Keys to the Castle

By /

In order for a developer like myself to work on your website, you have to share access to some very important logins. This can be a little stressful and scary to hand over the “keys to your castle.” I want to share some information sharing tips to help the process.

Typical information needed (varies if you have an existing site, new site, or are signing up for optimization/maintenance):

  1. WordPress administrator login
  2. Hosting Login (and MySQL database if separate)
  3. Domain Registrar Login
  4. Google Analytics
  5. Other accounts like Sucuri (security/firewall) and Cloudflare

Here are some tips for sharing each of these:

Add a New WordPress Admin

Hosting and Domain Login

Some hosts, like WP Engine, allow you to add a new user to your hosting account and it lets the user login with their own account so you never have to share login info.  If your host doesn’t let you add a user to your account I suggest emailing the hosting url and user name and then texting or calling with the password (so they aren’t stored in the same thread.)

Add user on WP Engine: https://wpengine.com/support/users/

Add a user on Godaddy: https://www.godaddy.com/help/invite-a-delegate-to-access-my-godaddy-account-12376
Add a user to your Google Domain: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/7179397?hl=en

Google Analytics

See workflow here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009702?hl=en

LastPass

I use LastPass to securely store credentials.  Within LastPass you can also securely share your logins that are only accessible to another LastPass user.  If you also use LastPass follow this workflow to share your credentials: https://helpdesk.lastpass.com/sharing-4-0/

MailChimp

I often work in client’s MailChimp accounts to connect lead forms to their website or to brand a campaign and set up automation.  You can add me as a user directly to your account: https://mailchimp.com/help/manage-user-levels-in-your-account/

E-Commerce

If you are transacting on your site I will need to link with your payment gateway.

PayPal – Let’s you add a user but is fussy with the API settings, I typically need your login to set up everything.
Stripe – can add a user to your account.
Authorize.net – can add a “developer” to your account.