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A business website is a necessity for any business today. Fortunately, the availability of website grants and website development platforms with prebuilt templates have made it easy for businesses to own a website. You can easily build a website in a fortnight. But the work doesn’t end after building your eCommerce website. It’s not time to celebrate yet. You have to ensure that your website is optimized for performance before launching. Here are 7 things you should pay attention to before you launch your new website:

1. Get a website security certificate

Ensure that your website has an SSL Certificate. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates are badges that indicate that a website is secure. It means that web visitors on your site don’t have to worry about sensitive data such as login information, credit card information, data transfers getting into the wrong hands. You have a legal obligation to protect the privacy of your website visitors. It also makes your business more credible and trustworthy. 

Besides protecting your privacy, a website security certificate will also contribute to your ranking on search engines. As search engines try to protect users from online scammers, secure websites are bound to rank higher than those that are labelled as “Not Secure.” It’s important to find out if your web host offers security certificates for free or you have to pay an additional price.

2. Define your online identity

Consistency is very important for every digital marketing strategy. The only way to achieve consistency is to define your website’s identity before launching. Outline your vision, mission, and goals you’re looking to achieve with your website. This will help you in determining how your website looks, your target audience, the type of content you publish for your audiences, and the most suitable digital marketing strategy for your brand. Defining your identity plays a huge role in the success of your website. In fact, you need this even before you start building your website.

3. Put in place a content marketing strategy

According to the European Marketing 2020 Survey, 60 percent of businesses use content management system. This should show you that content is still king, otherwise more than half of businesses wouldn’t invest in it. Regular high-quality content will help your website to attract and maintain organic traffic. Fresh, consistent, and relevant content will help you to get higher ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). So ensure that you have a stockpile of quality content before launching your website. Develop a content marketing strategy that includes a content calendar. 

4. Install plug-ins for easier on-page SEO

Without on-page search engine optimization (SEO), a great website and good content will count for nothing as far as organic traffic is concerned. SEO plug-ins help in optimizing your website so that search engines like Google can easily find it and understand its purpose. They add a sitemap and ensure that your page titles, title tags, and meta descriptions are perfectly done. This helps to drive more traffic to specific pages within your website.

5. Configure Google Analytics

There’s only one way to know how your website is performing after launch- by measuring. This is an important factor that you have to think about before you launch your website. How will you measure the performance of your website? You should configure Google Analytics on your website so you can get insightful data on the performance of your website. The data will help you to know where you’re performing well and where you need to improve.

Some of the important metrics you’ll be able to track using Google Analytics include:

• The number of web visitors
• The bounce rates
• The average number of page views per session
• The duration of each session
• The sources of your website traffic
• Page interactions per visit
• Average time on page
• Device usage

Google Analytics is a free tool so you won’t have to worry about incurring more expenses on a stretched budget. Ensure that it’s installed before launching your website.

6. Fix any broken link

It’s important to make sure that all your links are working before launching the website. A broken link will affect the performance of your website and scare away web visitors. Broken links refer to external links to other pages that are no longer functional. Some of the common causes of broken links include:

• Website reformation
• Change of internet service provider (ISP)
• Spelling errors in the link
• Grammatical errors in the link

Checking your website manually for broken links can be time-consuming and exhausting. Some of the plug-ins you can leverage to check for broken links include Google Search Console and Site Checker.

7. Put a backup plan in place

Everything’s now ready for launch. But there’s one more thing you need to do before you launch your new website. Install plug-ins for backing up your website. You’ve put in a lot of work into your website and you wouldn’t want to start from scratch again in case something goes wrong. It doesn’t mean something will go wrong, but it doesn’t hurt to prepare for the worst-case scenario. It’s not uncommon for web hackers, malware attacks, and server crashes to derail a good website launch. Backup plug-ins simply allow you to restore your new website in the event that something goes wrong.

Bonus tip: Check compliance with regulatory requirements and web development best practices

Always obtain the necessary licenses for images, plug-ins, and fonts among other things you use on your website. Give proper attribution where necessary. Remember to also review your content with the legal team to ensure there are no trademark and copyright infringements before you launch your website. Considering that it might take you between six months and two years to get a trademark in Ireland, you might want to initiate this process early enough before your planned website launch. Ensure that your website has a privacy policy among other legal requirements.

Other things that you should pay attention to include website protection against spam, well-placed call-to-action buttons, social buttons, contacts and feedback forms, and a responsive design. You should also ensure that all the pages are added and every web copy proofread for any errors.

Don’t forget to test your website on different devices to see if the website is as appealing and functional on mobile devices as it’s on desktop. Optimizing your website for mobile devices is important for both search engine ranking and local marketing.

Even after launch, you’ll still need to periodically run through this checklist to ensure that everything’s working as it should. The work doesn’t stop after the launch. You will need website maintenance to ensure that it’s performing at optimal levels. You can read more tips on what to do after launching a new website on this link.

This prelaunch checklist will help you to remember the important things you need to take care of on your website. It ensures that you start your online journey on a high note and be effective in your digital marketing efforts. Using an experienced web developer such as Salt Marketing ensures that everything’s taken care of and the website launch process is smooth. Get in touch with us on 01-906-5862 to discuss your website development needs.