Nowadays, we are aware that a company that is not on the Internet loses important opportunities to position itself in the market. The reason for this? Digital consumption is gaining more and more ground and the launch of a website is essential. Especially if we want to start a business or significantly boost the one we already have in place.

Over the last decade, with the explosion and universal access to the digital world, everyone wants to have a good portal on the web. In the beginning, this required a digital specialist to produce the site. However, over the years, creating websites has become a more accessible task. Today, just by exploring a few tutorials on the web, anyone can create a website, having in their hands all the tools required to do so.

But despite the easy accessibility, launching a website is not an action to be taken lightly. While it is true that any business can have a website, it is no less true that making it a success requires training and experience. It is therefore important to enlist the help of specialists and to plan the campaigns that will take place on the site.

Whether we want to expand the business, become known, become an authority in our segment or simply increase sales opportunities, we must always bear in mind that there are a number of factors that influence the performance of a website.

It is not a matter of activating a domain, filling it with content and publishing it. Google indexes everything we publish and, if it detects errors, it can penalise the site and affect its positioning.

In this sense, the following list can be considered a guide to launching a solid, useful and secure website. By means of which our business will achieve the proposed objectives.

Guide to launching a website

SEO AND CONTENTS

• The pages with the most traffic should be included in our list of URLs. From Google Analytics we can export a list of pages with high traffic volume. While from Google Search Console we have the possibility to download a CSV file, with the most linked content.

• Set up a WordPress blog on your website.

• Prior to publishing content, it is very important to update the SEO On Page: reviewing Titles, Meta Description, Headings and Content; to meet the requirements and good practices of organic positioning on the web.

• Also, there must be internal links, containing the keywords of the destination page to which it is linked. It is worth noting that the links must work correctly, in order to prevent common errors such as 404.

• Images should be of high quality and include alt tags, and should contain simple descriptions.

• The loading time of all elements should be kept to a minimum. It is recommended that the files do not exceed two seconds, if so we are facing a problem that must be solved.

DESIGN

• It is necessary to make a comparison between the design we planned and the result of the website, to make sure there are no inconsistencies in terms of size, style, fonts, formats, alignment and content. Content, of course, should also be checked for spelling and wording.

• All images must be compressed for the web, with a minimum of quality and load correctly. It is also necessary that they comply with copyright.

• Check the responsiveness of the website, trying to enter from different devices and browsers.

• All the loading content and other elements of the site should look just as you designed it.

ANALYTICS

• Configure the objectives for the different conversions that we are interested in measuring.
• Install Google Search Console and link it to the Google Analytics account.

• Enable searches within the website (when applicable).

• If our website has SSL, select https both in the property and in the account views.

BROWSERS AND DEVICES

• Check that all forms on the website work properly. For example, that autoresponders and contact messages are sent, that the user is redirected to a thank you page and that Google Analytics records conversions.

• Test the file upload function within the content manager. Verify that there are no permission errors.

• Check if it’s CSS. Experiment with browsing the website in different browsers.Also do it from different devices, looking for HTML and CCS errors. 

• Check that the buttons, and everything that is clickable, work correctly; for example, links to social networks, maps, galleries.

• Confirm that the domain is pointing to the hosting. Check that the DNS and all services are operational, both hosting and email.

• Create constant backups of the site. It is advisable to follow the 3-2-1 rule, which refers to 3 backup copies of the information: in 2 types of storage and 1 copy in another physical site.

• Guarantee the security of the servers, making frequent revisions in search of viruses and malware that put the security levels of the site at risk.

ACTIONS AFTER LAUNCHING A WEBSITE

• Verify that Google Analytics is collecting data. How? By testing the browser of our website/ Browsing our website, we should be able to see ourselves in “real time reporting”.

• Announce the launch of the new website to customers and subscribers with a newsletter.

• Publish on social networks different posts to invite users to visit the new website.

• Communicate the launch on the blog. A post about the new image and the process of creating the new website can be content of interest to our users and help strengthen the brand.

Take advantage of the space in our email signature to add a link that invites people to visit our new website.

The elements presented in this post are just some of those that can guide you if you are looking to have a successful site. It is worth noting that as technology advances, these elements can be expanded even further and, above all, innovations can be introduced.