The moment is finally here. After weeks or even months of planning, designing, and developing, your new business website is ready to go live. But before you hit that launch button, it's crucial to run through a final checklist to ensure a smooth and successful debut. Here’s our ultimate pre-launch checklist to make sure you haven’t missed anything.
Content & Functionality
- Proofread Everything: Read every single word on every single page. Check for spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, and typos. It's often helpful to have a fresh pair of eyes review the content.
- Check All Links: Click every internal and external link on your site to ensure they go to the correct destination. Don't forget links in your header, footer, and body content.
- Test Your Contact Forms: Fill out and submit every form on your website to confirm that they work and that the submissions are being sent to the correct email address.
- Verify Social Media Links: Make sure your social media icons link to the correct profiles.
Technical SEO & Analytics
- Install Google Analytics: Ensure your Google Analytics tracking code is installed correctly on every page so you can start gathering data from day one.
- Check Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: Review the title tag and meta description for each page to ensure they are unique, descriptive, and optimized for your target keywords.
- Optimize Images: Double-check that all images have been compressed for speed and have descriptive alt text for SEO and accessibility.
- Set Up a Custom 404 Page: Create a helpful "Page Not Found" (404) page that guides lost visitors back to your main pages, instead of letting them hit a dead end.
Design & User Experience
- Test Mobile Responsiveness: Thoroughly test your website on multiple devices (phones, tablets) and browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox) to ensure a consistent and user-friendly experience for everyone.
- Check Your Favicon: Make sure your custom favicon (the small icon in the browser tab) is uploaded and displaying correctly. It’s a small detail that adds a lot of professionalism.
- Review Load Speed: Run your site through a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights one last time to check for any major performance issues.
Final Go-Live Steps
- Create a Backup: Before making any final changes, take a full backup of your website.
- Plan for Downtime (If Any): Plan to launch during a low-traffic period (like late at night or early in the morning) to minimize disruption for any visitors.
- Submit Your Sitemap to Google: Once live, use Google Search Console to submit your XML sitemap, which helps Google find and index your new pages faster.
Going through this checklist might seem tedious, but it can save you from embarrassing errors and technical headaches down the line. A successful launch sets the stage for your website's future success, ensuring a professional first impression for every new visitor.