July 12, 2024
So, you have finally built the perfect website for your business, filling it with stunning designs and outstanding content! Now comes the thrilling moment- launch day! Or is it?
Before you hit that publish button, take a moment to ask yourself, have you checked everything?
The enthusiasm to see your website go live can cause you to neglect slight but vital details. If not promptly addressed, these details can lead to costly downtime or site crashes.
For instance, a simple human error, like a typo, can result in broken codes. Likewise, a network failure can cause your website to go dark. Every minute of downtime can make your website more vulnerable to external threats, increased bounce rate, and monetary loss.
The best way to avoid this disaster is to follow a comprehensive website launch checklist.
With a thorough checklist, you will be on top of every detail, ensuring a smooth, successful website launch without unnecessary cost or time.
Today's blog highlights the most noteworthy factors before publishing a website. Following our checklist will help you deliver a superb user experience and stick to your official launch plan.
So, read on!
According to Forbes, the internet welcomes around 10,500 newly launched websites every hour. Many sites fail to impress their visitors, crash, or go inactive due to technical issues. However, it's not just a few moments of rest that the businesses lose. Studies have suggested that 91% of enterprises have reported the downtime cost to exceed $300,000 per hour.
Following a checklist before launching a website is essential if you don't want to experience a similar experience.
Here's what to include in your website pre-launch checklist to confirm you are not missing out on anything important.
Grammatically accurate, relevant, and value-packed content is necessary for gaining attention from search engines and reaching your targeted customers. Hence, before launching your website, make sure its content consists of terms and topics that resonate with your audience's pain points.
Proofread, edit, and review the content for appropriateness. You can use tools like Semrush to find relevant keywords and methods like peer review to confirm accuracy.
Also, ensure the site's header tags, title tags, meta descriptions, URL slug, paragraphs, and subheaders include the target terms in a readable manner. Remember, the page title should change depending on the page's content.
In addition to the site's copy, your website content checklist should include adequate formatting media, like images and videos, for readability and SEO.
Furthermore, call-to-action buttons across the website should be integrated to enable visitors to take action and enjoy easy navigation. Remember, the CTA buttons should be persuasive, action-oriented, and create a sense of urgency. They should also link to suitable pages.
With approximately 4.88 billion people using smartphones to access the Internet, creating a responsive website for different devices has become necessary. Otherwise, your site will be unfavourable to search engines and negatively impact it’s UX, sales, and conversion rates.
Therefore, experts recommend checking your website on a range of devices. You can use Google's Dev Tools to check this from your website checklist.
When cross-checking your website on smartphones, desktops, and tablets, check whether the content is challenging to read, the buttons are too small to tap, and the page's loading speed. Additionally, assess whether the different functionalities of the website, such as forms, buttons, search bars, shopping carts, log-in areas, and links, are smoothly operating across the devices.
SEO or search engine optimization refers to your actions to rank better on search engine result pages (SERP). Instead of paying for ranking on SERPs, you can optimize your website elements, such as media and content, with SEO methods to rank organically and drive traffic.
As mentioned, the key to a well-optimized website is integrating relevant keywords. Hence, don't hesitate to include the search terms throughout your website, including title tags, meta descriptions, descriptions of videos, and images. It will help increase click rate by convincing prospects and search engines that your website has the specific information they seek.
Another step to add to your website SEO checklist is creating a sitemap and signing up for Google Search Console. A sitemap gives search engines information about your site's pages and the last time you updated them.
To create an XML sitemap, you can use an XML sitemap generator. After that, submit the map to Google. Log into your Google Search Console, choose the domain, enter your sitemap's URL, and click submit.
A study by Google recently found that 53% of users are likely to abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. Similarly, search engines also seem to deprioritize slow-loading websites, leading to low rankings and fewer visitors. Hence, it's vital to prioritize speed optimization in your website design checklist.
You can start by running a speed test on your site to identify the factors holding back the speed. Then, incorporate the feedback into your update to address the issues.
A few things we recommend for speeding up website loading time are
With free tools like TinyPNG, you can easily compress the size of your website images without affecting their quality. Similarly, you can remove excessive characters from code to decrease its proportions and enhance load times. If you use JavaScript, some popular tools to minify the code are JSMin and YUI Compressor. Making website components cacheable is another way to avoid unnecessary HTTP requests and improve web page loading speed.
A report by SiteLock recently revealed that an average website regularly experiences around 94 attacks. Reports have also pointed out that 95% of data breaches occur due to human error.
Experiencing cyber-attacks is not just hurtful for a brand's reputation but costly. Hence, it's essential to implement strong website security measures to protect user data and prevent security.
We recommend highlighting the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) in your website launch checklist. It assures that the data your website obtains from a computer stays confidential and safe. When your website is live, if HTTPS is enabled, you will notice a padlock beside the URL.
It will help confirm your visitor's information, like IP address and payment information, is not accessible by unauthorized parties. Having HTTPS is also a ranking factor for Google, which means you must build trust with users and get their attention.
To enable HTTPS:
Pre-launch website tests allow you to assess whether your site has the tools and features to withstand real-world usage scenarios. Additionally, it will enable you to find out whether the site is optimized for user experience and search engines and what you can improve.
Through the above points, we have covered the basics of pre-launch website tests to help kick-start your new website launch checklist. Below, we discuss a few more advanced steps you can take to ensure a successful launch of your website.
Incorporating analytics tools before a new website launch is mandatory for collecting valuable insights into your customers. You can utilize the data to comprehend user behavior, likes, dislikes, website performance, areas of progress, and assess website traffic.
So, set up analytics before the site goes live and confirm its functionality every time you update it. You can use analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, which is easy to use and free to set up and run to gather the data.
