Who owns your website? You do, of course… right? Actually, it may not be that simple. If you’re using one of the really popular website builders like Squarespace, you may own a lot less of your website than you think. This can have big implications for your brand and how easy it is for you to change providers.
The Ownership Pyramid
This pyramid shows the building blocks of a typical website. At the very top is what your customers see, the design and content of the site. The bottom blocks are the underlying software and infrastructure that makes the website run. Let’s break down these different blocks and see who owns each one:
Server & hosting infrastructure
This is the actual hardware that runs your website. To simplify this quite a bit, your website requires a server (basically just a computer) to run it. The vast majority of companies do not own their web servers or hosting infrastructure. h.b doesn’t even own the servers we use to host websites. (More on our tech stack here)
Ownership at this level isn’t all that important. While there are differences in every cloud provider, web servers are a commodity. You can switch them up as needed for the best price and maintain a similar experience. Owning your own infrastructure can also be incredibly expensive. For nearly all small or midsize businesses, owning your own web servers doesn’t make sense.
Content Management System (CMS)
The Content Management System (CMS) is the software that empowers you to create, manage, and modify content without needing to write code. Essentially, it’s the backbone that allows you to build and update your site easily. At Hancock.Build, we exclusively use WordPress, the world’s most popular CMS. WordPress is completely open source and free to use, meaning that you control & keep your CMS, even if you switch providers.
Other website providers like Squarespace or Shopify use their own content management systems, which are proprietary to their services. Whereas these providers are working on their CMS behind closed doors, WordPress has a global community of thousands of people working regularly to improve the functionality and security of the platform.
Design & Theme
The design & theme of your website sits on top of your CMS and serves as the visual component of your website. The design and theme includes your logo, fonts, color scheme, site layout, and page design. Some providers like Squarespace have different themes (templates) you can choose from to easily create a website. h.b clients receive completely custom design and theme work on their sites.
Content
Finally, there’s the content, the images, words, pages, blog posts, products, and more that you create on your website. Almost all website providers ensure customers own their content and make it simple to add, update, or export as needed.
So why does this matter?
In short, the more of those blocks in your website you own, the more freedom you have. You’ll retain greater control over the design and structure of your website, and will make it much easier to transfer providers if you’re not happy with your current situation.
If you’re exploring website providers like Squarespace or Shopify, you may be surprised to learn just how little of your website you actually own. With both providers, they remain in control of the server, CMS, and both Squarespace and Shopify explicitly state that the template (theme) you use to design your site is owned by them. The only block in the pyramid you actually own is your content.
This means that if you ever wish to leave Squarespace or Shopify, the only thing you can take with you is the content. Check out Squarespace’s instructions for exporting your site. Yikes. You’ll be leaving a lot behind if you ever want to change things up.
We can do better
I think we can do better here. Your website is a very important part of your brand and you should own as much of it as possible. At Hancock.Build, our clients own everything from the CMS on up. Every block in the pyramid above the server & hosting infrastructure is yours forever and always.
If you’re not happy with us, we make it super easy to move your entire site to a new host.
My goal with h.b is to keep clients through exceptional quality in our design, maintenance, and support, not through controlling as much of your website as possible. To see some companies and local governments who have chosen to own their website, please check out our recent projects.
If you’re interested in exploring this topic or learning more about what website ownership could mean for your brand, please contact me for a completely free consultation.
