It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, launching a brand-new website is a complex and arduous task. After all, there are many things that can go wrong, ranging from the trivial (grammatical errors or broken links) to significant (neglecting to submit the website to Google).
For this reason, we’ve created this list of best practices to follow before you launch your site. Adhering to them will ensure your website performance is up to par and the site is clearly visible in search engines. Although every website is different and thus has different boxes to check before the launch, typically speaking, there are a few things to check, no matter the website’s purpose.
Write at least a couple of pieces of high-quality content
Most promotional strategies used today rely heavily on content. Your future visitors anticipate seeing amazing content that’s highly valuable in your niche. If they don’t, they’ll probably never come to your site again. Before the launch, create several (at least 3, preferably more) pieces of excellent content.
If you can shoot for detailed, 1,500+ words pieces, you’ll have the best likelihood to rank in the search engines and the best probability of getting links to your website. Some content ideas for these initial posts could be:
A list of industry definitions.
FAQ in your niche.
Practical tips for resolving common issues in your industry.
Tutorials.
How-to articles.
Expert roundups – ask leading professionals in your field for their opinions or advice on a particular topic.
Then review it
Taking time to review all of the content on your website will ensure everything appears right and works properly. This includes everything from proofreading all content on every page and premium content (and then proofreading again) to ensuring your pictures and videos are loading correctly. This is also a great time to review your content strategy to make sure you’re targeting your keywords efficiently throughout your website.
Favicon
A favicon is a small icon or logo that appears before your site address in the address bar of the browser and represents an excellent chance to improve your branding efforts. They are actually really simple to set up. A good option for it is a simplified version of your brand’s logo, but you can utilize anything you wish. Just ensure you develop a square icon to acquire the best results.
Check website speed
There isn’t a single excuse today for pages loading a minute or more – it’s one of your top priorities if you want to serve content to visitors as quickly as you can. Moreover, page load speed is an official Google ranking factor, and you can bet your competition is already working on this to outperform one another. On top of that, website loading speed is a must on any successful website launch checklist.
When it comes to checking your website’s performance, there are lots of tools for it online. Google’s PageSpeed Insights is the most popular one. It will give you a list of your website’s slower-loading pages, along with every page’s size, and a bunch of factors that Google utilizes to evaluate page speed – page size, the number of redirects, server response time, uncompressed pictures and resources, etc.
Check cross-browser and cross-device compatibilities
It crucial to check the compatibility of your website for various browsers, including:
Chrome
Firefox
Internet Explorer
Safari
Tools such as CrossBrowserTesting, Browsershots, and Browserling can help you with this. It is also fundamental to ensure your website is compatible with various devices, such as Android, iOS, PCs, and tablets. While it is best to actually test for compatibility using specific devices, tools like Google Chrome’s Dev Tools can help.
Submit site to Google
When you’re prepared for launch, you’ll likely want the biggest search engine on the globe to know you’re ready for some attention. To fasten the process of Google popping by, you’ll want to add your site to Google and tell it you’d like them to come by and have a look at what you did.
Fortunately, this is quite simple. Search ‘Submit URL to Google’ and you receive a simple input box. Type in it the full URL of your site, press Submit and you’re done. Be patient for a couple of days until Google indexes it.
There are few more difficult digital tasks than designing and launching your own website, particularly if you consider all of the things that can go wrong. Thankfully, being prepared and researching everything beforehand can go a long way in making your launch a successful one.