Are you in the process of building your website, ready for it’s launch? This check list will give you some ideas of things to do before you put it live.
There’s nothing worse than forgetting something basic after a site launch.
Things to consider
There are lots of things to consider whilst building and producing your website. Let’s take a look at what you should be looking for. As soon as you’ve answered Yes to a question you’re ready to move on to the next one! Of course, not all of these will be applicable to you.
Is your content consistent?
It’s important for brand consistency to ensure that you are consistent across the whole of your website, text appears in similar locations, the logos and menu bars.
Page and Content formatting tested?
These days, there are many different platforms to view websites. It’s important to accommodate for those that aren’t using computers or laptops, such as tablets and mobile phones.
Do your images have alternative texts?
Mainly to assist with the blind, providing alt texts could illustrate the website for someone who isn’t able to see the pictures. Also, if the image isn’t available for example, it will give an idea of what should be there.
Spelling and Grammar checked and correct?
This is probably the most important task on the list. There are tools available on line to assist with this, such as After The Deadline and the in built dictionary checker within most internet browsers.
Have you created a Favicon?
If you’re not sure what this is, it’s the little image that appears in the corner of the tab for the website you’re visiting. This may vary from browser to browser, but the favicon is usually either 64×64 pixels for a basic icon, or 120×120 pixels for a more high definition.
Footer code includes copyright icon?
It’s always good to ensure that you include the copyright symbol on the bottom of all your pages. You should also include the year. You can see an example of this at the bottom of this page.
Passed all required validation checks?
If you’re coding with HTML and or CSS, you will want to make sure that your code bases the validation for the coding standards. You can do this easily online.
Checked for broken links?
This is always a good thing to do, as it would be quite embarrassing to launch a site which included links to pages which didn’t exist, because of a typing error, or something simple. Just click through your website and make sure every link goes to where it should be going.
Have you produced a custom error 404 page?
An error 404 is displayed when a page is requested, but cannot be found. There are default provided 404 error pages, but it’s always a good idea to have one that matches the rest of your site. There are also a range of other errors that can be produced. We have a guide here that lists the errors and how to provide your custom pages.
Javascript free from errors?
If you have included any script within your website, have you tested to ensure there are no errors?
Improve Google Ranking with SSL
Are you aware that Google now favours websites which have SSL enabled? You can purchase an SSL Certificate directly with Pipe Ten to use on our hosting, or your own hosting solution.
Testing, Testing, Testing.
Now that you’ve gone through the check list for the design/building phase of your website.. You’ve guessed it, it’s time to put the whole thing to the test.
Displays and functions correctly in IE7, IE8, IE9, IE10, IE11?
Displays and functions correctly in Firefox?
Displays and functions correctly in Chrome?
Displays and Functions correctly in Safari?
Displays and Functions correctly in Opera?
With the above section, it’s worth noting that the web browsers can be used on Windows, Linux and Mac. It’s best to try and test on all platforms.
Tested at a 1024×768 resolution?
Tested larger resolutions?
The most common resolution these days is 1920×1080
Web forms been tested?
It’s a good idea to make sure all of your forms are working, you wouldn’t want to lose out on a contact from a potential end user, just because the form was incorrectly set up, or goes to the wrong email address.
Required fields been tested?
Some forms have required fields, have you made sure that these fields can’t be left blank?
The last hurdle
Now that you’ve tested and you’re confident that it’s all working and looking perfect, you can move on to the last few steps.
Have you installed / enabled web statistics?
Most hosting companies will provide a set of tools for you to track the number of visits to your website. We have a guide on this here, which includes AWStats and Webalizer. Another one to consider is Google Analytics.
Is your website going to be backed up?
Something that people don’t usually consider is whether their website is backed up or not. It’s very important to take regular backups but also to retain a few copies. We do have a guide which explains some basic steps you can take to ensure your account is backed up. You can find it here. If you have a dedicated or hybrid cloud server, you could look at our off site backup solutions.
Website monitoring?
It’s good to know, that with Pipe Ten the servers that host your websites are monitored 24/7 by our complex monitoring system, which is linked direct to our engineers via SMS should any problems occur.
If you have any tips or comments on what to do when planning your website launch, use the comments section below.
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Last saved: 2021/05/25 at 15:54 by Jamie