Last Updated on March 6, 2024

WordPress Website Launch Checklist

wordpress website lanuch checklist

Building and launching a WordPress website is, indeed, a tough row to hoe. There are various elements, collectively, responsible for having a complete and successful website. If you want to improve your odds of a momentous outcome; it is a good idea of having a road map of what all things need to be done before the website sees the light of day.

That is precisely what we will offer you, by breaking every information into varied categories, here with this pre-launch checklist for WordPress websites – An informative step by step guide on how to launch wordpress site and making your website an instant success.

Well, as they say, having a WordPress website pre-launch checklist will only help you to carry out things in an effective manner, and that can never be a bad thing.

Why you Need a Checklist

Are you wondering why you even need a WordPress website launch checklist to launch your new WordPress website ? Well, some of the world’s high-stake occupations follow a checklist to perform at the highest level. If it is good enough for them, then it will be for you for sure.

Apart from that, if you have a checklist, it is convenient for you to offload some of the pressure of website making onto a piece of paper. This comes handy in freeing some capacity for creativity, decision making, and various other key elements.

Less thinking and high productivity, what more could you ask for?

The best thing about having a checklist is that you get to break different tasks into smaller pieces, thus making the task less arduous and more organized. While launching a new WordPress website, new technologies and challenges come up time and again and should be a part of your workflow. When you have a step by step checklist, it is much easier to include all these and harder to overlook things that matter.

Besides, it is a satisfying experience to check all the things on your to-do list.

Without any further ado, let us discuss the WordPress website pre-launch checklist. You can also have a look at this go-to list of wordpress site maintainence tasks checklist for more info.

Delete Dummy Content

Wordpress website pre launch checklist - Delete Dummy Content

Content is the heart of a website, and there are no two ways about it. It helps both the users and search engines to get familiar with what your website is all about. Make sure to get the content right from the beginning. Here are some points that will help you with this.

Analyze your website for placeholder text like Lorem Ipsum, and make sure to replace it with actual content.

In case you have downloadables, it is important –

  •  You have proofread them.
  •  They are aptly linked.
  • They are downloadable.

It is very unprofessional to have spelling and grammatical mistakes on your website, so you should double-check your website for mistakes.

However, most themes come with a default page for content that cannot be found, make sure you have also created a custom 404 error page.  Either way, it is imperative to have a page for all those who get onto your website via a broken link.

The layout is vital for any website; it enhances the way your website looks and supports easy maneuverability. Ideally, your website should not have big blocks of text, paragraphs and headings are a must, so don’t forget it.

Contact Page is an important page which is cherished by the visitors. You can use plugins such as – Fast Secure Contact Form, Jetpack, and Contact Form 7 through which your users can quickly get in touch with you.

If you have stand-in visuals on the website, make sure you have removed them with actual images.

You have to ensure that the right files are at the right location, and also, they are functioning properly.

If you want to start your website on a positive note, it pays to have some posts on social network platforms upon launch.

 You have to ensure that no link should be broken, internal links should point where they ideally should, and external links open in a new tab.

Best Duplicate Content Checker WordPress Plugins

CopyScape
Siteliner
Trash Duplicate And 301 Redirect PRO
WP Content Copy Protection

Design

wordpress website design checklist

A good design is something that highlights the content in the best way possible across varied devices. This may require hard work, but in the end, it is worth working for.

Nobody wants to face incompatibilities, so to avoid them, you can use tools such as – W3C’s Markup Validation Service. Using this tool, you can check whether your website pages adhere to the web standards.

You can try reducing the size of the image (without losing the overall quality of the image). This will help improve page load time, most importantly enhance the user experience and SEO. Try RIOT and TinyPNG; they will serve the purpose well.

This is easily one of the most overlooked parts of website design. Having a favicon appearing on a browser tab will give your website a professional look. You can do this with the help of various tools – Favicomatic is one of them.

You can easily make out cross-browser compatibility issues; all you need is to view your website on Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc. Make sure you have a closer look at videos and images.

