The bulk of the work is done. Your website is ready to go live. But are you sure it is really ready? Here’s a handy checklist of things to do before your website goes live. Make sure everything is working fine before you click that “Go Live” button.
Page Content
- Proof read web copywriting, spelling and grammar are correct
- Paragraphs and headers and formatting are correct
- Copywriting date on the footer shows current year
- Company details and contact info are accurate all throughout the website.
- Lorem Ipsum has been removed
- Images, videos and audio files are properly formatted and are working on different devices
- Premium content such as PDFs, whitepaper, ebooks, etc. have been proofread, spelling and grammar are correct. These files are properly stored in their respective libraries.
- Images, font and other content are properly licensed or have proper citation
Design
- Site pages are compatible across different browsers (Firefox, Safari, IE 7, 8, 9, and 10, Chrome, Opera)
- Pages are compatible across different devices (tablets, laptops, desktops, and other mobile devices)
- Check for CSS and HTML error, fix and validate
- Favicon is uploaded and is rendering properly
- Paragraph and styles are working properly
Functionality
- Forms are submitting data properly
- Thank you message or confirmation message displays after the form is submitted.
- Form data is emailed to the recipient
- Auto-responders (if any) are working properly
- Internal links are working
- External links are working
- Social media icons are working properly
- Feeds are working properly
- Company logo is linked to the homepage
- Site load time should take not more than 2-3 seconds
- 404 Redirects are in place
- Integration with third-party tools such as e-commerce software, CRM, Marketing software platforms are running smoothly
- Site structure is clean and should be easy to navigate and maneuvered by your users
- Payment processing should be live
- Shipping options checked
- Credit card transaction checked
- Run a test order. Check tax, sub-total, total, coupons, etc
- Confirm order is placed
- Reset order number
- Verify MyAccount
- Dummy orders and test accounts are cleared.
- Test email from client to merchant
- Cart icon is on each page
- Checkout button should be large and is strategically located on the page.
- Search box with suggestive search
- Feedback tab at the bottom of each page for users to notify the webmasters when having problems with the site.
SEO
- Page titles should be unique, less than 70 characters and should include keywords.
- Meta Descriptions are unique and should not exceed 156 characters
- Keyword per page not more than 10, depending on the # of words per page
- Metadata for RSS in place
- Metadata for social media sharing in place
- Metadata spelling and grammar correct
- Alt tags for images
- Dynamic XML sitemap created and submitted to search engines
- Breadcrumbs in place
- Slugs should reflect site structure and should be short with relevant keywords.
- 301 redirects for old URLs are in place
- rel=”nofollow” tags are in place on applicable links and pages
- Site indexing is on
Google Analytics
- Analytics codes are properly inserted
- Relevant IP addresses have been excluded from analytics tracking.
- Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics are synced
- Google Adwords and Google Analytics are synced
Security and Backups
- Monitoring scripts installed.
- Copy of the final website stored in a safe place
- Ongoing copies of the site is being generated everyday (depending on how large the site is)
- Usernames and passwords stored in a secure database
- Check robots.txt file to restrict access to sensitive pages
Compliance to Web Rules and Regulations
This may vary depending on the country and industry.
- Pages offer accessibility to users with disabilities
- Users need to be informed if site is using cookies
- Compliant to usage rights of images, fonts, videos, etc.
- Terms and Privacy policy for users should be readily accessible and visible to site visitors
- Website is PCI compliant
- SSL certificate properly installed. Check receipt and checkout page, my account and my account details in SSL mode.
- SSL mode for logins and registrations
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