You’ve done it! After all those months of planning, editing and waiting for everything to come together, your website is finally ready to go live. But before you press the publish button, there are a few things you need to check to make sure everything runs smoothly and works just how you need it to. In this article, I’ll walk you through 5 steps to take right before your new website launch to make sure your site is the best reflection of your business once you reveal it to the world.
Step One: Test your site thoroughly
Test your site’s functionality
Firstly, you need to make sure that every part of your new website works as you want it to. Your website designer should have delivered your site in full working order, but it’s always worth checking it with a fine-tooth comb before you press publish.
A good place to start is to check all the internal and external links. Click through every link to make sure it directs to the correct page or use a broken link checker like this one. Next, test all forms on your site, such as contact and sign-up forms, to make sure they’re submitting information properly.
Remember to check the navigation. Make sure the menus are intuitive and all dropdowns and buttons are functioning as expected. A smooth user experience is key to keeping new visitors on your site.
Check browser compatibility
Your site should look great and function well on all major browsers. Again, it’s something your website designer would have checked, but it’s a good exercise for you to make sure everything is working before you launch your new website. Test it on Chrome, Edge and Safari. Each browser can render your site slightly differently, so it’s important to check for any inconsistencies and get help from your website designer if anything isn’t looking as it should.
Check mobile responsiveness
More and more people are browsing the internet on their mobile devices, so you need to make sure your site is mobile-friendly. Test your site on different devices and screen sizes to make sure your site is easy to navigate and read on a smartphone or tablet.
Test your site’s performance
Use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to check your site’s loading times. A slow website can frustrate visitors and lead to higher bounce rates, which is when your visitors leave your site quickly without having a proper look around. Using the tools I’ve recommended for you, see if you can identify any elements slowing down your site and ask your website designer to optimise them for better performance.
Also, monitor for 404 errors or broken elements that need fixing.
Step Two: Set up Analytics and Tracking
Why Analytics Matter
While analytics can seem overwhelming at first, understanding how visitors interact with your new website is crucial for making improvements and reaching your business goals. Analytics provide insights into user behaviour, popular pages, and where your traffic is coming from.
Setting up Analytics
Your first step is to set up your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts. These tools are essential for tracking your site’s performance. If the reports on Google Analytics seem a bit daunting, you can use a WordPress plugin like MonsterInsights to easily add Google Analytics tracking to your site. MonsterInsights takes your Google Analytics data and provides you with easy-to-understand reports, so it’s a plugin that’s well worth considering.
If you’re feeling brave, you can also set up goals in Google Analytics to track important actions such as form submissions, purchases, or newsletter sign-ups. This will help you understand how well your site performs regarding conversions.
If you don’t feel confident doing this yourself, your website designer can help you set up your analytics.
Step Three: Submit your sitemap to the Search Engines
The importance of Indexing
Getting your site indexed by search engines like Google and Bing is essential for getting your website seen. If search engines don’t know your site exists, it won’t appear in search results, making it difficult for people to find you.
Submitting your sitemap
Create a sitemap for your website using a WordPress plugin like Yoast SEO or All in One SEO, then submit the sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. This helps search engines understand the structure of your site and index it more effectively.
SEO Basics
Make sure your on-page SEO is in order. Optimise your title tags, meta descriptions, and alt texts for images with relevant keywords. Ensure your content includes your keywords naturally to improve your site’s search engine ranking.
If you’re not sure how to get started with SEO, ask your website designer to steer you in the right direction. Once you know the basics, SEO is much easier than it sounds!
Step Four: Create a backup
Why you need a backup
Regular backups are essential to protecting your website’s data. A recent backup can prevent you from losing all your hard work in case of a hack, server crash, or accidental deletion.
Backup tools
Some great tools and plugins for setting up backups are available, such as UpdraftPlus or BackWPup. These tools can automatically back up your site on a regular schedule.
Storing your backups
Decide how often you need to back up your site—weekly or monthly backups are a good starting point. Then, you can store your backups in multiple locations, such as cloud storage (like Google Drive or Dropbox) and local storage (like an external hard drive). Also, check with your hosting provider, as most of them will store a daily backup of your site.
Step Five: Shout about your new website launch
Announce the launch of your new site
Shout it from the rooftops! Let the world know about your new website. Share the news on all your social media platforms and include links to your site. Create an email campaign to announce the launch to your subscribers, highlighting the new features or improvements you’ve made.
Engage with your new audience
Write a blog post about your website launch, detailing what’s new and what visitors can expect. Encourage your audience to leave feedback and suggestions for further improvements. Engaging with your audience helps build a community around your brand and can provide helpful insights into what they want to hear from you about.
Your Five-Step website launch checklist
To make it easy for you to work through all these steps and to make sure your website is working as hard for you as it should be, here’s a new website launch checklist for you to work through.
Step One: Test everything thoroughly
Check Your Website’s Functionality:
- Verify all internal and external links.
- Test all forms (contact forms, sign-up forms, etc.).
- Ensure navigation menus are intuitive and fully functional.
Test Browser Compatibility:
- Test the site on Chrome.
- Test the site on Edge.
- Test the site on Safari.
Test Mobile Responsiveness:
- Test the site on various mobile devices.
- Ensure the site is easy to navigate and read on smartphones and tablets.
Test Your Site’s Performance:
- Use Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to check loading times.
- Identify and optimise elements slowing down the site.
- Monitor for 404 errors or broken elements.
Step Two: Set up Analytics and Tracking
- Set up a Google Analytics account.
- Set up a Google Search Console account.
- Add Google Analytics tracking code to the site.
- You may wish to set up goals in Google Analytics (e.g., form submissions, purchases, sign-ups).
Step Three: Submit your sitemap
- Create a sitemap using Yoast SEO or All in One SEO
Packplugin. - Submit sitemap to Google Search Console.
- Submit sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Optimise title tags, meta descriptions, and alt texts for images.
- Ensure content includes relevant keywords naturally.
Step Four: Create a backup plan
- Install UpdraftPlus or BackWPup plugin.
- Decide on backup frequency (weekly or monthly).
- Store backups in multiple locations (cloud storage and local storage).
- Check backups with your hosting provider.
Step Five: Promote your new website
- Share the news on all social media platforms.
- Create an email campaign to announce the launch.
- Write a blog post about the website launch.
- Encourage audience feedback and suggestions.
- Engage with the audience to build a community around your brand.
Ready to get going?
You’ll want the launch of your new website to go smoothly, so make sure you test everything thoroughly, optimise on mobile, set up analytics, submit your sitemap and create a backup plan. Then, when you’re ready, press publish, promote, and share it with the world.
Once you’ve taken these essential steps, you’ll be sure your website will run smoothly and deliver the results you want. These steps are crucial for the success of your online business, so take the time to implement them properly.
If you need any help setting up your analytics, submitting your site map, creating backups or following any of the steps in this article, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line. In the meantime, congratulations and happy website launching!
