While launching your own website can be exciting, it can also be very stressful. There are plenty of things you could have done wrong, or have forgotten to check. One incorrectly configured form could potentially mean losing out on several leads.
Even though professional website design services will generally take care of all these tasks, it is always better to know what needs to be done. This can significantly prevent issues down the line. Keep reading to understand everything you must do before making your website live so you don’t have to face any problems down the line.
15-Step Website Pre-launch Checklist
After your web designers have built your website, make sure to follow this simple 15-step checklist, and your website should have a smooth launch.
1. Ensure the Legal Stuff is Taken Care Of
This step is necessary to ensure you don’t run into legal issues later. Here are some things you must remember.
- Licenses for all of your images and videos
- Terms of Service and a Privacy Policy
- Terms and Conditions, especially for eCommerce
- If you collect data, let your visitors know.
- If you use cookies, you’re legally required to put that message on the screen in many jurisdictions.
2. Check Accuracy of the Text
Make sure there aren’t any typos across the website. Proofread all of your content. This is also a good time to ensure that all the text is readable, meaning there are bullet points if necessary, the font size is large enough, and there is plenty of white space. Make sure all dummy lorem ipsum text has been replaced, and all of the contact information is accurate. Make sure that the copyright date includes the current year.
3. Get Rid of Unnecessary Plugins
To keep your website lean and efficient, check your dashboard for plugins that are not needed anymore and delete them. You may have installed plugins while building the site that you never used. Get rid of all of them before launch day.
4. Set up Analytics
Analytics is a useful tool for seeing how many visitors your site receives, what content they prefer, where they come from, and much more. You should install website analytics from the start so that you can begin understanding your site’s visitors right away. Check that your tracking code is working and that your Analytics dashboard is updating with data.
5. Check Core Web Vitals
Check the core web vitals of your website before launching. This is important because they are metrics that measure the user experience on your website, such as loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Poor scores in these metrics can result in a frustrating user experience, leading to higher bounce rates and lower conversion rates. Ensuring good scores in core web vitals can improve the overall performance of your website, leading to better user engagement and higher search engine rankings.
6. Check Mobile Responsiveness
Google now focuses on “mobile-first” indexing, and you must too. You must test your site for mobile capacity across a variety of devices and screen sizes (at least across both Android and iOS). Make sure that the text is still properly readable, all the links are functioning, navigation is simple, the buttons are clearly visible and spaced out, and it is overall just as aesthetically pleasing and functional as on the desktop.
7. Check All of your Images and Aesthetics
Sometimes, a developer may keep placeholders where you need to upload images. Make sure all such assets are uploaded, and every page is perfect. Also, make sure the images are loading properly, and that they are properly optimized. This is also a good opportunity to make sure that all videos on the site are also working properly and fully.
Make sure the headers, footers, and text are formatted correctly, and the proper brand colors are in plaAn Ultimate Guide to On-page SEOce (on the buttons and links as well). Finally, ensure that all CSS and scripts have been properly optimized on all the pages.
8. Audit the SEO
Make sure all the SEO measures are in place, such as
- All of the page titles, URLs, and alt attributes are present and correspond to the original technical SEO strategy.
- The loading time for site pages has been reduced.
- There is now a dynamic XML sitemap.
- Search engines have received the XML sitemap.
- Page URLs always reflect the site’s information architecture.
- All old URLs have 301 redirects in place.
- On relevant links and pages, rel=”nofollow” tags are put in place.
- The images on the website have been properly compressed (it helps keep the load time low).
If you need further SEO guidance, check out this Ultimate Guide to On-page SEO.
9. Test Your Forms
Test all of your forms properly. You have to make sure that they are submitting data properly, and accepting submissions at all times. Also, ensure you’ve set up a confirmation message (or page). If you’re sending confirmation emails after form submission, make sure they are going to the right addresses. And make sure they work across both PCs and mobile devices.
10. Set Up a Custom 404 Page
Visitors will see your 404 page if they attempt to access a page on your website that does not exist. This is likely to happen fairly often the more your website grows. It’s an essential page to have because it allows you to help those users discover what they’re looking for and retain them on your site.
11. Set up 301 Redirects
A 301 redirect allows you to “redirect” visitors to a different page automatically. If you’re starting from scratch, you probably won’t have to have any 301 redirects at first. If you’re remaking an existing site, you may need to configure 301 redirects to account for any URL modifications you’ve made.
12. Ensure There’s a Sitemap
While SEO plugins generally make a sitemap for you, double-check it anyway. Ensure it has been made, and includes all the data it should.
13. Check robots.txt
A robots.txt file can help ensure that your website is crawled properly by search engines. It can help your site avoid becoming overburdened with requests as well. Make sure you have set it up properly.
14. Confirm Security
You should take security very seriously from the start. The Admin area, in particular, must be made as protected as possible to prevent hackers and malicious bots from entering.
Do you know that if your website lacks an SSL certificate, it risks being labeled as ‘Not Secure’? Install an SSL certificate on your website. You can also use free online checkers to see if your certificate is missing anything.
15. Have a Backup Policy
Make sure you are prepared if anything goes wrong after your site is live. This means having a suitable backup solution that has been properly tested and can be implemented if your primary site is down.
Ensure that all backup schedules are working, and that they are stored off-site, not on the same server as the website.
Conclusion
There are numerous minor details to consider when launching a website. Even if you’re an expert, it may be difficult to be certain that you haven’t overlooked anything.
The above checklist is the solution. If you verify and complete all 15 items on this list, you can be confident that your website is ready to receive visitors.
