Developing a new website can be challenging, especially when starting from scratch. Here are the practices that can help you ensure success.
Growing your own business requires a proper marketing strategy. And one of its foundations is a website to direct prospects to.
But designing and developing your website is easier said than done. It can be challenging to put all your ideas into practice. And you need to go through a lot to get those ideas off the ground and create a website that will achieve the goals you’ve set.
Now that you have a fully designed website, is the work done?
No, because you’re only warming up. You still need to launch it properly to ensure a good start.
There are many elements to focus on, including your user interface and landing page copy. Every single aspect of the website nee ds to be in place. Not to mention there are also deadlines to meet, optimisations to make, last-minute changes, and whatnot.
There’s a long list of things you need to do before a website launch, but that’s where Automation Agency steps in. We can make this task less complicated.
Many prefer using WordPress to build their own website, and maybe you’re one of them. You should know it’s one of our favourite platforms to work on. Our broad knowledge can help you launch your WordPress website successfully and ensure maximum security for it.
In this article, you’ll learn about the best practices you should follow when launching a website.
The 10 Best Practices
#1 Create a Pre-Launch Page to Occupy Your Domain
You can never start promoting your website too early. If you still haven’t finished everything related to the design or website development, it doesn’t mean you have to wait.
Creating a pre-launch page has several benefits. For starters, you’ll occupy your domain, which may become unavailable if you don’t take action on time.
You can also use this page to promote your business and come up with a “countdown” to the launch of the actual website. This can help you spark the interest of your target audience and warm up some cold leads even before the official release date.
To make this hack even more successful, add a signup box to this pre-launch page. Anyone who’s interested can subscribe and receive a notification when your real website is out.
#2 Make Sure You Choose the Right Website Platform
There’s no single, universally good platform that suits everyone. You will have to pick one based on what your business is about and what you need. Choosing the right platform for your website, whether it’s new or redesigned, can play a crucial role in its success.
The main question is usually related to the comparison of free and paid website builders.
If you’re patient enough to take the long road to good ranking, you can try free platforms. But if you opt for a paid website building services, you may realise it was worth the investment. WordPress, for example, has many benefits compared to free platforms, with good SEO being one of them.
If you want to build a professional website and enjoy all the advantages of a paid website builder, WordPress may be a better choice. Luckily, you don’t need to worry about this, as Automation Agency can help you out. Check out our Concierge Services to learn more about it.
#3 Select an Appropriate Hosting Solution
Hosting refers to technical elements of your website, such as page load speed or availability of redesigns you may want at some point.
It is just as critical for a successful website launch as any other aspect of the building process. However, it’s also an element whose role many people tend to underestimate.
Know that website speed is essential. Your visitors will expect your pages to load within three seconds. If that doesn’t happen, they will likely leave the site.
Hosting is also closely connected to SEO, which is crucial if you want to get to the top of the rankings. That’s why it’s not an element of your website where you should try to save money.
Also, try to think in advance. If your website rises, the traffic will also increase. You’ll want hosting services that can handle it.
#4 Create a Site Map
If you’re replacing your old website design with a new one, mapping out your pages can be helpful.
What does this mean?
Say you have a new website, but you haven’t checked every page before the launch. If your visitor clicks on one of those unchecked pages, it will accidentally redirect them to the old website. It’s something you want to avoid, and mapping out pages for your old URLs will do the trick.
No need to build every single page of your new website from scratch. Just make sure you have someplace you can send the outdated URLs to.
But why do you need to have a map in advance while you’re still building the site? It’s because you can’t set up the redirects before you launch the website.
#5 Connect to Google Analytics
You want your website to keep performing well. To make it happen, you need to track the traffic and regularly analyse your visitors’ behaviour. Measurable results are the only ones that you can learn from.
One of the most reliable ways to track results is to connect the site to Google Analytics. It’s an excellent, free tool that allows you to see how your website is performing. You can gain valuable insight into how your visitors engage with your content. The tool also shows you who your prospects are, where they’re clicking, and what they’re reading the most.
Knowing this information is incredibly important for future improvements to the website. At the same time, you’ll learn what you’re doing well and what practices you should keep implementing.
#6 Make Sure Your Website Has Signup Forms and Clear CTAs
Email marketing is still one of the best ways to generate leads.