It will enable you to gain insights into the number of visitors to your site every day, the number of visitors who convert to an audience, which pages they visit the most, and much more.
Some analytics tools can also help you see your competitors' analytics. One such software is Semrush's Traffic Analytics. You can use it to uncover how much traffic your competitors receive and how much time their visitors spend on their site.
In addition to these two software, you can use Clicky, Kissmetrics, Mint, and StatCounter to understand your audience's journey. Utilizing them can help you gain invaluable insights into the industry, identify where your business and website may fall short, and determine the best course of action moving forward.
Have you ever clicked on a link that redirected you to an inactive page, displaying a 404-error message? Perhaps the message read something like, 'Oops, it looks like the page you are looking for no longer exists.'’
Several things can result in broken links, including editing URL slugs or merging multiple web pages into one. For your audience, dealing with error messages can be frustrating.
One way to deal with this issue is by integrating 301 redirection links. These permanent redirections automatically send search engines and users to a new page when they click on outdated URLs that no longer exist. This can reduce your website's bounce rate from broken links and improve your SERP rankings.
Another step we suggest for a better user experience in case of broken links is customizing your 404-error page. During website optimization for launch, you can tailor the 404 page for visitors and make a pleasant impression. You may include links that will encourage visitors to continue exploring.
An optimistic user experience is compulsory for more leads, sales, and satisfied customers. UX refers to almost every element of a site a user interacts with, such as an 'add to cart' button.
To guarantee a good user experience, ensure all the clickable elements of your website function properly and take the user to their destination. Also, include lots of white space on heavy pages with content. It will make it easier for your visitors to skim through.
For accessibility, you must ensure your website is accessible to and comprehend everyone, including visitors with disabilities. For instance, if one of your visitors is colorblind, the contrast between the text and its background should be distinct enough for them to read.
Similarly, you can make your website more accessible by
To gain the trust of your visitors and avoid legal trouble, it's fundamental to comply with local laws applicable to your website. There are countless privacy laws around the world. For instance, if your business is in California, your website may need to follow the California Consumer Privacy Act and General Data Protection Regulation.
In addition to the laws, the best practices you can follow to maintain the compliance of your website are:
Lastly, complete your website launch checklist with a solid promotional plan. Prepare your customers for the new launch through social media promotions, email campaigns, and press releases.
Let them know about your products, services, and ongoing offers. Furthermore, consider creating a series of instructional or educational content weeks before the launch to help consumers discover your website's features. This may include crafting how-to videos, infographics, and blogs that you can easily share via email and social media.
Also, remember to add social media links to your website and the link to your social media accounts to improve accessibility.
Remember that pre- and post-launch promotion is not just about letting people know your website is up and running. It's an excellent sales opportunity that can help you generate excitement, drive traffic to the site, and turn the crowd into customers.
Establishing a company website is an exhilarating endeavor. Witnessing your strategic planning, hard work, and design finally go live for everyone to see is nothing short of rewarding.
If you wish to make the most of this moment, you must do everything possible to ensure that your website is as close to perfect as possible.
However, when it comes to website creation, blunders ensue, things go unnoticed, and tasks go unfinished. That's why having a website launch checklist can come in handy. It's a productive way to confirm you have covered all your ground before publishing the site.
Based on the points discussed, here we present a complete checklist of elements you should check before publishing your website.
Keep it close and ensure you have covered everything before the launch.
Monitoring and analyzing your website's performance is the only way to determine whether your hard work is paying off. Hence, we suggest creating a complete routine for weekly or monthly website audits alongside a new website launch checklist.
As part of your analysis, you shall check the website for speed, responsiveness, conversion rate, bugs, and errors. You shall also keep an eye on your website traffic, traffic sources, unique visitors, organic traffic, keyword rankings, and most visited pages.
Find out what's working and not regarding average session duration, bounce rate, and exit rate. Furthermore, to ensure your site continues to operate at maximum capacity, schedule a maintenance plan that includes checking security, refreshing design, updating plugins, renewing content, and ensuring usability.
With these statistics, you can quickly locate improvement opportunities on the website and enhance customer experience.
Letting your website go unchanged for months can lead to declining web traffic, loss of competitive advantage, missed business opportunities, and reduced visitors. Hence, if you wish to accomplish your online business goals, it's essential to have a plan for continuous improvement and updates. It means refreshing your site's content, features, and design.
Making small but regular changes can drastically improve your site's conversion rate. Once you get traffic, you can optimize it for conversion through A/B tests. Some elements you can A/B test are CTA, imagery, button colors, and headlines.
Additionally, we urge updating the site's tools, third-party integrations, and plugins to the latest version to keep it running smoothly. This will help maintain the site's security and prevent hackers from breaching it.
Lastly, we recommend creating a backup schedule so you don't have to stress about losing significant information. You may schedule the backup depending on how often you update the site. For instance, if you post multiple blogs daily, consider backing up the site weekly.
A website is the ultimate gateway for your brand to achieve online success. A successful website launch will not only improve visibility but also create a strong digital presence. It will resonate with your audiences, create a buzz for your services and products, attract visitors, drive conversions, and help you achieve your online business goals.
Therefore, planning it well in advance is crucial. Using a website launch checklist will help ensure you are not missing out on anything. You can use it to reduce the chances of errors, guarantee the security and functionality of your website, keep your visitors engaged, and optimize its elements.
GT Wizards' professionals can further error-proof your website's launch. We offer 360-degree website design, website development services, and digital marketing services to ensure your website always performs at its best. With us, you never have to stress about technical errors or website downtime again.
So, book an appointment with us today!
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