Pre-Launch Website Checklist

With all of the chaos that generally surrounds a website launch, its easy for things to get forgotten or missed.

That’s why we’ve put together some of the most common and most important features that tend to get neglected to help remind you of all the steps required for a professional and peaceful website launch. We have also included an extended version this list in PDF format for you to integrate into your development process!

Verify Cross-Browser Compatibility

Make sure that the site doesn’t explode when viewed in any of the major browsers, including: Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Safari, etc. If you don’t have access to all of the above browsers, there are still a few ways to test the site.

• Use virtualization software to access different testing environments
  Desktop applications like VirtualBox or VMWare allow you to run a virtual copy of an operating system within your active desktop environment. This would allow you to say, run Windows Vista within an OS X environment. With Windows Vista, you could then test Internet Explorer.
• Use a third party service
  Websites like BrowserShots.org will take screenshots of your website, as seen through whichever browser you choose. While this process can take awhile (the queues can get rather lengthy), it gives you access to a vast variety of browsers and resolutions.

Validate Meta-Tag Information

Make sure each page has unique meta-tag information including a title, meta-keywords and meta-description.

Integrate Analytics Software

If you are going to be using analytics software to monitor site traffic, make sure that the necessary codes are installed and verified on the site. This will ensure that you’ll be able to track visitors from the second the site is launched. If you’ve not looked into monitoring site traffic, you may want to check out Google Analytics, a very popular and easy to install web-based analytics package.

Integrate with Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools provides a vast array of support tools to help developers identify potential problem areas within the site and provides a good representation of how Google sees your site. When Google speaks, one should listen!

Create a Sitemap

Having a sitemap helps search engines crawl the complex organization of your website. A sitemap can be a simple HTML page that contains links to all of the pages in your website, or an XML document, formatted to meet standard search engine specifications. For more information on sitemap formatting and benefits, see SiteMaps.org.

Ensure Search Engine Friendliness

Verify that all of your pages will be crawlable by the search engines and that all URLs are search engine friendly. Check out our ecommerce guide’s section on search engine friendliness for more information. Though it was written for ecommerce applications, most of the tips are applicable to most websites.

Setup a Custom 404 Page

When you stumble across a missing page, it’s often nicer to present a custom 404 error page than the default server “Not Found” error. These pages are not only more professional, but they can also be very helpful in suggesting pages that the visitor might have been trying to visit rather than the requested missing page.

Redirect Non-www Traffic to www

Redirecting non-www traffic is extremely important to do and extremely easy to miss. If you don’t tell Google to redirect all traffic from the non-www link, it will think that you have two completely different websites and could possibly penalize you for duplicate content.

Favicon Implementation

Favicons are those little icons you see in your browser tabs for each website. As small as they are though, they can give your site a more “complete” look. Not only will it be used in browser tabs, but it’s also with in browser bookmarks – making it easier for people to find the page later. Here’s a nice little tool to easily produce favicons from existing graphics: GenFavicon.com.

Broken Link Checker

Check to make sure all links are working before the site goes live. Run the site through this broken link checker to identify and fix any broken links in the site.

Is your site a redesign of an existing site?

If you are going to be replacing an existing site with a new one, there are a few additional elements to consider.

Backup the Existing Site!!!

It’s all to easy to launch a new website at 300mph and forget to backup the old site files. This can be extremely problematic if your client wants a document from the old site but the old hosting service has wiped the account clean.

Make Sure All 301 Redirects Are In Place

To ensure that all traffic still going to your old site go to the new one, you’ll need to set up 301 redirects. This can be done in a variety of ways but the most common is by redirecting through an .htaccess file.

What steps do you take?

We have shared our pre-launch process, but we would love to hear thoughts from you. Are we missing any steps? Is there a process you’ve found to be invaluable? Let us know!

And don’t forget to check out the extended version of this list, available as a PDF below!