Are you in the market for a new website? Or maybe you’re just considering a refresh of your existing site. Either way, there are some key things you need to do before launch to be sure the process goes as smoothly as possible.
In this blog post, I’ll walk you through our checklist of items to take care of before your new website goes live.
Gather baseline data
If you have an existing website, it’s important to take baseline data to identify the content that resonates with your audience. This data can help inform your decisions about what content to keep on your new website, and what to retire or update. To gather this data, you can use tools like Google Analytics to track pageviews, engagement, and other key metrics. There are also other tools – such as Hotjar, that generate heat maps and give you a real-time understanding of how your website is used by visitors. Understand this, and you’ll be able to make real, beneficial changes to the user experience on your site.
Identify competitors’ sites
This has two benefits. Firstly, you can list what you like and don’t like about these sites. Do competitors use imagery in a certain way? Do you like certain features or layouts? Make some notes to build into your own site.
You can perform an SEO analysis on your competitors. This means you’ll be able to identify the keywords that feature on their site. How much traffic are they receiving? You can either decide to use these keywords on your own site or choose slightly different keywords to rank for on your own site.
Collate your branding information
This includes everything from high resolution logos to your colours and fonts. It is also helpful to know about font sizes if your business has any pre-existing conventions. Can your logo only be placed on backgrounds of specific colours?To give some guidance, the standard paragraph size on a website is 16px.
Create a sitemap
What pages would you like to see on your website? Where do you want them to be linking to? A sitemap should form the plan for your website. It contains the pages you would like to see, which pages link and so on. Have in mind how you want users to be using your site. Be sure your new website pages have the necessary information positioned prominently on the site.
What keywords should feature in your content? Take a look at my guide for keyword research here.
Have in mind future marketing activities
Effective social media marketing campaigns help to drive traffic to your website. What content do you want to be posting on social media? See if you can incorporate some of this content, like blog articles or videos, on your new website.
Does your company have an event or conference coming up? See if you can align the development of your site with the event. This will give you a platform to showcase your new and refreshed website!
Want to refresh your website, or perhaps design an entirely new website? Get in touch or connect with me on LinkedIn.
