Website Launch Checklist

Lift Off: A GUIDE TO SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHING A WEBSITE

We’ve launched a lot of websites here at Roger West – and in fact, we just launched our new website this week. Through our experiences, we’ve compiled a website launch checklist that we follow before going live with a new website.

The list is not meant to be 100% comprehensive – we learn new things after each launch and keep adding to it. But this should act as a guide to help you successfully launch a website, and you can modify it or add to it in order to make it your own.

Content

Get out your magnifying glass and examine every sentence, word, and letter.

• Spelling & grammar is correct
• Paragraphs, headers, lists, and other formatting is correct
• Copyright date is current
• Accurate contact details
• All dummy “lorem ipsum” content is removed
• Rich content is correct and working – images, videos, audio, etc.

Design

Take the necessary steps to ensure that the site is pixel perfect.

• Cross-browser compatibility (IE 7 8, 9 and 10, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc)
• Cross-device compatibility (Android, iPhone, tablets, etc.)
• CSS/HTML Validation
• Page Optimization: scripts, images, and CSS
• Favicon

Functionality

Test and validate that everything on the website is working properly.

• Forms are submitting
• Thank you message displays after the form is submitted
• Form data is being emailed to a recipient and/or stored in a database
• Auto-responders are working properly (if applicable)
• All internal links work properly
• All external links work properly and open in a new tab
• All social media share icons work properly
• All feeds work properly (RSS, News, Twitter, etc.)
• Company logo links to index page
• Check load time for site pages
• Page accessibility for users with disabilities (WAI-ARIA)
• 404 Redirect pages are in place (page-not-found.aspx)

SEO

Make sure that your website has a solid foundation for SEO success.

• Redirect non “www” traffic to “www” site
• Create a dynamic XML sitemap
• Submit XML sitemap to search engines
• Verify page URLs consistently reflect site information architecture
• Add alt tags to every image
• Pages have title tags (less than 70 characters, includes keywords)
• Pages have descriptions (less than 156 characters, includes keywords)
• Pages have keywords (less than 10 – all words appear in page copy)
• Spelling and grammar is correct in all metadata
• 301 redirects are in place for all old URLs (redirect old to new pages)
• Smart URLs are in place
• rel=”nofollow” are in place on applicable links and pages
• Add RSS feed to header meta data
• Add social media meta data to the header (image and page description)

Analytics

Collect valuable analytics that will allow you to continually improve the website going forward.

• Embed analytics code on the page
• Set up a filter to exclude IP addresses for web company and client
• Set up goals (if applicable)

Security & Backups

Prevent the loss of data and protect against malware or other damages with site security and regular backups.

• Setup secure FTP accounts
• Install 24/7 monitoring scripts
• Create daily backups
• Test client CMS access

Did we forget anything? Is there something you do that we don’t? Let's Talk.