Congratulations! Your new website is live. Your company now has a brand new online destination. But, that doesn’t mean your work is done. There are a few critical steps your business must follow after the website launch to ensure the success of the project.
A 5-Step Guide to the Post Website Launch Process
1) Make Adjustments and Fix Minor Issues
Web design is a complex art. With elements like content, images, forms and calls-to-action, your website has a ton of individual pieces that interact to make up the whole site.
You may realize after your website goes live that there is an image that needs to be switched out or a detail in an employee bio that must be updated. This is completely normal and easy to fix.
It’s also possible that your new website could have a few minor bugs. However, these are typically ironed-out before the site is launched. Professional web design agencies generally follow a pre-launch checklist that troubleshoots potential issues.
2) Set up Measurement
Now that you have a new site, there are a few additional things to set up to track its effectiveness.
First, you must let major search engines know that your website is live. Google and Bing make it easy for anyone to submit your sitemap for indexing.
Your web designer will also usually install a tracking code that will let you analyze your site’s performance in Google Analytics. This free service will tell you valuable information about your visitors, like what pages they are visiting, what devices they are using and how old they are.
As time goes on, you can watch the size of your audience grow.
3) Tell Everyone about Your New Site
Your website launch is an exciting time. It’s the start of a new chapter in your company’s history. Don’t forget to let everyone know about this new development.
From employees to loyal customers, it’s important to spread the word to everyone through marketing channels, like these:
- Social Media
- Blogging
- Press Releases
4) Optimize to Improve Online Visibility
Today, it’s difficult to compete with other businesses if you can’t be found online. After (or sometimes before) a website launch, there are steps that can be taken to improve your company’s online visibility. Simple tricks, like long-tail keywords and meta descriptions, will help Google and Bing recognize and rank your website on search engine results pages.
5) Create a Marketing Plan
For many companies, a website launch is just the start of creating or updating an online presence. Now may be a good time to begin digital marketing campaigns. Your new site will have marketing tools, like forms and thank you pages, which will help you optimize and track the effectiveness of your email marketing, blogging, social media marketing and more.
Your company’s new online destination is definitely something worth celebrating. But, it is really just the beginning. You will be able to make changes that improve its performance. Over time, your site will grow with your business.
