10 Most Important Things to Check Before Launching a Website

A fast loading website with top notch content that is available on both desktop and mobile in an optimized format gives you the assurance of better customer experience. Whether it is a new website or one that has migrated to a new platform, it is important to check and ensure everything is working well. The following are the top most important things to check.

Ensure that everything in the site has the right spelling, grammar, and punctuation

While your marketing campaigns might be rigorous, poor spelling in your headings, call-to-actions, and home page content can quickly turn clients away. Though this mistakes can be checked and corrected manually, a better way is getting a third and unbiased eye to do the job. Besides, you can also use tools such as SEMrush, Raven Tools or WooRank to do the job.

Website speed

Your website speed is a very critical component in determining customer experience. If a client clicks on your page and it takes more than 2 seconds to open, chances are he/she will move on to a different website. Furthermore, search engines also factor your website speed in ranking algorithms. If your website has a slow speed, it will be hard to conduct Search Engine Optimization for your website and rank it as one of the top results.

Mobile friendly

The number of people using smartphones to browse, buy products and connect online keeps growing every day. By ensuring that your website is mobile optimized, it is easy to reach this important market segment to raise traffic and conversions.

Website URLs

The uniform resource locator(URL) is a critical component that links back to your website and also includes Urchin Tracking Module(UTM) parameters that tell you which of your online marketing campaign is working well. It is very important to test and retest all URLs especially if you are planning to market your brand aggressively.

Search Engine Result Pages(SERP) display

What do people see when they find your website in organic searches? Can they find you easily on the top results? Check the SERP display to ensure that your meta-descriptions are displaying correctly.

Website analytics

Once your website goes live, you should be able to assess the traffic and conversions with time. This is only be possible by setting the right analytics. Many people prefer using Google Analytics because it generates comprehensive reports and can be checked anytime you want.

Website compatibility

Is your website available in all browsers? A good website should be available in all browsers from Chrome to Opera Mini and others. You should pre-test this to guarantee users of the best experience.

404 pages

If your website is unavailable, the visitor gets error 404. To deal with this problem, you are advised to give the visitor something to do while the problem gets rectified as soon as possible. A good option for this is including a site search and an HTML sitemap.

Integration with social media

Find out whether the social media icons on the website page connect to the right pages. Many people find it easy to log to their Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms from the website to like, follow, or share their views. Having social media links is a good way to stay connected with your visitors.

Secure certificates

If your website has encrypted pages to protect clients’ forms such as e-commerce clients purchasing accounts, ensure that the security certificate is up to date.