You have to ensure that the logo of your company is there in the header. It should be linked back to the starting page of your website. This way, the users will not face any problem returning.

It is the need of the hour to have a responsive design. Following are some of the key benefits of having a responsive design –

  • Best possible experience irrespective of the device.
  • Improved offline browsing experience.
  • Lower maintenance needs.
  • Higher conversion rates.
  • Lower bounce rates.
  • Convenient analytics reporting.
  •  Improved SEO.
  • Faster webpages.

To ensure your users have the best user experience, you should test your design on different gadgets i.e. tablets and smartphones and on various platforms such as – Android and iOS.

Having a print stylesheet makes it convenient for the users to get your content onto the paper.

Besides doing manual testing, Google also has a mobile testing tool which you can use, and it offers lots of helpful feedback. All you need is to mention your URL, and the tool will run a complete analysis of your website.

If you are looking for Design your website with premium WordPress themes which are functional responsive and beautiful.Discover Premium WordPress Themes on the awplife Theme Showcase.

WordPress website development Checklist

wordpress website development checklist

As per the experts, if your website is not doing what it is supposed to do, then no amount of content and design can make up for it. Therefore, it pays to check all the functionalities before your users do.

If you have different forms on your website such as survey order, contact, make sure they are submitting the data correctly.

Check thoroughly that social sharing is in place, functions appropriately, comprises of right profiles and platforms. You have to ensure that users can easily get connected with your website on different social platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Enabling Facebook Open Graph metadata, social monitoring tools, and Twitter Cards on your website will only going to benefit you.

Check whether the users receive help messages and do they move on to the right place once they have submitted their data.

If your WordPress website has social, RSS, news, and other feeds, you have to ensure they are functioning properly before you go ahead and launch WordPress website.

In case there are automatic emails on your website, ensure that they are functioning without a glitch.

There are various tools to make out the loading time of your website and what you can do to make it faster. Ideally, the loading time should be below two seconds.

Best Open Graph Plugin For WordPress Website

SEO

Wordpress website pre launch seo checklist

Yes, you want your website to be visible for the search engines as soon as possible. To do so, make sure you keep the following things in mind.

We all are aware of the fact that WordPress is well customized for SEO. If you want to take this to another level, then use popular SEO plugins such as –W3 Total Cache, Google XML Sitemaps.

Check the descriptions, ALT tags, file names of the images for adding keywords. Compress the images so that the loading time is improved.

In case you are using the best SEO plugin, make sure you also have a focus keyword for each post and page. This will make you familiar with the key details of how to optimize them effectively.

Each post on your website should have a unique title, and it should have less than 70 characters as well.

Once you have decided the focus keywords for a website, make yourself familiar with the key tips inside the content analysis. This will prove handy in attaining desired results.

Go for unique and expressive meta descriptions, for each post and page, comprising of the keywords and below the character limit of 156.

You can take the help of various WordPress SEO plugins to set up a sitemap to further share it with different search engines.

It is important to have the permalink structure as per your liking. In addition, the URL of each page should contain the key keyword.

Meta tags should be checked closely for RSS and social feeds. In addition, they should also be checked whether they are proofread, correct, and apt.

Best Seo Plugin for WordPress Website

Marketing

When you are coming up with a new WordPress website, it is imperative to make it influential for both the search engines and the users. The following points will help you to kick off your marketing machine.

Having signup forms in all important places of the website should not be overlooked. Such forms should not be limited to important pages only, but various prompts and popups as well.

Make sure your social icons are complete, function properly, and they link to the right address. Besides, you should also ensure that social sharing is functioning as it should be.

While you are at it, make sure you have checked in and out for any social profile associated with the website for design uniformity and whether the details are correct.

Legal

Legal side of the website building is a very dry topic to discuss, but at the same time, it cannot be overlooked.

You have to ensure that your company details are easy to reach, this will help build trustworthiness amongst your users. It is important to include information like – tax registration etc.

Terms and Conditions are important and should be added. Especially if you are an eCommerce company or dealing with money, this is a must-have.

