Launching a new website can be an exciting moment for any business or individual. However, it is very important to go through a comprehensive checklist to ensure a seamless and impactful launch.
In this article, you will find the essential steps to take before unveiling your website to the world. By following this checklist, you can maximize the potential of your website and leave a lasting impression on your visitors.
In this article:
- User Experience / Website
- E-commerce Functionality
- Client Gallery Functions
- Search Engine Optimization
- Domain Connection and Security
User Experience / Website
This is a crucial aspect of a website that focuses on creating a seamless experience for visitors. Users are less likely to visit a website again if it is not intuitive.
By prioritizing the navigation and user experience, you create a positive and engaging environment that allows visitors to find information easily and navigate seamlessly.
- Language: Check the overall website for spelling and grammatical mistakes and correct them, if any, before the launch of your website and ensure clarity otherwise it could hamper the user experience and trust issues.
- Ease of Access: Enable useful features like Back-to-Top button, Sticky header, Site Search, Menu Button etc. if required. These will help users to navigate on the website easily.
- Navigation Arrows / Breadcrumb Navigation: Enabling this will help visitors to scroll through the images, galleries and folders. These are navigational controls like arrows, chevron, etc.
- Remove Fallback Images : Upload a featured image for all your pages as pages added in folders will be showing fallback image on the folder listing page.
- Password Protection / Maintenance Mode: Make sure to disable maintenance mode from the website and remove password from the pages which you want to be public before launch. Learn more.
E-commerce Functionality
Thoroughly test all your E-commerce features and processes in order to ensure a smoother experience for your customers when you finally launch your website. You can follow these steps to test them:
- Check your Shipping / Taxes: Make sure you have created the Shipping rates and region correctly. Also verify that the Tax Rates have been added.
- Check your Price Lists / Store Product Prices: Ensure that the price lists are accurate for selling images as prints and all the products are priced correctly.
- Check for any Hidden / Unpublished Products: Check the product listing carefully to ensure that only those products are marked as hidden / unpublished, whom you do not want to list on your storefront.
- Check Connected Payment Gateways: Check the payment gateways that are connected to your website and make sure they are working properly.
- Check for Success Message / Email: Make sure you have customized the success message and success email according to your preferences. This is what your customers will receive immediately after placing an order.
- Check E-commerce Order Flow: Place an order to go through the entire process of purchasing as a customer. Check if the products are added to the cart correctly, if the check-out process is smooth, and if the payments are processed successfully.
- Orders once placed cannot be deleted. However, you can mark them as cancelled so it will not affect the accounts and book-keeping.
Client Gallery Functions
Testing all the functions and features of the Client gallery is equally important since your clients will spend a lot of time viewing the images, downloading and sharing them.
- Check Album Settings: Thoroughly go through all the settings of the client gallery to check that they are being displayed as intended. Also, check for their visibility and password settings.
- Check Download / Favorite Settings: Make sure only those images / galleries are downloadable that you want to. Also, check for favorite settings.
- Check Album Flow: Access the client gallery feature as a customer to verify that you can view the images, navigate through different galleries and perform actions like marking images as favorites, sharing albums, downloading images, etc.
- Mobile Gallery Application: Create a test gallery app for mobile devices and review the functionality of the mobile gallery apps.
Search Engine Optimization
This is a key step which must be taken care of very carefully since it will bring global users to your website in the first place. It involves various strategies and techniques aimed at increasing traffic to a website. SEO is an ongoing process and the results may take time to manifest.
- Website SEO: Set up essential SEO settings such as Title tags, Descriptions, URL structures, Favicon, 404 page and other options that are present within the platform. Avoid using random tags and use more relatable keywords and tags.
- Create 301 redirects: If you have any existing website, then you should create the 301 redirects for all the unused pages from your previous website. Read more.
- Social Sharing Image: Upload social sharing image / featured images and enable social sharing options on your content, so that visitors can easily reach to your content and share them with their friends and family.
- Marketing Pop-up / Announcement bar: You can setup marketing pop-ups and announcement bar (if needed) and enable them to display them on your website.
- Mobile Action Bar: You can allow the website visitors using mobile devices to easily connect with you through mobile action bar.
- Image Alt Tags: Make sure the alt tag is applied to all the images uploaded into the galleries so that search engines can understand what the image is about.
- Analytics and Monitoring: Utilize analytics tools like Google Analytics to monitor the traffic your website is getting. With Pixpa, you can integrate these tools easily to your website.
- Social Media Integration: Link your social media profiles to your website which will allow users to connect with you across platforms and also help in promoting your website. Using Pixpa, you can connect all your social media accounts within minutes.
Domain Connection and Security
This is the final step that is required towards launching your website.
- Connect your Domain: You can easily connect your custom domain with your Pixpa website. This will help visitors to remember your website, strengthening it as a brand and serve as an SEO content.
- Keep your Pixpa Account Secure: Choose a strong password for your Pixpa account. Do not share the password with anyone and regularly update it. Avoid using common or easily guessed passwords.
- Right-Click Protection: Enable this feature from the Pixpa Studio to protect your content from theft or unauthorized access. Learn more about this feature.
Once all these steps are checked, you can finally launch your website and show your work to the world. Promote your website on all your social media profiles to gather more attention.