We’ve all been there. You’re thinking, “someone made a big mess of my website and I don’t know what to do now, AAAAHAHHHAHAH!” Maybe you’ve hired someone or worked with a client and they’ve made a huge mess. It can be extremely disheartening and make you want to give up and never trust anyone again. I get it. But after you feel your feels, what should you do? (This also applies if you’ve had starts and stops on your website and you’re not sure what to do next.)
First of all, breathe.
You’re probably mad about all the money and time you wasted working with this person. And that’s fair, you can’t get those things back. It was the wrong choice, and you learned from it. We’ve ALL been there. I can’t even tell you the number of horrible clients who took advantage and stole time and money from me and treated me like I was their personal servant (or worse!). And I wish I could say these things only happened when I was getting started and learning, but I’ve had terrible clients in the past year. We can learn and know what to watch out for, but things like this are always going to happen in our businesses. We just have to breathe and let it go and move on. Make a list of what red flags there were and what you learned and then let that stuff go.
Now, let’s assess the situation.
Okay, now that we’ve let go of the emotion of it all, let’s focus up. I’m sure your freelancer didn’t do everything 100% wrong (unless they were just trying to scam you). What things are working on your site? Do you have a platform & theme that you like? Are there sections of things that are working for you? Make a list of everything you like and that’s working. Did you spend time setting things up on the backend and now it just needs to be connected properly, maybe? Or did you do a ton of prep work and just have to fire them before it went live? Gather up all the assets you have (copy, prep, images, code, whatever) and organize it. Find out what things are at 50%, or even 99% done and just need to be cleaned up and finished.
Next, get some expert advice.
Now that you know where you are, figure out your options. I recommend speaking with an expert or doing some research in this stage. The goal is to figure out what you need to do to get you from where you are to where you’d like to be. Take your list of your assets and what’s working and what’s halfway done and get some advice on how to pull all of that together into a functional website.
Finally, pick a direction and move on.
Don’t let analysis paralysis get you here! Don’t get stuck in the collecting advice phase. Ask 2-3 people what they think and then decide and move on. I get SO many clients who are in this predicament, honestly. And a lot of them are so afraid to choose a new freelancer because of their bad experiences from before. I get it, I really do. But at some point, you’re going to have to choose a new person to take your project forward. Pick someone with tons of postive reviews and a long history, and be prepared to pay a little extra to be sure they’ll do good work. Then make your choice and dive back in. You got this!!
Psst… If you’re looking for an honest and reputable web developer to save your website project, take a look at my reviews and feel free to contact me on Upwork. I can help you figure out next steps and get moving in the right direction again!
