Website Launch Checklist - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Website Launch Checklist

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If you are launching a new website take a look at these 8 must-do tips to launch your website without a hitch! Learn how to successfully launch a website without losing any SEO value, discover common mistakes and crucial SEO errors that could lead to drop in ranking. Visit: – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Website Launch Checklist


1
Website Launch Checklist
2
1 301 Redirects
If you are designing a brand new website, and
have never had a website before, you can ignore
this item. However, if you have had a web
presence and are redesigning your website,
switching content management systems or changing
the URL structure of your website, this item is
for you. The most important item on the website
launch checklist is making sure that each old URL
on your website, matches to the new URL on your
new website by using 301 redirects. A 301
redirect is an instruction to the visitor and
search engine bots that a page has moved
permanently to a new location. This will forward
your old URL to your new URL.
Website Launch Checklist
3
2 Form Functionality
Hopefully your new website has capture forms on
it for the Contact Us page, and depending on your
industry, a Request a Quote or Free
Consultation page. This may seem like an obvious
one, but testing the form functionality is key.
Even if the forms were tested on your development
server and worked there, once you go live, you
need to test them again! 1) Test the
forms before the website is launched 2)
Test the forms after the website is
launched Test the forms not only using your
email, but your personal email as well (such as a
Yahoo, Google or MSN email). Some servers block
sending/receiving from the same host if you host
your website and email on the same server. If
this is the case, you may not see your email come
through and settings may have to be altered on
the server. Youd be surprised how little
changes in server environment can alter email
handling.
Website Launch Checklist
4
3 Robots.txt
If you havent heard of Robots.txt before, it is
a file that resides on the root folder of your
website at www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt that
gives instructions to Google, Yahoo, Bing and
other search engine crawlers on how to
crawl/index your website. With Robots.txt, you
can limit the crawlers search radius and instruct
it to not visit certain folders/sections of your
website. Sometimes, WordPress websites, and
other platforms, come pre-installed with a
Robots.txt file that will COMPLETELY block your
entire website from Google, without you knowing
it. Check your Robots.txt file by going to
www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt if it contains the
following, remove it right away!
User-agent Disallow /
Website Launch Checklist
5
4 WWW Redirection
This one is simple, but very important. When
launching a website, choose whether youd like to
have a www in front of your domain, or not. No
matter which you choose, if set up correctly,
your visitors will be able to enter either
version to view your website and be automatically
redirected to the correct version. Does it matter
which you pick? Not at all, whichever you like
the best. Just stick with it and when linking to
your site, include or exclude it! If you dont
choose and set up the redirect, Google, Yahoo and
Bing will see your site as two websites, since
all your pages could be either www. OR non-www.
This can adversely affect your websites rankings
online.
www.YourWebsite.com
YourWebsite.com
ltIfModule mod_rewrite.cgtRewriteCond HTTPS
!onRewriteCond HTTP_HOST www\.(.)
NC RewriteRule http//1REQUEST_URI
R301,L lt/IfModulegt
ltIfModule mod_rewrite.cgtRewriteCond HTTP_HOST
! RewriteCond HTTP_HOST !www\. NC
RewriteCond HTTPSs on(s) RewriteRule
http1//www.HTTP_HOSTREQUEST_URI R301,L
lt/IfModulegt
Select which version you want, and put this in
your .htaccess file (Apache Servers only!)
Website Launch Checklist
6
5 Tracking Analytics
Google Analytics Before you launch your new
website, make sure you have Google Analytics
tracking code implemented into the footer of each
and every page. If you do not have Google
Analytics, sign up at http//www.google.com/analyt
ics/ They will guide your through setting it up,
and will give you a piece of Javascript tracking
code to put into your websites footer. Google
Webmaster Tools If you dont already have your
website in Google Webmaster Tools, sign up and
verify your website at https//www.google.com/webm
asters/ By verifying your site, you will be able
to monitor links, pages, error messages and more.
This is required for step 6.
Website Launch Checklist
7
6 Check for Crawl Errors
  1. Inside your Google Webmaster Tools account,
    navigate to Crawl -gt Crawl Errors for your
    website.
  2. If there are no errors at all , you will only see
    the following under Sire Errors and URL
    Errors
  3. It is common that you will have no Sire Errors
    but have a list or errors under URL Errors. The
    errors under URL Errors will show a list of URLs
    that Google is having trouble with. Click on a
    URL in the list to determine the issue.
  4. The most common issue is 404s. This means Google
    is trying to visit that link, but your website
    does not have a page there. This may be to a
    removed page, a server error, or an improperly
    set up 301 redirect.
  5. The goal on this page is to have 0 errors. To
    clean up 404s, set up the proper 301 redirects
    (as seen in 1 of this list) or locate the
    offending page and resolve it manually.
  6. Check back here a couple days later, a week
    later, and two weeks later for any additional
    errors

Website Launch Checklist
8
7 Test Organic Links
  • This one sounds silly, but it has saved our
    clients a lot of traffic that would have been
    missed if we just relied on 301 redirects and
    sitemaps alone.
  • How to test your 301s and indexed links to your
    website
  • Perform a Google search for siteyourdomain.com,
    this will pull up a list of all pages Google has
    indexed for your website. If you have changed URL
    structure, this search will usually pull up your
    OLD URLs, this is not a bad thing, it is normal.
    Over time your new URLs will start to show up as
    Google re-indexes your website.
  • Spot check your 301 redirects by ctrlclicking on
    random pages, if your website does not have a ton
    of pages Id recommend manually checking each and
    every one.
  • If it does not load, investigate the 301 redirect
    and try again!
  • Now you may have found some PDFs and other
    random pages your sitemap did not find! Awesome!
    Youve saved some traffic.

Website Launch Checklist
9
8 Browser Testing
Any good website design company will test your
website not only before it goes live, but after
as well. Sometimes things change/happen during a
website launch so it is crucial to check all
aspects both before and after! Test your website
in all major browsers, and popular versions of
each. Internet Explorer can sometimes be tricky
as users may be using out-dated, deprecated
versions that are no longer supported by
Microsoft. However, we dont want them to have a
bad experience either! Test your website on older
versions of IE to make sure all your visitors
have a great experience. There are online tools
to help in this process, but they are not as
reliable as testing on the native platform. At
REINVOLVE, we test on the major platforms and
older versions of IE for compatibility using
virtual machines that simulate their native
environment of Windows XP and Vista. Popular
online testing tools http//browsershots.org/ or
http//www.browserstack.com/
Website Launch Checklist
10
Have Questions? Send us an email at
info_at_Reinvolve.com, were more than happy to
help! Need a website? REINVOLVE specializes in
custom websites for companies large and small,
that are looking to gain traffic online and
increase leads. Our web design process is
designed to be stress free, so you dont have to
worry about things like this website launch
checklist! Email info_at_Reinvolve.com or call
720-289-7372. Thanks for reading, hope it helped!
Website Launch Checklist
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