It takes work and effort to get your WordPress website to launch point. You may even feel exhausted from the extra work on your plate as well as your other daily responsibilities!
Once you’re at the end of the journey, don’t forget that Go Live day is a cause for celebration.
No matter how experienced your web design partners are, a check list is always a satisfying activity to go through as part of the count down.
The check list we’ve put together is a mix of pointers from content, design, tech and SEO.
- Replace any remaining dummy text, placeholder images, Lorem Ipsum text. It’s a good idea to ask a colleague or friend to read through with fresh eyes – you might be feeling a bit word blind!
- Check, check and check again for grammar, spelling and abbreviations.
- Make sure you’ve made use of easy to read formatting – paragraphs, box quotes, headings etc… It’s important that your website is pleasing on the eye and flows (also called UX, or user experience).
- If you have a blog page, have a couple of items up your sleeve to publish over the couple of weeks after go live. This gives your site an up to date feel. If you don’t get chance, republish a previous (but still relevant) old blog piece and change the publishing date. It will then appear at the top of the list.
- Check your site in different browsers (Chrome, FireFox, Explorer, Safari for example). You can’t be responsible for every old and out of date browser version that visitors maybe using, but it’s good practice to check your website in the most recent versions.
- Don’t forget to set up a Favicon – which is either your logo or part of it, depending on size and legibility, that sits in the browser tab. The Favicon helps with professionalism and brand recognition.
- Send a test contact form email to yourself, a colleague and a friend to make the form is working correctly.
- Where suitable, set plugins/themes to auto up date for site security. Check with your web partners on any oddities for specialist plugins that may not be suitable for auto updates. Some plugins need testing for possible clashes.
- Confirm your social media accounts and other marketing tools are linked correctly – newsletter sign-ups and downloads for examples.
- Last but not least, make sure you have a cookies policy, privacy notice, terms and conditions, copyright, company details and any other relevant legal docs all set up and in place.
Some useful WordPress launch tools:
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