10 Quick Checks Before Launching a Website
August 08, 2020
1. Check the content thoroughly 
Make sure the content is accurate and has been proofread for spelling and grammar. The contact details are correct throughout the website and the footer contains copyrights dated the current year.
2. Test all links 🔗
Don’t be lazy! check that all the hyperlinks internal and external both are working. Check that all social media icons are associated with the correct accounts.
3. Inspect all images 
Ensure images are in place with an appropriate size, loading swiftly and the usage rights are properly cited.
4. Test the site for User Experience (UX) and Responsiveness 
Browse your site on different browsers (Chrome, IE, Opera, Safari, Firefox) and digital devices such as desktop, tablet and mobile to make sure it renders correctly and pages are compatible. If you don’t get time to do this manually, you can try a service like BrowserStack.
5. Speed Test 
It is essential to obtain an optimum loading speed for your website. To check how it performs do a speed test using the PageSpeed Insights a tool provided by Google.
6. Audit Site SEO 
Review your pages and blog posts, ensure each page has a unique page title, meta description and optimised for single or set of keywords specific to your industry. To speed up this process you can also use SEO Audit tools provided by SEMRUSH.
7. Set up analytics 
It is extremely important to capture web data and analytics as it enables you to examine your website performance and visitors engagement. To do this you can use Google Analytics a comprehensive analytical tool which provides detail statistics that includes the audience demographics, the time visitors spend on your website and which pages they visit the most.
8. Build and submit a sitemap 
Create a dynamic XML Sitemap and don’t forget to submit your sitemap.xml file to search engines. This will provide your site architecture information to search engines as a result page load time is optimised.
9. Check forms 
If your website contains contact and newsletter signup forms, you must test them to check if the contact forms are submitting data properly, thank you message is displayed after form submission and you receive form data on the correct email address. If your signup forms are linked to platforms like MailChimp you must try subscribing with your email address to confirm that you receive all associated automated messages such as welcome emails.
10. Website backup 
Lastly, ensure to have a backup copy of your final website which you can utilise it in future in case you experience data loss or corruption due to malicious attack.
I have a quick SEO Audit Tool 🛠️ for you!
Amresha is an experienced front-end engineer and a web consultant, currently focusing on JAMSTACK and ReactJS powered websites. Follow me on Twitter