When a one-person company is responsible for a site

It sounds like the right choice for a small company, but sometimes surprisingly large companies can have a one-person website, and in the worst case the website is still implemented on a rare publishing system.

Such a solution may seem flexible and cost-effective. But with only one person behind the site and a technology that is full of special solutions, the company is exposed to risks that can become critical unexpectedly quickly.

One person, many risks

When one person is responsible for the maintenance and technical management of a website, you are in a vulnerable position. Absence can bring everything to a standstill, as a person can fall ill or move on to other work - and suddenly no one knows how the site works.

Each site is technically tailored

Each site has technical customisations made by the developer to make it what you want it to be. In some cases, the entire site is built entirely as a customization. There are different styles of coding and different ways of doing things. 

In a one-person business, the style of implementation can be very personal and depend largely on the experience, skills and willingness to learn. Naturally, documentation and data transfer are often left undone. In these cases, it is almost impossible for anyone else to take over the site, fix it, or go out and find any gum and blue-tape bugs hidden in the code.

Site maintenance is blocked

In some cases, the site passwords, server settings or publishing instructions may be known only to the person concerned. In such cases, the company does not have the technical means to make even urgent changes without outside help.

In addition, all updates and changes are schedule-dependent on a single calendar. An administrator's workload can vary widely, delaying business-critical tasks - and costing more, especially if billing is based on hourly rates.

A rare publishing system can be a technical dead end

If the website is built on a little-known content management system, the risks are even greater. There are few developers who are familiar with these platforms, making it difficult to find new talent and increasing the cost of services.

Rare systems often do not have an active user community or ready-made plug-ins. When each new feature has to be custom developed, development slows down and costs increase. At the same time, the lack of support and security updates increases the risk of vulnerabilities going undetected.

In practice, a company may find itself locked into a system that no one is willing or able to develop further.

The site works, but it doesn't work for business

A technically functional website does not mean that it serves the company's business. When maintenance and development are the responsibility of one technical expert, the way the website lives as part of sales and marketing is often overlooked.

Sales and marketing needs

In a model managed by one person, agile response can be challenging. The site may not have been designed from the outset to accommodate future marketing or sales needs - for example, new campaign pages, product launches or structural changes to content may require more intervention than necessary.

An individual developer may not be able to look at changes from the customer's perspective or consider what would be the best solution for user experience and conversion. The end result may be a solution that is technically sound - but does not support the business objectives or scale to future needs.

You cannot build growth alone

As a business grows, so does the role of the website. The website becomes an increasingly important part of customer acquisition, brand experience and service development. The skills of one person are simply no longer enough.

Growth needs, such as integrations with other systems or multilingual content, require multidisciplinary skills and continuous development. A freelancer cannot respond to changing needs as a team - nor can one person build a scalable development model.

Security and accessibility do not happen by chance

When a website is managed by one person, without systematic audits and an internal team backup process, security can be weak. If software is not actively updated or vulnerabilities are not identified in time, the risk of a data breach increases significantly.

Accessibility and GDPR

At the same time, accessibility requirements are often forgotten. Without a planned evaluation, it is difficult to know whether a website will work for all user groups - for example, on screen readers or mobile devices. Requirements such as GDPR and the Accessibility Directive can also be overlooked, creating legal and reputational risks.

Maintaining a website is a strategic decision

Using a one-person company or a freelancer to maintain your website may seem like a light and flexible solution at first. But in the long run, it can become a serious business risk - from service outages to data breaches and lost sales.

Therefore, maintaining a website should be seen as a strategic decision. The solution should be scalable and easy to maintain - not a one-person risk.

Site maintenance by Digiteam

With digital teams, we build and we maintain WordPress websites, which do not fall on individual key players. We use well-known technologies, share responsibilities among the team and make sure that every website serves your business goals now and in the future.