Having a website for your business, no matter what it is you are selling, has become a necessity for everyone who is serious about their business. Depending on what kind of product or service you sell, the website might be more important than your brick and mortar store. What’s more, you might not even have a physical store, relying entirely on the sales made online. And just like you would set up an alarm system and double check the locks when closing the physical store, you should be careful about the kind of security you apply on your website. After all, you want to keep that store safe from cyber criminals.

Even if you have made sure your programmer or website administration has put in all the locks and safety features needed, there is one thing people don’t think about often and that is the chance that your very own Web designer might be the one to take over your website and hold it hostage.

It isn’t uncommon to hear about web designers doing this. They will get your website up and running and then, in order to give you full control (over something you have already paid an important amount for) they will request new payments to be made. After putting all the effort into the webpage and getting them to design everything based on your ideas, this can be a really frustrating experience. In order to avoid this, the most important thing is to understand what you are paying for and to make sure that the contract you sign stipulates that you will get full ownership of the code and everything written for your website.

Some designers, taking advantage of the fact that a lot of people don’t understand the technical language they work with, pull up contracts that let them keep control over essential parts of the website, so think about it twice when you’re about to hire a website designer. Are they trustworthy? And if there’s something you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask or research but make sure you know exactly what you are signing up for in order to avoid issues later on.