The coding is finished, your pages are filled with content, and your website is complete. You can finally hit that “publish” button for your website to go live. But, wait. Before you hit that button, you’ll want to be absolutely certain you’ve crossed every “t” and dotted every “i”, because going live with a site that is riddled with errors and inconsistencies looks highly unprofessional.
Think about all the details behind your website. Have you double checked whether there are any broken links? Are all the hyperlinks correct? Have you labeled the pages and meta descriptions properly? Are there any spelling errors on your page? Is your contact form working?
Here are some of the most critical things to check when launching an error-free website.
Design Checklist
The design of your website is like your storefront. It showcases all your information, while allowing visitors to navigate seamlessly through the pages. Here are a few things to check when you’re reviewing the designs of your website:
- Check for improper spacing
Sometimes, there may be awkward, inconsistent spacing after your header, between paragraphs and on either side of a bulleted list. Go through each of your pages to confirm the spacing is easy on the eyes.
- Ensure that the website is responsive
By now, having a responsive website is a must. Check every page of your site on various devices to ensure the site adjusts properly to different screen sizes.
- Colour, font, and image size consistency across pages and devices
You want to ensure that your page is consistent throughout all the pages. Look through each page and check that the font matches.
- Headers, paragraphs, and lists are functioning properly
The HTML coding of your paragraphs and lists can sometimes be distorted. Go through your content to ensure these are spaced properly and have the correct paragraph style.
- Ensure that your site loads fast
Page load speed is one of the most important factors that govern your bounce rate. Always check your pages’ performance in Google Page Speed Insights or Pingdom Speed Test to test and analyze page elements. The above tools also offer advice on what page elements you need to optimize for speed.
SEO Checklist
Making sure your website is SEO friendly is extremely important if you want your website to rank on search engines. To avoid getting punished by Google after your website launches, try some of these best practices to launch an SEO-friendly website.
- Check for dummy content
When creating a website, many developers use dummy copy to stand-in for anything that hasn’t yet been written and finalized. Try using a Lorem Ipsum Scanner to check your pages are free of all dummy content.
- Create an XML Sitemap
A sitemap tells search engines about the organization of your website’s content. If you want your site to get ranked, make sure you have a sitemap to improve the crawling of your website. Plugins like Yoast SEO make this super simple.
- Proper metadata are in place
Metadata allows search engine crawlers to find information about your website. These metadata provide information and a description of the content on your page.
- Check that all tracking codes are functioning
You might have all the codes implemented on your website, but are you sure all of these are running properly? If codes are forgotten or placed incorrectly, any conversions or visits to your website may not be tracked.
- URL redirections
If your site is new, then you may not encounter the issue of URL redirections. However, if you’re trying to redirect old pages to a new page, it’s important that a 301 redirect is in place.
If you use WordPress, the Redirection plugin is a handy tool for this.
- Contact information is up-to-date
To rank locally on search engines, make sure that your contact information is up-to-date. This includes your office hours, address, and phone number. The information needs to appear on your website and match your local business listings. It’s essential that in every place your information appears across the web, your information is exactly identical, down to every piece of punctuation.
Content Checklist
In addition to your website’s backend and design, review all the content on your website. Here are a few things to look at:
- Correct any inaccuracies
Whether it is your “about us” page, contact information, and product or service pages, ensure that all information provided is accurate. This includes the service areas of your business, product information, and most importantly, any pricing and promotions.
- Look for spelling, grammar, or punctuation mistakes
Having great content for your website is amazing, but having improper spelling and other grammar mistakes can be off-putting for visitors. Have an editor or content specialist review your website and check for any spelling and grammar mistakes.
- Duplicate content
This is critical, especially if you want to rank highly on search engines. Run your website through tools like, Copyscape, to ensure that there isn’t any duplicate content.
- Hyperlinks in content are directing to correct pages
Often times, we link to other pages to drive users through the website. Ensure that the proper web pages are hyperlinked, and that they are of relevance of the content on that page.
- Check images and alt-text
Make sure that your alt-texts are relevant. This will help search engines to index your images.
Functionality Checklist
- Test your forms
Your contact form, newsletter sign-up form, or any forms found on your website need to function properly. You wouldn’t want a customer to submit an inquiry that never gets to your email inbox. This can cause you to lose out on potential customers.
- Social sharing features are working
In a social world, having social sharing features is important. Make sure your social sharing buttons are working and the content is optimized with the correct description and title.
- RSS links
If your website has an RSS feed, make sure it’s easily accessible by your visitors. The RSS feed is great for websites with blogs for your customers to subscribe to.
- Thank you page is in place
After submitting a form, ensure that a message or page is in place for your customer to know that their request has been placed. A code can also be placed on your thank-you pages to track conversions and leads.
- Third-party tools and extensions are integrated
Ensure that your CRM, e-Commerce, and any other WordPress or website extensions are working properly and aren’t affecting the functionality of your website.
Your website showcases your brand online and a poor website can affect your business. Before launching your website, go through this checklist so you can confidently hit that “Publish” button.
Author Bio:
Rebecca Hill is the Outreach Coordinator at TechWyse, a premium content marketing and SEO agency in Toronto, Canada. When she isn’t building relationships with bloggers and influencers in the marketing world, she can be seen rooting for the Toronto Blue Jays.
