There are a number of things on your mind when launching a new website; is it compatible, is it scalable, is the client happy with it? A few simple things may slip your mind. A CMS will generally make everything easily portable between a development environment and the live environment, but links may sometimes get broken, and ‘no index’ properties may sometimes be left in place, especially if you are feeling rushed.
- Write and check 301 redirects, if the structure of the site is changing
- Bring across or create new Analytics tracking code snippets
- Create or recreate an XML sitemap and submit to Google Webmaster Tools
- Check for broken links
- Check for broken image/media file paths
- Create/recreate a HTML sitemap – (SEO reasons and this requirement may change)
- Remove ‘noindex’ and ‘nofollow’ meta data and attributes where appropriate
- Check and migrate any additional third party analytics code snippets
- Re-insert any goal completions/ecommerce scripts
- Check for device compatability in at least the following browsers:
- Google Chrome
- Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Apple Safari
- Opera
- Blackberry
- Android Chrome
- Apple iOS Safari
Also, the best time to push a website live is mid-week. Many websites receive more traffic on a Monday, especially those selling B2B. Avoiding this is crucial, as you don’t want to risk losing those customers for your client. Towards the end of the week is also bad – you don’t want to push a site live only to find some unexpected errors just before the weekend. This could mean you spending extra time from your weekend on the project, or could cost you extra if you need to draft in extra skill sets. Not only this, this is also likely to lower your clients’ opinion of you!
I hope this helps! If you have any further suggestions, let me know in the comments section below. Similarly, if you are interested in our SEO or PPC services, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