When someone visits your website, whether they buy from you or not (yet), it’s crucial to keep talking to them. It helps you gain the trust of customers and prospects you can potentially convert to customers.
That’s why your website should have an email signup form. You can use it to collect your prospects’ emails and send them updates and news about your products or services.
Typically, you’ll ask for a person’s email address and their first name, but you can take a step further here. Ask them for a few more details – maybe their location or birthday. That’ll allow you to write more personalised newsletters and emails within your campaigns.
Another critical element that can move your visitor to take action is a clear CTA. Any piece of marketing copy needs this, as CTAs are proven to really work.
Make your CTA clear and persuasive, but not annoying and too pushy. The sense of urgency is okay, as long as you don’t sound desperate. Also, be more creative than “click here” – let your visitor know exactly what they’ll be doing when they click on the button: read, learn, buy, download, etc.
If your visitor needs to scroll down your landing page to read everything, make sure you repeat the CTA at the bottom. Most prospects won’t bother to scroll back to the top and may give up and leave.
#7 Add High-Quality Content to the Website From the Off
There’s no launching a website without adding a few valuable pieces of content. It’s what makes your visitors stay. You will use many strategies to promote your website, but these alone won’t be enough to keep your prospects once they click on the site.
High-value content is the best strategy for building trust and increasing traffic. If there isn’t any when your visitors check out your website for the first time, it’s highly unlikely they’ll return.
Ideally, you should post at least three quality blogs on your website before the launch. If you can write more, that’s even better – 10 blog posts would be excellent. Long-form posts generate better results, so aim for more than 1,200 words per post and make sure they’re optimised in terms of keywords.
If you’re not sure what to write about, think about what your visitors would like to learn no matter what part of the funnel they come from. These blogs can be tutorials, how-tos, tips from famous and successful people, solution ideas to a problem in your niche, and more.
#8 Don’t Forget Search Engine Optimisation
If your goal is to reach the first page of Google search results, you should focus on SEO to improve your ranking. The key is to enhance your website’s visibility, and there are a few simple things you apply right away.
Do research related to the keywords in your niche. There are lots of free tools that can help you generate and analyse the most relevant keywords related to your topics. Once you have a list, spread those keywords across your content.
Use internal links to direct your prospects to other content on your website. For instance, if you’re talking about the benefits of something related to a service you offer, you can add a link to your landing page.
Use up to 160-character long meta descriptions for the content you publish. These descriptions should be brief and contain at least your primary keyword. Try to include some CTA, which should make the visitor curious about the content.
#9 Network With Influencers in Your Niche and Start Creating Buzz
Working with influencers can help you during the pre-launch phase and even after you launch the official website.
Whatever your niche is, you can reach out to bloggers, journalists, and other social media influencers and offer an exchange. If they like your content or your products or services, they may be willing to share their thoughts about it with their community.
This type of collaboration can help you start the buzz and ensure you’re off to a good start, especially if they have many followers.
However, you don’t want to appear in their inbox out of the blue. Start by letting them know you’re there. Follow them on social media and engage with their content before you ask them to promote yours.
#10 Test the Website’s Usability Across All Devices Before Launch
Bear in mind all the devices your prospects may be using when visiting your website.
Plenty of users still prefer using computers when going online, but times are changing. Because in 2019, more than 50% of all web traffic took place on mobile phones. You can only imagine these numbers are going to grow in the future.
That’s why it’s critical to optimise your website for any device your prospects may use. Those are mobile phones before anything else, but tablets and laptops, as well.
When you’re building the website on your desktop computer, it’s easy for mobile devices to slip your mind. Use this as a reminder to test how your website works on mobiles before the launch. What you should focus on are page and URL rendering, and the mobile-focused mark-ups that’ll make you easy to find by a search engine.
Ready for a Successful Launch
There are a lot of things to focus on when launching a website.
But look at it from the positive side. You actually have plenty of ways to ensure your website is off to a good start!
Apply these practices and make sure your website’s optimised. Offer quality content, include signup forms and measure your results. If you implement this and the other tips we’ve provided, you may succeed sooner than you think.
If you decide to launch your website following these guidelines, Automation Agency can help!
Our web team can build your website, so it’s secure, easy to find on Google, and allows you to track performance indicators. Our design and automation teams can make your website look just like you imagined it and set up processes that will make lead generation easier. Send a task to our Concierge Service to make a start.
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