I have a website for my business, made for me and hosted by the same company. I’d like to have control of it myself so i can add content etc.

How can i do this? can i make a copy of the site and host it somewhere else? can i open it in wordpress?

Help.

Depends what they’ve written it in.

You paid them so they should hand over the assets and the rights to host anywhere you want.

But don’t expect it to be a cut and paste job into a new host and suddenly you’re editing copy at will. It probably won’t. Could well not be a wordpress site, so it won’t automagically turn into one.

And if it’s like companies we use, it’ll done in a way to make your life as hard as possible to drag it out of their hands.

Yep – you should own the website name but it all depends what was in the contract.
The web site itself is probably the intellectual property of the company who wrote it; once again down to the contract (assuming there is one). Although things like images you’d have a strong argument about owning.

So the likelihood is that you can take the web site name but will have to build a new website.

Phone around some website people (I know a handful), and they’ll be able to tell you more info about A) your current website and B ) how it can be changed to a CMS.

I have contacted a couple of web design people but they are so busy they don’t reply 😐

I might add i bought the domain myself so thats mine 😉

Did you contract an agency to build you a website, or is it one of these template things so common with hosting providers these days?

If the former, they will probably just send you the necesarry files when you ask for them. Depending on the website, you may be able to set this up yourself with your own host, or you may need to call in the help of someone, for what (unless it’s a very complex site) will probably be a fairly quick job. I use the term loosely though, because there’s no guarantees when it comes to technology and computers.

If the latter, you might be screwed, as you’re probably using their own proprietary software which cannot be transfered.

Will you be able to install it on WordPress? If it’s not already on WordPress, then no, it’s not that simple.

Whats your site? You can probably tell if it’s done on a standard CMS.

post a link and I’m sure folks here will tell you either how difficult it is to move or to set up again from scratch.

http://www.gardenchief.co.uk

Is it just the 1 static page and a contact popup??

You can copy and host that for next to nothing if so.

That looks to be a very basic site. In which case you should be able to set it up with another host yourself. Or at least someone could do it for you very quickly.

Just ask them for the files. Failing that, you could lift them straight from the web.

There’s a small chance there could be more to it, but unlikely. Even so, you could still do something with it quickly.

Should be a copy and paste job.

CSS, Graphics and JS files can just be downloaded. In chrome view source and ‘save link as’

Re-create the directory/file structure on your local machine and you should be up and running.

As the other’s have said, there is virtually nothing to do to copy that page, it’s straightforward. However, before you go doing it there are three more things to consider:

1. Did the current company register the domain name for you? That’s quite common but then you may also need to work out to get that from them if you want to move away from them completely.

2. If they did register it for you do they also control your email? You need to sort that as well

3. What sort of content do you want to add? It’s worth working that out as there are a few good CMS systems out there and it helps to have some idea of what you want to do when deciding

edit: once you have decided what you to add you may want to get a new company to redesign the page because from a search point of view it isn’t the best :(. If you want to do it yourself then ask here as there was lots of good advice last time this came up

Is your name Philip?

Then you own the domain so things should be easy.

EDIT: I stopped short at posting his name and address up in case he didn’t want it broadcasting 😆

go on, take his address off while you can still edit it

edit: not you john of course

Er… it’s public information…. ?

MX and A records point towards 1and1 – so I’m guessing the web designer has a shared hosting account with them.

Shouldn’t be too difficult to move away from them.

Edited…

Yes but it doesn’t mean it is the best idea to broadcast it does it?

When you start adding new content in you need to start considering navigation – a menu possibly etc. etc. as a way of getting to your new fresh content.

Fancy a new winter hobby? WordPress?!