What are the things to check before launching a website? It is when you need to look back on your list and check if you followed the entire plan. Consider what needs to be reworked and concentrate on style adjustments and possible design implementations. So, what are the things to check before launching a website?
First of all, you need to recheck the overall design and branding. Does it have the same color and represents the business? Then, check the content and optimize every page and even image on the website. Finally, ensure that the entire website has a seamless user interface and mobile responsiveness.
It sounds easy, but there are many things to do before launching a website. So, we’ve listed all things you needed to check to ensure that you didn’t miss anything.
Before Launching A Website: Check The Design
When users visit your site, you want them to have a positive experience. That will entice them to return, allowing you to expand your user base. So what are the things you need to check on your website’s design?
Choose The Right Website Colors
It’s tempting to take the easy way out and use the default color scheme that comes with your website building software or theme when choosing colors for your site. It isn’t generally bad to do, as long as the color scheme compliments the brand and message. However, avoid using a high-contrast color scheme or colors that aren’t artistically or functionally compatible with the aesthetics and layout of your website.
Pick the Right Fonts and Size
The most critical part of your online presence is readable content on your website. Find a font that fits the tone and meaning of your message and the products or services you offer. Make sure your fonts are the same size and spacing and that your phrases and paragraphs are well-structured so that the text is easy to read. If you use contrasted text against a strong backdrop color, your visitors will find it difficult to read and quit your site.
Stress Test Your User Interface
When it comes to user experience, the interface of your website is crucial. It should strive to make browsing easy, with straightforward navigation and search. To put it another way, consumers shouldn’t have to think too hard to find something on your site.
Website Layout Considerations
Testing includes carefully evaluating your site’s layout, but it’s worth reviewing. The more user-friendly your website is, the more effective it will be. If something on a website doesn’t work as it should, the normal user will look for another option. Remember that many users would prefer to go somewhere else than deal with a difficult-to-navigate website.
Before Launching A Website: Check the Branding
The most established brands have successfully made a name for themselves. With one look and some color touches – people already can identify the brand. It’s something that you want to achieve on your website. So, here are the things to check in your branding before launching a website.
Website’s Overall Branding
Your brand’s message should be clear and well-represented – there’s no excuse for it. You shouldn’t have to leave it up to your visitors to figure out what you’re providing or selling. As soon as people view your homepage, they should know who you are and what you do to help them solve their problems.
Create and Implement Favicons
A favicon, also known as a website icon or tab icon, appears next to the page title in the browser’s tab. Your site will look more professional with a favicon. It provides the impression to your visitors that you care about the appearance of your website and that you put a lot of time and effort into creating it. A favicon can increase the likelihood that visitors will return to your site and utilize your services in the future.
Don’t Forget To Link Your Social Media
If you want to advertise your business, you should have a presence on as many social media platforms as feasible. You can choose which major social networks to link to, but a direct link to your Twitter and Facebook accounts is an excellent place to start.
Set the Copyright Date
When you’re first starting your website, one of the most critical items to include is the current copyright date, especially if it’s near the end of the year. If you don’t have an updated copyright date, your website visitors may leave right away.
Copyright expiration dates might have an impact on your SEO ranking. Therefore, it’s essential to keep them up to date. Remember to update the copyright date even if the modifications you make to the site are minor.
Don’t Forget Your Logo on the homepage
Even though it is pretty simple to build, a logo homepage link is a crucial feature that some older websites do not have. It’s a good concept because it allows visitors to return to the home page by clicking on your logo.
Before Launching A Website: Check The Content
After design and branding, don’t forget to create good content for your website. It’s what will either attract or repel visitors to your website. Before launching your website, check for any errors, misspellings, and grammarly incorrect sentences.
Proofread, Spell Check, and Edit
Users will feel that you aren’t paying attention to your material if they see errors in grammar, spelling, or sentence structure. Therefore, check your spelling and the message of your article as thoroughly as possible. On avoid unwanted impressions, proofread carefully before publishing to your site.
Double-check Call-to-Action Buttons
Although marketing and sales aren’t for everyone, you’ll need a call-to-action button if you want your users to do something. It includes signing up for a newsletter, buying a product, or submitting a question. Make sure it sticks out and is simple to implement for your users. You can’t expect your website visitors to do what you want if you make the procedure complex or unpleasant.
Optimize Images and Even Videos
Attempt to strike a balance between a quick load speed and high-quality photos. You can expect outcomes that look excellent and make your website run faster with a little resizing.
You may build a channel and upload your content on sites like YouTube and Vimeo with videos. It lets you link to your videos using a simple URL or embedding them on your website. In addition, it relieves your website of much of the processing strain, saving you money on the expense of hosting large video files.
Before Launching A Website: Check The SEO
Plan your SEO strategies like a pro if you want to rank on different search engines.
Backlinks
If you want to reap the maximum benefits of SEO, your links to other websites and resources must be operational. If any of the links are no longer operating, you should either remove them or replace them with new ones. Search engines will punish you if you have broken links on your site.
Keywords
If your content is too keyword-heavy, your website will get punished and not appear as frequently in search results. So, you should have balanced keywords. Employ the correct quantity of keywords on each page.
Alt Text for Images
Another crucial aspect of SEO is alt text. The text relates to your photographs, which can help search engines figure out the context of the image. Another advantage of Alt text is that they improve your SEO. The tags provide crucial information to search engines about the photos on your page.
Before Launching A Website: Test Responsiveness
People nowadays use their phones for a variety of tasks. So, make sure that your website is 100% functional and readable on different devices.
Websites Should Be Responsive for Mobile and Desktops
When designing a website for phones and tablets, elements like paragraph structure, icons, and menus must fit into considerably smaller screen space. It should work with the touch interface without any trouble.
Your site should be mobile-friendly, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test it on a desktop or laptop. Always test the functionality of your website across all platforms and browsers.
Add Collapsible Menus
The mobile internet experience includes a lot of collapsible menus. It makes browsing easier, and you can have more space. But, make sure that the links within the menu function well. Add enough space so that the user can touch it without touching the other elements of your website.
Conclusion
Publishing a website is easy, but what you do before launching a website is a challenge. You need to prioritize your website’s most crucial elements before launching.
You can transform how your website attracts and retains visitors with a bit of effort and a few tweaks here and there. It would help if you could work with a local web design expert. They can help you design, develop, optimize, and deliver results to your website. If you need one, contact Salazar Digital for more information.
Salazar Digital
1172 Murphy Ave suite #208, San Jose, CA 95131
408-662-1315
