Kleinburg Brewery
- design
- / web
When launching a WordPress site, there are certain things that need to be done before you launch it in order to maximize success. Be sure to understand the following before you make your site live.
Set Up a Domain for your WordPress Site
Secure your domain, then create a database and user for your new site location. Move the data and MySQL to this new spot, then point the domain to the new directory. Check out the site display to ensure it’s showing properly – look for any missing icons and other design issues. Test the links and pages to ensure that they all work properly and are pointing to the live site instead of the development environment.
Make Sure Your Site is Responsive on Mobile Devices
Test your site across all mobile devices to make sure the content is displayed properly and the website is responsive. You can do this by using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test that provides feedback and analysis.
Ensure Your Content is Good to Go
That means no typos, grammatical errors, broken links, and duplicate content. While you’re at it, make sure your videos and images are up as well. Be sure that your video and audio files are compatible, and consider compressing your image files so they don’t slow down your site.
Preview Your WordPress site in Multiple Browsers
You want to see what your website will look like across many different browsers, so be sure to check. That includes browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and so on. This will help you identify any potential compatibility problems so you can fix them before going live.
Ensure Your Site Operates Properly
You want to know that your site is doing what it’s supposed to do when people are on it and navigating it, so do some testing, such as making sure the forms are submitting information properly and emails are going to the right place. Analyze your autoresponders too if you have any, as you don’t want automatic emails to include the wrong information.
Use an SEO Plugin for WordPress
An SEO plugin like Yoast SEO is reliable and helpful and can help make your SEO efforts a lot easier. Configure your SEO right away so that you don’t wind up having to catch up later on. Set the Google search title, post titles, and tagline to help your site. Titles should be unique and no more than 70 characters, with a focus keyword. Also, make sure the search engines are able to see your site once you go live. Go to WP-Admin > Settings > Reading, and uncheck “discourage search engines from indexing this site”.
Create an Advertising Strategy
Setting up social media icons and implementing newsletter signups must be a part of your site design strategy before you launch. Include signup forms in the right spots to help develop an email list in order to communicate with your audience and keep them up-to-date. After all your social icons are set up, make sure the links work and your social accounts are also live.
Keep Your Legalities in Check
Build trust with your audience by being transparent. This includes showing your company details and including things such as contact information. Obtain all the necessary copyrights for images, fonts, and so on, and include a copyright statement if need be.
Get Security & Backups
This needs little explanation. You need a security system and backups just in case something goes wrong. It would be a nightmare if you lost any of your work without it being saved.
Prepare For Launch
When you’re ready to launch, make sure you haven’t missed any of the above. Review your third-party themes (if you bought one) and plugins. Configure your content delivery network (CDN) if your site isn’t running at optimal speed so you can obtain faster page load times.
Don’t stop maintaining your site. Be sure to regularly back up your website and set up a strong admin login. Once you launch, don’t forget about Google Analytics and clean up anything that requires attention.