
• the checklist of what you handed over, attached or pasted in

Send the logins themselves another way than the email, such as a password manager, so they don't sit in an inbox.

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