Yes, it’s normal

WordPress is used by a huge number of websites, so it isn’t tied to the person who set it up. As long as you can get access, another developer can pick it up, check it over and carry on looking after it. I regularly take on sites built by other designers and agencies.

What you’ll need

To take over a website properly, these are the logins that matter:

• The WordPress admin login, ideally an administrator account in your own name.
• Your hosting account, where the website files and database live.
• Your domain registrar, where your web address is registered and renewed.
• Your DNS settings, which control where your domain and email point.

Don’t worry if you don’t have them all. It’s very common to find the domain or hosting was set up in the old designer’s name. In most cases access can be recovered through the hosting company or registrar, and it’s worth doing, because whoever controls the domain controls your website and email.

What I check first

Before changing anything, I take a full backup and do a health check, so I know exactly what I’m working with. That covers:

• WordPress, theme and plugin versions, and how out of date they are.
• Which plugins are actually in use, and which can go.
• Whether backups are running, and where they’re stored.
• Security: user accounts, passwords and any signs of malware.
• Speed, contact forms, and whether emails from the site are being delivered.

Common problems on neglected sites

Sites that haven’t been looked after for a while tend to have the same issues: plugins years out of date, old admin accounts nobody recognises, contact forms that quietly stopped sending, expired licences for paid plugins, and no recent backup. None of these are unusual, and most can be sorted fairly quickly once they’ve been found.

What happens next

Once the site is safe and up to date, you can decide how you want it looked after. Some people want ongoing support with updates, backups and changes when they need them. Others want to move the whole thing onto hosting that’s managed for them, so everything is in one place.

Need a hand?

If your website needs a new home or someone to look after it, have a look at my Website Support and Managed Website Hosting pages, or get in touch and tell me what’s going on.

The post Can Someone Take Over My Existing WordPress Website? appeared first on Eight One Digital.

Who the accessibility regulations cover

The rules are set out in the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. According to the government guidance on accessibility requirements, they apply to central and local government organisations and to some charities and other non-government organisations. They cover public-facing websites, intranets, extranets and mobile apps developed for public use.

When a charity is covered

Charities and other non-government organisations are exempt unless at least one of these applies:

• they are mostly funded by public money
• they provide services that are essential to the public
• their services are aimed at disabled people

Partial exemptions

Primary and secondary schools and nurseries are partly exempt. They do not have to make everything accessible, but the content people need in order to use their services must be, and they still need to publish an accessibility statement. Public sector broadcasters are fully exempt.

What WCAG 2.2 AA actually asks for

WCAG stands for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, published by the W3C. Version 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation on 5 October 2023. It keeps almost everything from version 2.1, removes one obsolete criterion (4.1.1 Parsing) and adds nine new success criteria, as listed in the W3C summary of what is new in WCAG 2.2. Six of the new criteria are at level A or AA, so they matter for the public sector standard:

• Focus Not Obscured (Minimum): when someone moves through the page with a keyboard, the item they are on should not be completely hidden behind a sticky header, chat widget or cookie banner.
• Dragging Movements: anything that needs dragging, such as a slider, should also work with a single tap or click.
• Target Size (Minimum): buttons and links need to be big enough, or spaced far enough apart, to be pressed easily. The guideline uses 24 by 24 CSS pixels, with some exceptions.
• Consistent Help: if you offer help, such as contact details or a help page link, it should appear in the same place across pages.
• Redundant Entry: people should not have to type the same information twice in the same process, for example on a multi-step donation or referral form.
• Accessible Authentication (Minimum): logging in should not depend on remembering or solving something, like a puzzle, unless there is an alternative.

The older criteria still apply too, and in practice they are where most problems are found: missing image descriptions, poor colour contrast, unlabelled form fields, confusing heading structure and pages that cannot be used with a keyboard.

The accessibility statement

Organisations covered by the regulations must publish an accessibility statement on the website or app it relates to. It should explain how accessible the site is, list any content you have not fixed because it is exempt, and list anything you have decided would be a disproportionate burden to fix. If your site is run by an outside supplier, the statement should also set out the plans you have agreed for fixing remaining issues. The guidance says to review and update it regularly, so it is not a one-off job.

Content you may not need to fix

Some content is exempt from the regulations, including:

• PDFs and other documents published before 23 September 2018, unless people need them to use one of your services
• pre-recorded audio and video published before 23 September 2020
• live audio and video
• maps, as long as essential information is provided in an accessible way
• third-party content you have not paid for or developed, such as social media buttons
• archived websites that are not needed for services and are not updated

You can also claim that a particular fix would be a disproportionate burden, but this needs a proper assessment. The guidance is clear that you cannot count things like lack of time or knowledge.

If your charity is exempt, does any of this matter?

Yes, to a degree. The regulations build on the Equality Act 2010, and the government guidance points out that all UK service providers have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. That duty still applies if you are exempt from the regulations. A common example is providing information in an accessible format when someone asks for it.

Who checks and enforces this?

In England, Scotland and Wales, the Equality and Human Rights Commission enforces the requirement, with powers that include investigations, unlawful act notices and court action. Separately, the Government Digital Service monitors a sample of public sector websites and apps each year.