Most of the times, plugins, images, code, and fonts require a license, make sure they are in place.

You can check with your local attorney for laws applicable to your website along with other legal formalities you need to do such as disclosure of cookie usage/storage.

You can have a copyright statement, on a related topic, if required. If you don’t want to go through the legal hassles, make sure to add them on your website.

There is a probability that your area has legal terms for credit card processing, anti-spam measures, and more. You must be well aware of them, and your website adheres to them.

Moving website to the new server

At this point, the website is in a position to be relocated to its new home. This is where a lot of things are worth considering, and you have to face different challenges as well.

 If you haven’t configured a domain for your new website, this is the right time to do so.

This is where you should have a database ready along with a new user for the new site location.

At this stage, you have to move the data of the website and MySQL database to the new location. You can make your task easier by using various plugins.

Have a closer look to see if the website is displayed like as it should be in the new location. Pay special attention to icons and images.

Check thoroughly if all links are working correctly, they should point to the right addresses, most importantly check whether the secondary pages can be easily reached and they are displayed correctly.

Prepare for the Launch

We have come to the final stage. That said, we still have key things to do.

In case your website is running commercial, it is important to renew your licenses for the new domain.

To make out website performance and to make informed decisions, you need to collect usage data. To make the task easier, you can take the help of various tools, such as Google Analytics, available on the market.

If you have a caching solution, it will help speed up your website. A managed hosting provider will take care of caching for you.

You should get connected to CDN (content delivery network) to get a faster website. You can take CDN services from various managed hosting providers.

At the final stage, make sure you have deleted databases, subdomains, files, and other remnants of the development website.

Best Content Delivery Network (CDN) Software

Backup and Security

wordpress website backup and security

We are still not through. Before you send your website into the twisted world of the internet, you have to ensure it is safe and secure.

If you have traffic on your website, then you are bound to have spam. You can use a number of WordPress security solutions such as Anti-Spam Bee, BulletProof Security, and various others to make things better.

If you have a website, then the login page is considered the most vulnerable part of your website. Therefore, you should do your best to keep it safe. In addition to apt usernames and strong passwords, using the best plugins on the market will help you a lot.

Losing your website and not having a better way of getting it back is one of the worst experiences to confront. Therefore, having a backup solution for your website data is an important WordPress site pre-launch step. A professionally managed hosting provider will take care of the backups for you.

A backup plan can only be fruitful when it is working. So, before you go ahead, you must verify that you have successfully saved your first backup.

It is important to have a safe password. You can also save your password using various password managers such as Dashlane.

Check out this post of managed WordPress hosting pros and cons. You must read about the pros and cons of managed WordPress hosting because it will help you make the right decision of choosing a WordPress hosting at your convenience.

Best WordPress Security Scanners Online:

  • WP Hacked Help
  • Sucuri SiteCheck
  • Wordfence
  • iThemes Security
  • IsItWP Security Scanner
  • Google Safe Browsing
  • WordPress Security Scan

TIP: Install any of these Best WordPress security plugins in 2020 and make your site fully secure and hackproof

Ref: list of best wordpress security scanners

Ready To Launch WordPress Website

We have finally reached the stage to put your website out there. This is the moment you have worked for all this while. So, be prepared and make this happen.

Go to the WordPress dashboard, hit Settings and uncheck the box that says about discouraging the search engines from indexing this website. Otherwise, you will have to wait for an eternity to witness any organic traffic.

In case you have opted to set up a robots.txt file, make sure you have either deleted or reconfigured that file. This should be done so that the search engines are not excluded from the live website.

Having a sitemap should not be overlooked. Later, make sure you submit it to the search engine you want to rank your website on.

Finally, it is time to promote your website and manage it efficiently . This can be done by posting launch Wordpress website content on different social network platforms, emailing to your near and dear ones, and using various other promotional methods. For effective and efficient management of your WP site this wordpress website maintenance  checklist would come handy.

In a Summary:

wordpress website launch checklist

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