Step 5: Website Launch and Maintenance
Cue the fireworks and pop the champagne– It’s website launch day!
This momentous occasion has likely been months in the making, but soon, every meeting, email, and mock-up approval will be well worth the time you poured into the web development process.
We know that our clients are excited, but we are too! Each project that we undertake becomes a labor of love, something that we collaborated and pondered over for many a sleepless night. It’s hard not to feel like the proud parents of a newborn baby website chock full of potential.
Of course, like every step we’ve taken so far, website launch day isn’t a simple process. Before we show off the new digital home of your brand, campaign, or cause, web developers have a lot of checking and double-checking to do. Every layout must be formatted, every sentence must be punctuated, and every contact form poised and ready to handle all the traffic you’re about to receive.
So, begins pre-launch testing.
Pre-Launch Testing
Before we send this baby bird out to fly, we must make sure that everything is in working order. During this in-depth process, we’re essentially proofreading the website’s front end and back end.
Our checklist looks a little something like this:
- Click each and every link to prevent 404 errors or mislinked anchor text. Each link should go exactly where we expect it to.
- Edit and spellcheck all content. One of the most untrustworthy qualities of a site is its sloppy writing style. As Kent State University explains, “Poor spelling and grammar are an indication that the site may not be credible. To make the information presented easy to understand, credible sites watch writing style closely.”
- Test across devices and browsers. Your site should be responsive no matter what platform it’s viewed on.
- Check every page for layouts, content, and graphics. If something is out of place, we’ll find it and make sure it finds its proper home.
- If there are videos, make sure they play. Multimedia content tops the ranks of most engaging marketing materials, and that applies across the web. Your site should compel visitors forward by appealing to their visual and auditory senses.
- SEO practices need to be in place. As soon as your site goes live, Google gets started crawling and indexing it. Saving SEO for later only means a longer wait before your website ranks among the greats on search engine results pages.
- Redirects are particularly important if you had a website before but have moved URLs or CMS systems. Your older URLs need to redirect to the appropriate page on your new site.
Website Launch Day
Once everything is checked and approved, we prepare for launch day. You want your audiences to engage with it ASAP, especially if there are significant changes and promotional offers. It’s an excellent opportunity to showcase your makeover and start moving potential leads through the sales funnel.
To facilitate that, turn your website launch day into an event for your business and your future customers.
- Advertise on social media inviting them to stop by, check out all the changes, and learn more about your business. If you are launching a store alongside your site, offer “ribbon cutting” discounts for a certain number of early visitors.
- Ensure your contact and reporting forms work. Keen consumer eyes and new user interface interactions can uncover hidden bugs that we would miss pre-launch. Let them know that they’re welcome to get in touch for questions or to report site issues.
- Celebrate! You deserve it! Share a few candids from the celebration, as well as reflections on what this change means for your organization. People love authenticity, and your followers will appreciate seeing the human side of the screen.
Ongoing Maintenance
While ongoing maintenance is optional, it’s often seen as a necessary service. Sites are not a one-and-done job. Once the website is live, there is still much to do that usually requires expert assistance unless you’re willing to learn how to make the necessary updates over time. Everything from Google algorithm changes to creating blog content can be a piece of your overall maintenance and marketing package.
We’ll continue to monitor and adjust your SEO during your maintenance period according to the specs recommended by Google. Doing so ensures that you’ll continue ranking well for the keywords people looking for organizations like yours are most likely to search for.
Recent changes to iOS also make website maintenance for visitor data tracking more fundamental to your marketing strategy than ever before.
NATIV3 can assist with pulling meaningful information about who is visiting your site, how they got there, and how they interact with your UI to optimize their experience.
With so much on the line, why choose NATIV3?
We have made it our mission and purpose to empower the organizations we work with by creating meaningful experiences that push the boundaries of creative web design. We are natives of the digital era, born into and molded by the generation of interactive encounters that are unmistakeably authentic and undeniably effective.