Seven Important Things To Check Before Your Website Goes Live

A lot goes into actually designing a website from scratch. In layman terms, it could be as big a task as single handedly preparing the Christmas or Thanksgiving feast, except the work of web designing actually stretches over more than one day.

There are, after all, so many things to take into consideration, right from the creative to the logistics. This is why it is absolutely essential that when a website goes live, it’s nothing short of perfect. And the best way to ensure that is by making sure these seven things are in place.

Content

Content is what will get you brownie points and content is what will get you the penalties. It is absolutely essential to make sure that-

–         One, the content is original (because nothing will hurt your site like duplicate content).

–         Two, the grammar is clean (heard of the Grammar Nazis of Cyberspace?)

–         Three, the content is relevant (No Lorem Ipsum, not even in the most inconspicuous of places!)

Everything needs to be read (with a magnifying glass, if you please) and re-read, and then read once again by a third person. It won’t hurt anyone.

Speed

In an age where speed is the requisite for almost everything including cooking, you better make sure your website’s load-speed is one to match the lightning. If a site takes more than 30 seconds to load, no user- no matter how loyal- is going to stick around. Therefore, a speed test for the website is absolutely mandatory.

Luckily, it’s amazingly easy to test this. Just open your pages in Google Chrome, press f12, hit the network button, and watch the results. You’ll get a chart of everything that the site is loading as well as how much time it is taking to load.

Call to action

This one’s especially for the creative and marketing guys. You want your audience to visit your page, but what happens after that? Where do they go from there? How do they serve the purpose you want them to serve? You have you give them a subliminal map. Why should they visit the page? Where should they go next? How do you turn visitors into conversions? All these questions should be addressed, without fail.

Titles

Web developers and SEO analysts take note. The titles are thekeystone to good SEO, so it’s essential that the right titles are well in place. In addition, titles are necessary also so that the users know what a particular page is about. The title should- a) change with every page and b) be completely in tune with the content on that page.

Links

Where there is a website, there will be links. Links are important because, they help you build authority, generate backlinks and give your users some more extra content on what they may be looking for.

And each of these things help you do only one major thing- improve your SEO and take it to a whole new awesome level. That said; make sure every link actually leads somewhere. There is no room for dead pages and broken links.

Browser compatibility

You’ve already tested your website on Google Chrome, but that’s not the end of it, is it? Before the website is finally up for the world to see, behold and use, run it on every browser that exists, including the Safari browser (and Internet Explorer).

Fonts and colors

Yes, it may all look perfect when you’re doing it, but there are a million things that can go wrong in this department. Check if the colors are not making the site look too gaudy.

Make sure all text is clearly visible. While you’re at it, also ensure that the fonts are legible and there’s no confusion between letters. Check if your logo is clearly visible. It is the little things, which go an amazingly long way in saving your hard-work from some major disasters.

This is the perfect time to look into even the tiniest detail. Obsess over every bit of it. Become the devil. You won’t regret it.

1.  License: Creative Commons image source
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