02 May Go-live Website Process
The digital age has brought about a great importance in having a strong website presence and an even greater importance in updating and redesigning to ensure an improved user experience.
When developing and designing websites, we found a valued importance in explaining the website Go-Live Process to our clients.
Setting up your Website
Gaining insight into your clients’ goals and visions, not only for the prospect of the website but their company, is imperative. This ensures that the website is in line with the company’s ‘voice’ and ensures it is the best representation of the company.
The first step to website development is domain registration, and any parked domains, if needed, we will advise and set up a web host. Always ensure that your domain name is registered in your name (being the client) and not that of the agency or IT company– find out why.
Before Going Live
- Security Software & Configure
Security of the website is a critical component, especially when going live. We have specific security plugins and components that are installed to ensure that there is proper defence against attacks, provided the components and plugins are kept up-to-date.
- Build up
More often than not, the website templates include dummy content, as it is the only way to realistically showcase the template to the client. This content is replaced with new and relevant copy, data and images in the process of going live.
- Cross Browser Checking
Prior to going live and once design is complete, a full check of the compatibility and the look of your website across different browsers and devices is done. This tests that all platforms are fully responsive and compatible as well as ensuring that your website displays well on all browsers and a variety of screen sizes.
Footers are all checked and changed on the website to ensure Copyright© notices and Rights Reserved are clear and correct to protect the internet content under our licenses.
- Website SEO
A check is done to verify that the website has all the basic SEO’s and that fields are populated. The titles of your web pages are very important for scoring higher ranks in Google Search. Hence, the importance of ensuring that all meta titles of your web pages are uniquely written and change with every web page. Make sure that you have at least one keyword per content page in order to gain higher SEO ranking on Google. This involves top level SEO and no deep SEO at this point, unless requested.
Checks are done on the following:
- Site name
- Page name
- Page titles
- Meta descriptions
- Meta keywords
- Google Analytics
When your website goes live, you’re going to want to know who visits it and how they found you. Tracking codes are added to the website through Google Analytics and each page is tested. This tracks and reports on the website traffic and other conversions to ensure that the website is achieving its highest potential.
- Final Check
Check that the links in your website go somewhere meaningful — and avoid 404s. This includes all tabs, as well as copy, that link to your pages. Additionally, check that all third-party items are connected to the proper accounts.
- Back up
The final step before going live is to ensure that no work is lost in the process. Therefore, backup software is installed just before making a website live, or moving it out of a development environment, and the website is backed up. This ensures that nothing is lost during the move, if it is unsuccessful, for some reason.
Once Live
Once the site has been approved by the stakeholders, the site will be launched. The sitemap that was created using basic SEO steps is submitted to inform Google about the pages. A webmaster toolkit, also known as search console account, is set up and entities below are linked:
- Google Search console
- Google Analytics:
A monthly auto report is set up from Google Analytics which is sent on the first of every month, to the TNNG/respective agency and the client, for monitoring. This will report on where improvements should be made for the SEO and what adjustments need to be made.
- Sitemap
This is an essential page for the website set up. Creating a sitemap is the easiest way to ensure that all the key pages have been considered, showing their relationship to each other and clarifying how the site’s overall navigation should be structured. The sitemap is set up dynamically with software, so it’s a constant changing sitemap or ‘live’ sitemap. This means that if a page is added or removed from the website then the adjustment will automatically be submitted.
The Handover & Maintenance
A handover is done with the client to take clients through their website. Since they have only seen the development and building process, they won’t understand where everything is on the site.
We will show where the ROI points are, show clients what their site will look like on different devices and take the client through training, if budgeted for, to familiarise yourself.
A continual maintenance contract then begins, this ensures that software is up-to-date to avoid security risks and that the site is running smoothly.
Hello World!
Now that your site is live, tracking, secure, rerouted and tested, it’s time to introduce it to the world! Continue tracking for the next few months for a more accurate website performance report in Google Analytics. Keep your website content up-to-date and interact with your customers.
TNNG creates beautiful mobile-responsive websites, focusing on design, content, usability, conversions and simplicity. Our senior team of web developers provides a user experience like no other to ensure a smooth customer journey maximising your online sales.
Contact us for web development!
Talicia Dalais
Junior Creative Copywriter
★TNNG★