Where to start

1. Work out whether you are covered. Use the three tests above for charities, and note any partial exemptions.
2. Check the site against WCAG 2.2 AA. Automated checkers are a useful first pass but cannot test everything, so add manual checks such as moving through every page with only a keyboard.
3. Fix the common issues first. Image descriptions, colour contrast, form labels, headings and keyboard access usually make the biggest difference.
4. Publish or update your accessibility statement. Be honest about what still needs work and when you plan to fix it.
5. Build it into routine upkeep. New pages, documents and plugins can introduce problems, so accessibility checks belong in your regular website support and maintenance.

If your site is bilingual, remember that the Welsh and English versions are both part of your website, so both need to meet the same standard. There is more on this on the bilingual and accessible websites page.

Frequently asked questions

Our charity gets some council funding. Are we covered by the accessibility regulations?

Only if you are mostly publicly funded, provide services essential to the public, or your services are aimed at disabled people. Some grant funding on its own does not bring you under the regulations, but the Equality Act duty to make reasonable adjustments still applies.

Is WCAG 2.1 still enough?

The current government guidance names WCAG 2.2 AA as the standard for public sector bodies. If your site already meets 2.1 AA, you are most of the way there and need to check the six new A and AA criteria.

Do we have to fix all our old PDFs?

Not usually. Documents published before 23 September 2018 are exempt unless people need them to use your services, such as an application form. Newer documents are covered, so it is often easier to publish key information as web pages instead.

If you would like a second opinion on your website’s accessibility or help writing an accessibility statement, get in touch with 81 Digital.

The post Do Charity and Public Sector Websites Have to Meet Accessibility Regulations? appeared first on Eight One Digital.

Why rankings drop after a move

When you change platform, your page addresses almost always change. Shopify uses its own structure, with products under /products/, collections under /collections/ and pages under /pages/. If Google visits your old addresses and finds nothing, those pages drop out of the search results and any links pointing to them are wasted.

1. List every URL on your current site

Before anything else, get a full list of your current pages, products, categories and blog posts. Your sitemap, a crawling tool or Google Search Console can all help. Pay most attention to the pages that bring in traffic and sales.

2. Map old addresses to new ones

Match each old URL to the closest page on the new Shopify store. A product should point to the same product, and a category to the matching collection. Avoid sending everything to the homepage, as Google treats that much like a missing page.

3. Set up 301 redirects

A 301 redirect tells Google a page has moved permanently and passes on most of its value. Shopify has a built-in URL redirect tool, and redirects can be imported in bulk from a CSV file, which is the only sensible way to do it for a big catalogue.

4. Keep your titles, descriptions and content

Carry over page titles, meta descriptions, product descriptions and image alt text rather than starting from scratch. If a page ranks well now, keep what’s working.

5. Check everything after launch

Once the new store is live, submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console and keep an eye on the Pages report for errors over the following weeks. Test a sample of old URLs to make sure they redirect properly.

Expect a short wobble

Even a well-handled move can cause a small dip for a few weeks while Google catches up. With redirects in place, rankings usually settle back down. Without them, they often don’t.

Need a hand?

I move shops to Shopify with redirects, SEO checks and data migration handled properly. Have a look at my Shopify and Shopify SEO pages, or get in touch to talk about your move.

The post How to Move to Shopify Without Losing Your Google Rankings appeared first on Eight One Digital.

The short answer

If selling products online is the main point of your website, Shopify is usually the better choice. If your website is mainly there to explain what you do and bring in enquiries, bookings or applications, WordPress is usually the better fit.

When Shopify makes sense

• You sell physical products and want a shop that just works, with payments, shipping, stock and orders handled in one place.
• You want to run the shop day to day yourself without worrying about updates, security or hosting.
• You have a physical shop too and want in-store and online sales in one system.
• You expect to grow and don’t want to rebuild in a couple of years.

The trade-off is less flexibility in some areas. Shopify has a fixed URL structure, some features need apps, and there’s an ongoing monthly subscription.

When WordPress makes sense

• Your website is about services, information or content rather than products.
• You need things like job listings, bookings, memberships or Welsh and English versions of every page.
• You want full control over the design, structure and content.
• You want to own the site outright and be free to move hosts or developers whenever you like.

The trade-off is that WordPress needs looking after. Core, theme and plugin updates, backups and security checks all need doing regularly, which is where a support plan comes in.

What about WooCommerce?

WooCommerce adds a shop to WordPress, and it works well for some businesses, especially when the shop is a small part of a bigger content site. Where selling online is the main thing, I find Shopify is usually easier to run and less work to maintain.

Running costs to think about

Shopify has a monthly plan, plus the cost of any paid apps you need. WordPress itself is free, but you’ll pay for hosting, any premium plugins or themes, and ongoing maintenance. Neither is automatically cheaper. It depends on what you need the site to do.

Still not sure?

Tell me what you sell or offer, and how you want people to buy from you or get in touch, and I’ll give you a straight answer on which platform suits you. Get in touch, or have a look at my Shopify and WordPress website pages.

The post Shopify or WordPress: Which Is Right for Your Business? appeared first on Eight One Digital.