Re-launching or launching a new site onto a new programming environment or CMS platform could be an overwhelming and time-consuming process. You can easily overlook specific details or do something wrong without realizing it until it’s too late.
Whether you’re doing things on your own or you’ve hired someone to provide website development or design services for you, below are some basic things you need to do when preparing for your site launch or re-launch.
Construct 301 Webpage Redirects
Typically, moving a website onto a different platform will lead to new URL structures for most existing webpages. When you implement 301 webpage redirects, users will be redirected to the accurate webpages on your new website.
Make Certain that Your Onsite SEO is on Point
While this might be a complicated process for some, optimizing your entire website with relevant keywords according to your content would account for approximately 25% of the SEO performance of your site. A solid SEO strategy is extremely vital if you’re looking to obtain organic and relevant traffic, which in turn might lead to conversions.
Build and Submit your Sitemap
In the event that your CMS can automatically build an XML sitemap, do so now, and if not, you need to look for an XML sitemap generator suited to your CMS. When you submit this file to Google and add it to your root directory, this will help search engines in indexing your webpages more easily.
Make Sure Your Analytics Tracking is Updated
While this might seem pretty obvious, many people actually forget to do this. If you’re using Google Analytics, make sure to get rid of your current website’s tracking code so you can incorporate it to the new pages on your site before making the switch.
Don’t Forget to Test Your Site’s Functionality
Make sure to evaluate, reevaluate and test all the functionalities you incorporated into every webpage, from forms to links and navigation among others. You can likewise consider asking someone who wasn’t involved in developing your site so that you can get unbiased feedback.
Keep Track of Your Rank in SERPs
If you’re not keen on spending money for keyword monitoring, you can opt to monitor your keywords manually. You can do this by typing your keywords in the search box to see your website’s ranking. When doing this, don’t click on your site because the search engine will remember your preferences and place your site on top of SERPs.
The problem with this is that in reality, you’ll be the only one seeing this high ranking and everyone else will still see your actual rank.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of things you should ideally do before your launch, but it will give you a better idea of what you need to prepare for as you launch your new or newly revamped website. It’s also vital to keep in mind that you shouldn’t be discouraged if your site isn’t an instant success.
Just keep on publishing high-quality content, building your presence online, and tweaking your SEO, and you’ll get there in time.
