Before an owner steps back, move every account the website depends on into the business's name, add the successor as an owner, and write down what the owner knows while they are still there to ask.

Thirty years in one person's accounts

An owner who started the business decades ago is stepping back, handing it to a daughter, a long-serving manager or a partner buying out the rest.

The lease, the bank and the customer list get careful attention. The website rarely does, because it has always just worked.

Then somebody asks where the domain is registered, and the answer is the owner's personal account, renewed on the owner's own credit card.

None of that matters while the owner is at the desk every morning. It matters a great deal the first month they are not.

What usually sits in the owner's name

The second is the hardest to untangle. Customers and suppliers have used that address for years, and a personal webmail account belongs to a person, not to the business.

Memory is the other half

Logins can be found eventually. What the owner simply knows is harder to recover.

Which company built the site and which one hosts it now. Why an old second domain still forwards to the main one. Which form copies each order to the owner's own inbox.

A successor inherits the logins but none of the reasons, and the reasons are what stop somebody switching off something that matters.

Start while the owner is still there

With a few months of overlap, a handover is straightforward. The owner can approve changes at the registrar, answer security questions and explain what each thing is for.

After they have gone, each step is slower: accounts in a person's name are protected against takeover, and a successor must prove the business's claim one company at a time.

Plans also change. A retirement planned for next spring can arrive suddenly after an illness.

Move ownership, not just passwords

Handing the successor the owner's password feels like a handover. It is not one.

The account still belongs to the owner: security codes go to their phone, recovery emails to their inbox, and the company holding it deals only with them.

The domain's registrant changes from the person to the business, usually a short formal step that needs the current registrant's agreement.

The successor is added as an owner of the Google listing, then made its primary owner, and becomes an admin of the Facebook Page through their own profile.

Billing moves to a business card and contact emails to a shared business address, so every account ends with two people from the business able to manage it.

The address customers already have

Email needs the most thought, because it is the part customers hold on to.

If the owner's address is at the business's own domain, keep it forwarding to the successor or a shared inbox for at least a year, with an automatic reply naming the new contact.

If the business has run on the owner's personal webmail, set up addresses at the domain first, then point to them from that account's automatic reply.

Keep the two kinds of mail apart. The successor needs the business correspondence, not the owner's personal messages.

A worked example

A watch and clock repair shop on a small-town main street had been run by one watchmaker for over thirty years. He was handing it to the repairer he had trained.

Everything behind its small website was his. The domain was in his name, the shop's email was a personal webmail account printed on every repair ticket, and the listing belonged to his own Google login.

The gap showed when he took his first long holiday in years. A renewal notice sat unread in his inbox, and so did two weeks of estimate requests, because the form had always sent them to him.

Over the summer the two of them worked through the list. The domain moved into the business's name, and the old webmail account now replies with the shop's new email address.

The successor became primary owner of the listing, renewals moved to the business card, and a password manager the shop owns replaced the notebook. The watchmaker keeps a manager's role for a year.

The one-page record

With ownership moved, write down what the owner knew. One page covers most small businesses.

For each service the website depends on, note who provides it, whose name it is in, when it renews and for how much, and who can log in.

Add the people, from the web company to the bookkeeper who pays the renewals. Then add the reasons only the owner can supply: why the second domain exists, which form sends where.

Keep the passwords in a password manager the business controls, not on the page, and reread the page once a year.

The founder on the site

The site itself usually describes the owner too: a photograph on the about page, a mobile number in the footer, review replies signed with a first name.

Keep the history, since decades under one owner are a reason to trust the business.

Change the present tense. Say who runs the business now, put their photograph and number where customers look, and add a line to the home page so regulars hear the news from you.

The counter-case

Some businesses are already most of the way there.

If every account is in the business's name, two people can manage each one, and the web company keeps a current list, the handover is a check rather than a project.

A business closing when its owner retires has a shorter list: keep the domain and email running behind a short notice for a while, rather than letting the address lapse to a stranger.

For everyone else, move each account into the business's name, and write down what the owner knows while they can still be asked.

Before the last day

  1. List every account the website depends on.
  2. Note whose name each one is in.
  3. Move the domain into the business's name.
  4. Add the successor as an owner everywhere.
  5. Switch renewals to a business card.
  6. Keep the owner's address forwarding for a year.
  7. Write the one-page record together.

Step seven is the one that cannot wait. Logins can be recovered with patience, but the reasons behind them live in one person's memory, and asking while they are here takes an hour.

Where the business is being sold rather than handed on, the same groundwork is covered in websites for a business being sold.

Frequently asked questions

Why does retirement put the website at risk?

Because the domain, email, listing and renewals often sit in the owner's personal accounts, and the reasons behind them sit in the owner's memory. Both leave with the owner.

Is sharing the owner's password enough?

No. The account still belongs to the owner, so security codes and recovery emails go to them. Ownership itself has to move to the business.

How do I move the domain to the business?

Change the registrant from the owner to the business at the registrar. It is usually a short formal step that needs the current registrant's agreement, so do it before they leave.

What happens to the owner's email address?

Keep an address at the business's domain forwarding for at least a year, with an automatic reply naming the new contact. Keep personal messages apart from business correspondence.

What goes in the one-page record?

Each service the website depends on, who provides it, whose name it is in, renewal dates and costs, who can log in, and the reasons only the owner knows.

Should the founder disappear from the site?

No. Keep the history, since decades under one owner are a reason to trust the business. Update the present: who runs it now, with their photograph and number.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Owner stepping back next year?

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