The design is complete, your text and pictures are in, what else is left? You must be ready to launch your site!

There may actually be a few things you’ve missed, and a hasty launch before everything is complete isn’t usually a good idea. Make sure you’ve completed all the necessary steps before the launch to save yourself some headaches later on. See our checklist below that covers things to complete, check, and test before you launch, plus some possible items to think about including before it’s out there for the whole world to see.

Browser testing

Testing your website in multiple browsers is a MUST. At Snoack Studios, we test in both Apple and PC environments and include multiple browsers: Safari, Firefox, IE 6-9. Chrome and Opera are good ones to check as well. Websites are rendered differently in some browsers and it’s best to check the differences so you can accommodate for those things.

Spellcheck

Check your spelling again and again before the big launch, it’s one of the best ways to appear unprofessional as a company. Also check your grammar, punctuation, capitalization, etc. Any textual errors aren’t going to do your business any favors so it’s great to have multiple people look through the text on your site before it goes live.

Test links

Click on every single link on your site to ensure it works properly. Internal links, navigation links, and external links are all great things to test and find before your users do.

SEO checks

Make sure your site is optimized properly for search engines including adding unique page titles for each page, image alt tags, and other metadata. It’s also a good idea to get Google Analytics set up and tracking right from the beginning.

Functionality tests

Along with clicking on all links on your site, click through any functionality items you have like email forms. Fill it out just as a user would so you can make sure you receive the email afterwards, and your user gets the proper notification that it was filled out correctly.

Blog posts

If you’ve added a blog to your site, add a handful of posts to make it look a little more full and enticing. You’ll probably see some great traffic in the beginning from promoting the launch of your new site, and you’ll want users to subscribe to your blog. However, no one will be interested in an empty blog because they won’t know what to expect from it.

Additional items

Think about any additional items you’ll want on your site down the line, and how you can prepare for that now so that you don’t have to bring your whole site down to set that up later on. This can include a photo gallery, image slider, blog, video gallery, or any additional functionality. Prepare now or even implement it now so you can test before it’s live.

Mobile site

Getting your site optimized for mobile devices is a great idea with today’s growing smart phone and tablet market. It’s easier to configure this before the site is launched so it’s something to consider.

This post includes most of the big items to think about and check off your list, but keep in mind that every site and its needs are different and unique. Hope this helps get you started on thinking what would be best for your site and making the big launch great!

What’s one thing you’ve forgotten to check off the to-do list before a site launch?