Top 13 Must-Do Steps for a Successful Website Go Live

If you’ve ever launched a brand new website, either from scratch or as a rebuild, you’re probably familiar with the anxious, excited feelings that come when go-live is around the corner. And we get that — a lot of time, effort, and love go into each website we build. Here at 434 Marketing, we know that even though it can be tempting to press a big green button to go live as soon as things feel ready, it’s not quite that simple. We follow a set of processes to ensure each site goes live with ample testing and troubleshooting, and today, we’re sharing our top must-do steps leading up to go-live. We’ll guide you through everything on our website launch checklist from finalizing your site design to setting up SEO and ensuring mobile responsiveness. You ready? Let’s go!

1. Finalize Your Website’s Design for Each Page

For many organizations, their website is home base for nearly all potential customers. A polished and consistent design across all website pages—not just your home page—should be front of mind before you push your new site live. Start by making sure every design element of your site pages aligns with your branding guidelines. This includes consistent typography, color schemes, design accents, photography, and layout across all pages. And don’t forget to add your favicon to further tie in your brand.

When evaluating your site’s design, pay attention to the overall user experience, not just aesthetics. While your website should look visually appealing, it must also be easy to navigate and function as intended. After all, pretty only gets you so far.

2. Proofread All Content

Each word on every page matters. By the time you’re ready to go live, you’ve likely poured hours into ensuring your site copy has a solid narrative flow. But as a final step, you should perform a thorough proofread. Nothing undermines a website’s professionalism more than spelling and grammatical errors. A simple spell check can help, but to get as close to error-free as possible, you really need human eyes on everything. If you can get multiple people to comb through site copy, that can be hugely beneficial as familiarity with the text can make it easy to overlook mistakes. This should be the final quality control check before your site goes live.

3. Test for Cross-Browser Compatibility

In today’s digital landscape, users access websites through various browsers, each interpreting web standards differently. Performing cross-browser compatibility tests guarantees a consistent appearance and functionality of your site across all major browsers, including Google Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. Tools like BrowserStack can allow you to test your site on multiple browsers simultaneously.

Give ample attention to aspects like:

• Layout
• Typography
• Navigation
• Graphics

Confirm their consistency and functionality across varying devices and screen sizes. This thorough testing helps avoid potential issues that could disrupt user experience and engagement.

4. Check Mobile Responsiveness

Browser compatibility is important, but even more critical? Mobile responsiveness. Most web traffic now originates from mobile devices, so your site has to look amazing and perform incredibly on mobile. Responsive design ensures your site adapts seamlessly to various screen sizes, enhancing usability and engagement.

Test your website on various mobile devices and browser sizes to verify its responsiveness. This includes adjusting content layouts and site functionalities to provide a seamless experience for mobile users. Before you move forward with your site launch, address any issues that arise during testing to prevent negative impacts on user experience, conversion rates, and ultimately – sales.

5. Make Sure Your Domain and Hosting are Good to Go

When a website goes live, you’ll need to consider how you plan to manage both your domain and hosting. Your domain acts as your website’s address, while the hosting service is the home that stores your website’s content. Before your site can go live, you’ll need to own a domain. Whether you’re using an existing domain or purchasing a new one, make sure you have the rights to that domain. On the hosting side, you’ll want to select your provider carefully — consider their reliability and uptime score, ideally above 99.5%, to minimize downtime or any snags when pushing the site live. Your developer and hosting provider will need to work together closely throughout and after launch to make sure everything goes off without a hitch.

6. Create Redirects As Needed

Redirects play an essential role in maintaining a smooth user experience and preserving your site’s SEO value. When launching a new website, it’s common to update permalink structures or prune content, which may mean you’ll need to think through a redirect strategy to prevent broken links and loss of organic traffic. Without redirects, users and search engines might encounter 404 errors, leading to a poor user experience and potential drops in search engine rankings.

There are different types of redirects to consider:

1. A 301 redirect signals to search engines that the redirect from one URL to another is permanent.
2. A 302 redirect indicates a temporary change.
3. Other options include meta refreshes and JavaScript redirects, though they can be slower and potentially confusing for search engines.

You can implement redirects manually or use plugins available for content management systems. By setting up the necessary redirects, you safeguard your site’s integrity and user experience during transitions.

7. Optimize Site Speed

Site speed plays a pivotal role in user experience and search engine optimization — studies show that even a full second for a page to load is too long. Slow loading times can frustrate visitors and lead to higher bounce rates, negatively impacting your site’s performance. This can sometimes be difficult to test until after your site goes live, but at minimum, plan to check your site speed shortly after launch to make changes as needed.

To evaluate your site’s speed, tools like Google Page Speed Insights can provide valuable metrics and suggestions for improvement. Your site needs to use load-friendly code, but what you put on each page on the content side can also impact performance.

Here are some tips to follow:

• Keep individual image sizes below 500 KB
• Use .jpg file types to ensure faster loading
• Aim to keep each page’s total size below 5 MB to improve compatibility and loading times on mobile devices and slower connections
• Avoid adding videos on page and opt for embeds instead

These optimizations can improve your website’s speed while also contributing to a positive user experience.

8. Set Up SEO Essentials

Effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital for increasing traffic to your site and improving your organic online visibility. Before you press go, ensure your site is search-engine friendly by incorporating meta descriptions for each page, checking for keyword integrations in your headings, and performing other on-page SEO tactics. You can use a free tool like Yoast SEO for easy-to-follow guidance on beginner-level optimization. Once your site is live, submit your XML sitemap to Google Search Console for indexing to ensure it appears in search results. By implementing these SEO essentials, you can significantly enhance your site’s visibility and attract more organic traffic.

9. Verify SSL Certificate

Website security is of utmost importance, so making sure you check that your SSL certificate is good to go is a critical step in securing your site.

An SSL certificate:

• Encrypts sensitive data such as login credentials, bank information, and personal details, ensuring that this information remains secure
• Protects your users
• Helps build trust and credibility for your website

To check if your SSL certificate is active once your site goes live, make sure your URL starts with https:// and a closed padlock icon in the browser tab. If you aren’t seeing signs of an SSL certificate, contact your site’s hosting provider to install one.

10. Test Forms and CTAs

Forms and calls-to-action (CTAs) are key elements for user engagement and conversions on your website. Testing all forms, including contact forms and lead generation forms, ensures they function properly and are free of errors. This includes verifying that all form fields are correct and that notifications and automations are set up correctly. After all, the last thing you want after working hard on your site is to find your leads can’t reach you.

11. Implement Analytics Tracking

Establishing analytics tracking is key to understanding your website’s performance and user behavior. Google Analytics is a powerful free tool that allows you to collect data on visitor interactions and monitor key metrics. Before your site goes live, create a Google Analytics account and add a property to start collecting data. Your developer should be able to do this by placing the tracking code in your site’s code.

12. Create a Backup and Maintenance Plan

Once your site is out into the world, you need to make sure your site stays healthy and secure. Backing up your website is a critical step in safeguarding against potential threats and data loss. Regular backups ensure that you can quickly restore your site in case of any issues. Establish a backup location and schedule regular backups to safeguard your site’s data.

In addition to backups, regular maintenance is essential to keep your website running smoothly. This includes:

• Auditing and updating plugins to ensure they are functioning correctly and securely
• Checking for broken links and fixing them
• Optimizing your website’s performance by compressing images and cleaning up unnecessary files
• Monitoring your website’s security and implementing necessary measures to protect against threats

By creating a backup and maintenance schedule, you can protect your site and ensure it’s up-to-date.