Essential Checks Before & After Launching Your Website

If you are a web design company, a developer, a marketer, a project manager or a client, it can be a really stressful/exciting period to create a website. 

Don’t worry! We are constantly updating our to-dos “List” as a web design company to help build a seamless and stress-free website launch process.

Below is a glimpse guide for doing just that.

Pre-Launch Items

SEO (Page Titles, Meta Descriptions, ALT Tags)

Page titles are the most significant components for SEO and are meant to be a precise and brief description of a page’s content. In order not to be cut off in search results, it should be less than 70 characters, and the addition of keywords would help ensure that the right users click to discover it.

Meta Descriptions are still important to reach your audience, although not so relevant to search engine rankings anymore. “Such short paragraphs are an incentive for a webmaster to market content to searchers and to let them know exactly whether the page they are searching for provides the details.”

ALT tags must be applied to each picture to prevent the stuffing of keywords. ALT tags are used to identify a web image in such a manner that the user understands what the image is if it is visually impaired or if the link is not enabled properly.

Proofread Site Content & Premium Content

Read it all. Read it out loud, let anyone else read it with you and make sure the site is not going online with mistakes in spelling and grammar. Make sure that all of the lorem impsum was deleted or substituted. Small mistakes like this can negatively impact on your reputation and damage your prestige in the business.

301 Redirects

301 redirects also claim, “Hi Search Engine, this page is no longer here and has moved permanently to this new page.” You want to make sure that you have a spreadsheet set up with an old connection column next to a new link column.

Functionality Check (Forms, Links, Social Sharing)

By making sure the template functions, redirecting the thanks page to the correct one, and submitting it to the right person for social sharing with the company logo that links back to the homepage, take the time to review the whole site to make sure everything is functioning as it should. 

Cross Browser & Responsive Checks

You want to make sure the pixel is right for your site. Making sure the content is compatible with all browsers (IE 9+, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera) and all devices (Android, iPhone, Tablets) is very critical, so that all consumers have the same, high-quality experience. (Moreover, smartphone sensitivity now plays an enormous part in your Google search rank.)

Favicon

The Favicon is something that gets overlooked a lot. Often recognized as a shortcut icon, tab icon, or bookmark icon, the Favicon marks the tab or window in which your website is open. This gives the user a simple way to identify the site when multiple tabs are open, which provides a professional, consistent look to a website. You can hire professional web design company in Dubai that will helps you out in website development and providing you the professional approach to launch your website error free.

Post Launch Items

301 Redirects (Yes, again)

Take the database you generated during pre-launch, and set up all the redirects so that you don’t miss some traffic that reaches your old pages.

Google Analytics

Set up analytics to guarantee that you are collecting web data. This will allow you to maintain your website on track and grow over time. Note: Blocking your internal IPs is also essential so that you do not bias your own data.

Set up Google, Bing & Yahoo Webmaster Tool Accounts

Check your site, and upload your sitemap. Setting up webmaster tools can help you track and manage the visibility of your site in the search engines to ensure all of your pages are indexed.

Install Heat map Tracking Software

A heat map can give you a glimpse of how your visitors interact with your website (how far down the page they scroll, where they press, etc.) Not sure which heat map software to use, here are a few that frequently used, Hotjar, Inspectlet, Crazy Egg.

CONCLUSION

Launching a website nowadays seems simple and quite effortless, as common web hosting services give you access to all the resources needed to set up a website. There is more to a website than we can see on the surface. However, it takes a lot of planning, testing, and extra resources to ensure you can be going on the right foot.