Looking for advice re giving offline clients control over their sites

Wordpress.

It's a great CMS that's easy to install, easy to theme, easy to update.

Really I doubt you'll find anything easier for them to use.

Thanks Louise, I've been avoiding it for years, maybe time to rethink! Any other views?

Bobby

Yeah, if you're designing them, offer them a reasonable rate to update them!

Maybe even a monthly, use-it-or-lose-it thing, where they pay you each month to get 1, 2, 3, x hours of your time, but if they don't use it, it doesn't add up.

What I find is that clients ALWAYS SAY they want to update their own sites, blah, blah... in reality, what TYPICALLY happens is that they NEVER touch it. Or, they do at first, then it fades away as reality sets in, the "new" of the web site thing wears off and they get swamped with regular work.

All success.

Gary

WP

It is the easiest to teach a client. I also suggest they just tell me what they want tweaked and I will do it. Usually the request for control is unrelated to their excuse. They are usually more worried that if they fire you or are late with a payment, ect that you will 'retaliate'

For each client I have, I make them an email addy at my domain. Their company name @ my company name. Then I open a Google account in that name. I make a spread sheet that lists all the accounts i have opened on their behalf. Domain, hosting, twitter, facebook page,listing services, what ever. (by the time a year is up the list can become quite extensive).

I then email to them the address (which is just a forward to me, nothing they can use themselves. I just have it forwarded for services that require email verification and I can not have to bug them.) as well as the password URL and any other pertinent info to it. I tell them all any info I have on them is in there and that if they like they can access any account I have opened anywhere and see exactly what I am doing and not doing, but most importantly, if something happens to me (this is where I say: "Like if I get hit by a bus or fall over dead from an aneurysm") your business is not slowed down even a hair because of my demise. You can just give access to the next person you end up hiring and everything I have done they can see and not have to repeat.
Evey time I open an account somewhere that is just theirs, I add it to the list.If I do something that is just under my account, like a press release or article, that they don't get access to, but otherwise all their info is there for them and they can carry on whether I die or just get fired.

I actually do it this way because the odds are greater it will be me that does the firing and if I do, I want it to be clean. I can just re-give the Google account info (in case they lost it) when we part ways and they have no reason to ever bug me again!

Once they know they have that, them doing the tweaking is out the window. It is usually the info they wanted all along. (Why would they tweak when they pay me to do things like that?)

Mark

DogScout is right on as to how to handle a client. Along with that I always tell a client that at any time they can go into the site and do whatever they like.........BUT!!! if they mess it up and want me to fix it, then it is going to be 2-3 or maybe even $500.00 and hour to fix it. Just whatever number I happen to pull out of the air, I don't have time to fix someone's mistakes.

Gary thanks for the advice, yes I can see that many wouldn't touch it!

Mark thanks to you too, sounds like a great sytem you have there, well thought out...

Regards
Bobby