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Are you launching a website?
Launching a website is a big deal for your business, and it requires a lot of work and planning.
Common website errors can inhibit your business and delay your launch. Importantly, website errors prevent your visitors from effectively engaging with your site, which means that you could lose out on potential customers. Further, your website sets the first impression for most people who encounter your business, so ensuring that your website is compliant and aesthetically-pleasing is equally as important. You want to create a positive experience for future customers, so you should work hard to make sure that your website is perfect.
We have lots of experience working with businesses who want to launch sites or want to correct launch errors. Based on this experience, we’ve put together a list of eight important things to check before launching your site. If you’re launching a website, make sure to double- and quadruple-check the following things:
1. Proofread, proofread, proofread.
Well-constructed website content sets a good impression with your visitors, so it’s important to make sure that your copy is easy to understand and grammatically sound. Readers don’t want to have to sift through paragraphs and paragraphs of information to get to your point. Make sure that you use bullet points, lists, and media to your advantage, and double-check all content for brevity.
2. Will your SEO work?
While a well-constructed site is certainly important, SEO drives visitors to the site through Google searches. Thus, any grammatical or spelling mistakes may render your SEO useless. You must double-check your SEO so that the right audience comes to you!
3. Can your site work on a cell phone or tablet?
Google Analytics now features mobile-first indexing. This means that the mobile version of sites appear first on the search engine results pages (SERPs), and if you don’t have a mobile site, you will appear lower in the search results. Make sure that your mobile site works on all kinds of phones and tablets, and double-check that users can access all of your important features.
4. And does your site actually work?
Make sure that everything works on your site before you launch it. The URLs should all work. If you have forms on your site, you should submit test forms. You should also make sure that any auto responses are also working. Do the social media icons work? Are the RSS feeds working? All of these things matter to users, and you want them to be functional straight away on launch day.
5. Is your site speedy?
There’s nothing more frustrating than a website that takes forever to load. Keep your visitors on your page by making sure that your site is fast enough to support all of its functions. Even more importantly, site speed can even influence SERPs on Google.
6. How does your website look?
Design and aesthetics are incredibly important for users. You want users to be able to access your site quickly and efficiently without needing to search the site too much to get to the information they need. Ensure that your logo is appealing and that images look good. Double-check that information about your product or service is featured on every page. Further, make sure that your site looks sharp and that all of the pages are aesthetically cohesive.
7. What about your Security and Backups?
Your website may be perfect, but what if you lose everything during some unpleasant event? You could avoid losing all of your data and save money by finding a backup install. Moreover, you want to make sure that your admin panel is secured against hacking and malware. You will need to store your password and website copies in a secured database. You will also need to check your monitoring scripts.
8. Have you checked for legal compliances?
Make sure that your website is available to all users and simultaneously meeting legal obligations for accessibility. You’ll want to make sure that your website is available to users with disabilities. You will also want to reread terms and privacy policies and make sure they’re visible to users. Finally, you need to make sure that your website is compliant with usage rights for things like images and fonts.
Do you need outside help?
That’s all you need to keep in mind! Sometimes, though, it can help to have outside help, especially when you don’t have the expertise to check these requirements off your list. Decide what you can do, and you can opt to hire a digital marketing firm to do the rest.
Regardless of whether you decide to launch your site by yourself or with experts, adhere to this checklist, and you’ll have a smooth launch!