A Lead-Gen Company Set Up Your Website and Owns It: Now What

#The deal you may have signed

A marketing company offered a website for free or nearly free, with leads for a monthly fee or a price per lead. It looked like a good deal: no upfront cost, and the phone rang. Years later you are paying every month, the site still says it is yours, and you have started to wonder what happens if you stop.

Often: the domain is theirs, the phone number on the site is a tracking number they own, the content is a template they use for other trades in the region, and the reviews and rankings the site has built attach to a property you do not control. Stop paying and the site, the number and the rankings go with them, sometimes to your competitor.

Here is how to find out where you stand and how to get out cleanly.

#Step 1: check what you own

Ten minutes.

• Domain. Look up the site's domain in a WHOIS tool. Whose name, or which company, is the registrant? If it is theirs, you do not own your web address.
• Phone number. Is the number on the website the one on your van? If it is different, it is a tracking number, and it is theirs. Every customer who saved it has their number.
• Content. Search a distinctive sentence from your About page in quotes. If it appears on other trades' sites, it is a template.
• Google Business Profile. Who is the primary owner? It should be you. If it is the company, they control your map listing.
• Reviews. Where do they live? On your Google profile (yours) or on the company's platform (theirs)?
• Analytics and Search Console. Do you have access? If not, you have never seen your own data.
• The contract. Notice period, what happens to the site on termination, who owns the content and the domain.

Write it down. The blanks are what you would lose.

#Step 2: understand what you would lose

• Rankings. Google's trust attaches to the domain. If the domain is theirs, the rankings are theirs.
• The number. Customers who saved the tracking number will reach whoever the company routes it to next.
• Reviews on their platform.
• Nothing you cannot rebuild, if you own your Google Business Profile and your real phone number, because those are where most of a trade's local presence actually lives.

#Step 3: recover what you can before you leave

While still paying, in this order:

1. Google Business Profile. Get yourself made primary owner. This is the most valuable asset and it is legitimately yours as the business. If the company resists, Google has a process for business owners to claim their listing.
2. Your real number everywhere. Change the number on the Google profile, your van, your cards and your social pages to your own, if it is not already. Ask the company to change the website's number to yours; some will, most will not, but ask in writing.
3. Ask for the domain. Politely, in writing: "We'd like the domain transferred into our name; happy to cover costs." Some companies do this for departing clients. If yours does, everything else is simpler.
4. Copy your content and photos. Job photos, reviews text, service descriptions you wrote. Save them.
5. Get your Search Console and analytics data if you can be added; if not, note the rankings you have by searching your services and towns.

#Step 4: build the replacement before you cancel

A new site on a domain in your name, with your real number, your service and area pages, your credentials and your job photos. Launch it while the old one is still live.

If the company transfers the domain: point it at the new site, and the rankings come with it. If not: the new domain starts from zero on Google's trust, and the Google Business Profile, which is yours, carries the local presence while the new site earns its own rankings. Link the profile to the new site on launch day.

Give it four to eight weeks running alongside before cancelling, so the new site is indexed and the profile is pointing at it.

#Step 5: cancel, per the contract

Notice in writing. Confirm in writing that the old site will be taken down rather than left live with a competitor's number. If the old domain stays live under their control pointing at someone else, there is little to do beyond making sure your profile, your signage and every directory point at yours.

#What the replacement costs

A purpose-built trade site at a fixed price, mid four figures once, plus hosting in the tens per month in your name. Against the monthly fee you have been paying for a site you do not own, it typically pays for itself within the first year, and the asset is yours.

#Avoiding it next time

Any web or marketing arrangement: domain in your name, hosting in your name or transferable on request, your real phone number on the site, Google Business Profile with you as primary owner, content you own in writing, and a stated handover on termination. A supplier who will not agree to those is selling leads, not a website.

#Where this sits

Untangling a lead-gen site is a common starting point for the trade websites we build, and Step 1 is the first ten minutes of a diagnosis. The new site is yours from day one, in your name, with your number, and it is measured on the enquiries it produces for you rather than the leads it produces for someone to sell.