What To Look For When Hiring A Website Design Company
May 6, 2022
Website Launch Checklist: 8 Important Things To Check Before Your Site Goes Live
Before a website goes online, there are a few important things to check beforehand to make sure it is a success when it’s live. Having this checklist on hand can help you run process more smoothly, as web designers we’ve helped many sites go live and we understand that having a checklist in place can make your life hundred times easier. If you miss something out later down the line it could cost you a lot of money or your time sorting it out.
We’ll cover everything in this checklist from little things such as typos to mobile usability, while some of these things on the checklist may come across very basic. It would be surprise you to hear how many people overlook these things before going live, a common reason is people have spent a lot of time on the website that they just want it to go live so rush the process but it’s key that you take a hour or two before just to check these off.
When people visit your website, it’s highly likely that they are going to want to browse through the pages. Your main navigation will be on your header and footer, these two places will / should have the main page links of your website.
Before going live, preview your website and see if all navigation is okay. If you run into a broken url, change it so everything is running smoothly that way you won’t be hit with complaints that people can’t access a page.
Proofread All Content
When we write, not many of us proofread as we go along as once we’ve built up a certain rhythm writing content the last thing we want to do is stop and lose our momentum but as we are racing through there might be the odd grammar mistake or something is spelt wrong.
Lucky for us, it is not like the olden days where we have to closely exam whatever we’ve written. You can run content through checkers such as Grammarly which will bring all up mistakes and all you have to do is click on the suggestion given to change it.
Make Sure Images Are Optimised
A mistake that we see often is that people upload images sizes that are way too big for the website. Having several large image files across your site can cause it too run slow which is never good for user experience and most importantly conversion rates.
When uploading & saving images, make sure that they are JPG and they are under the size of 300KB. You can again use tools such as Squoosh or there are a range of WordPress plugins that can compress the images for you.
Install SEO Plugin
There are a bunch of handy SEO plugin tools that can help make a website become more Google friendly which gives you a better chance of showing up in the search rankings for whatever niche your site might be in.
Most of these SEO plugins such as YoastSEO or RankMath SEO help build sitemaps out for you meaning you don’t have to do it manually.
Check If It’s Mobile Friendly
Most of online traffic today will not be coming through your desktop but people searching on mobile. Many of the population today you will notice are always on their phone and when they are potentially looking for a service the first thing they often do is get out their phone and search it through Google.
Website builders such as Elementor for WordPress allows you to check what your site is going to look like on mobile beforehand, checking all your pages on this setting will allow you to see what you are going to need to change.
Having a mobile friendly website also means that is more search engine friendly to the likes of Google who favour websites that have focused on making sure that the mobile experience is good for all users.
Set Up Google Search Console & Analytics
Both are handy tools for tracking the performance on your website through Google Search Console you will be able to see what keywords you are getting the most impressions through and can help you focus on these keywords. You can also index pages and posts you’ve created on your website instantly through it.
Through Google Analytics there is a wide range of data available at your disposal that you can use to see certain aspects such as the user behaviour, conversion rate, popular pages and many more.
Both are quite similar in the way they show data but both are needed for you to check the performance of your website.
Secure Website
One of the ways you can build trust on a website for when people visit it is making sure that your website is secure. If you don’t know what that means, it’s the padlock in the top left hand corner. If a website isn’t secure, the padlock will be unopened meaning it’s unsafe for a user to enter their personal information on it.
We’ve written an article that can help you secure your website.
Have A Contact Page
If you are running a business page, freelancer, eCommerce store and many more, it doesn’t really matter. You should always have a contact page on your website, this allows people who are visiting to be able to contact you and it also improves the trust in people using your site as they will know you are legit.
Conclusion
Having a simple checklist such as this can help make a website launch smooth and lead to no problems down the line. Creating a website by yourself can be an overwhelming experience especially if you aren’t fluent in web design, that’s what you can save the hassle and money by reaching out to a web designer such as The Wolf Of The Web who can help create you a tailored website for your business which focuses on conversions.
Riley Williams is the creative force behind The Wolf Of The Web! With over 100+ websites built across diverse sectors. I believe in crafting eye-catching websites that not only look amazing but also generate more calls, leads, and sales for your business.
