The product is developed, the site is designed, it has content, it works, and it is ready to go! Well, many websites that are in this stage are not actually ready to go, but are closer to being ready for public release or launch.
As many of us, we tend to forget to perform many precautionary or pre-launch tests because either the project is quite large and many things are forgotten, or we become too excited to introduce our new flavor to the internet that we do not think about precautionary elements, but rather getting it out to the public and fast.
In order to help prevent precautionary methods or tests from being skipped, it is generally a good idea to make a nice laundry list on all the steps and tests you need to go through before deeming your website ready for launch as with any tangible products and goods. With that said, we cover five things that you generally need to do before launching your website in hope we are reminding you of that you may have forgotten to add to your pre-launch list.
Cross-Browser and Platform Checks
We all have a favorite browser that we tend to love, adore, and recommend to anyone who is not using it. What this means is, we generally tend to test our website design in our favorite browser the most than any other browser out there. In fact, this is one of the major issues we see with new launched websites that the design is sometimes messed up in the browser we use versus the browser it was mostly tested in. Therefore, visiting the homepage of your website in different browsers is not enough to deem it” alt=”" />
Not having the browsers installed onto your working environment is not a good excuse to not testing your website across multiple browsers. If you do not want to download each browser individually, there are a plethora of cross-browser testing suits and tools to fulfill the proper testing environment.
If you do not have a proper testing environment, it is a good time to get started on setting one up before coding your design as it is generally helpful to fix bugs along the way, rather than leave them to the end for fixing, which may lead to more troubles and bugs that you may have not seen or that may have been caused due to fixing other bugs.
Working Links
I admit, when I sometimes needed to link to dozens of tutorials or pages within my content I tended to get lazy on clicking every single link to assure they all work and lead to the correct location or page. However, I learned the hard way and faced having to spend more time going back and correcting the errors than just fixing them as I went along.
With that said, before launching your website, make sure you proofread your content and click on every link you provide within your website to assure they all link to the appropriate and intended locations as it will keep your website ranked higher, as well as you time in the long run.
Traffic Statistics
Before launching a website you need to make sure you get some sort of analytical program working to keep track of traffic and “hot spots” on your website. If marketed properly, we all know the most traffic we will get for a while would be on the first few days of launch, and not having any analytical program to keep track of how many visitors landed or where they are going on your websites good be a success or fail situation for your website as these few days are vital for improving your website to keep as many visitors as you possibly can.
Code Validation
I cannot stress enough on how valid code is just a key aspect that you cannot disregard when launching your website. There are so many benefits to valid code such as professionalism, better search engine optimization, and others, so do not disregard it, and spend the time needed to get all the tidbits fixed and to have that code ready.
To give you an example of accepting invalid code as a solution, let us say you are creating a tangible coffee mug that you plan to use every day. As you are creating this coffee mug, you notice that around the handle that you attached, there some holes and imperfections within the clay.
You know that if you do not fix the imperfections and holes that you will have a leak of coffee, making the mug unusable, so you decide to opt in to fix the imperfections to enjoy your cups of coffee in the long run. Similarly, these imperfections in the mug are like having invalid code, and you know that if you do not fix them, you may have troubles in the future with the many aspects discussed earlier. Therefore, try your best to get your code validated to future proof your website.
Printer Friendly
If your website is content based such as articles, tutorials, and the likes, make sure you create a style sheet specific for printing. The worst thing anyone comes across is printing out a website to only get the header and some bits of text rather than the full text, and less the header and advertisements. Therefore, in order to have open arms to the growth of your website and to not face this printing issue later on, create the style sheet and test it out in many different case scenarios, long or short, wide or not to make sure the desired printing result is what you get every time.
Overall, getting your website prepared for launch may be a long task, but it is worthwhile. While we covered only a few important things you need to make sure you get right before launch, we hope this encouraged you to whip up your own list, and to stick to it when you launch your next website.
