After months of planning, design, and development, you’re finally ready to launch your website. Reaching this milestone took months of diligent work and is an achievement worth sharing — don’t just go live and hope people stumble across your new site!
You should spend some time strategizing the best way to prep your site for launch, then methods to announce your website. In this blog, we’ll share tips both for the launch and for the promotion of your new website.
Pre-Launch Tips
Follow these guidelines to ensure your website launch is a success.
Don’t Skimp on Testing
Testing, or quality assurance, is the process during your website project where you put your new site under a series of tests and user scenarios to uncover any bugs or issues and rectify them before going live. You wouldn’t want your visitors to spot a typo or a broken link while enjoying your new site, would you?
To make sure you cover all your bases, have your development team, as well as other random people in your company, test all your pages, links, and other functionality across web browsers and devices.
We test:
- Browser compliance - Run each unique template through a screenshot test, ensuring each modern browser renders the site correctly.
- Live testing - Screenshots aren’t enough. We live-test each site in the two most recent versions of each major browser.
- Functionality testing - If your site has any animation, we thoroughly test it on multiple computers to ensure everything works correctly and that the expected outcome(s) always occurs.
- Content review - This is mostly for the client to review, but we also go over the site content. We’ll guarantee meta tags, page content, links, proper email notifications on forms, lead nurturing workflows, author bios, and more are all in place.
Update Materials to Avoid 404s
Even after you’ve ensured you’ve redirected everything or updated all your links appropriately, some items may go overlooked and cause 404 errors. Typically, these items include sales and marketing materials that link to content anywhere on your site.
Link up with your departments to audit all the live content in your CRM/marketing automation platform on your current website, which could cause an issue if not updated.
Choose a Day
Once you’re sure that your new site is ready, pick a launch date and prepare for the big day. If you like, you can even narrow down the exact time your site goes live. No matter what, alert your entire company when the change is happening so they aren’t sidelined by something unexpected.
It also helps to have your development team or agency you worked with available should any bugs arise.
Website Launch Day Tips
It’s launch day! Now it’s time to promote your website through a variety of mediums.
Press Release
A press release is a surefire way to announce a new and improved website. You’ll receive legitimate backlinks from various news organizations and help drive traffic to your new site. You’ll have to pay for the press release, but it’s an effective way to make major company announcements.
Emailing your existing database of contacts or customers and informing them of your updated website is recommended. These are people familiar with your brand and interested in your product or service. Why not let them know you are improving all aspects of your company, including your website?
Email is also an excellent way to segment your database and highlight different aspects of your new website to different groups of contacts. Has your client login button moved? Better tell your regular customers about that. New look for your blog? Be sure to let your blog subscribers know.
Blog Post
A detailed blog post highlighting all the new functionality of your website not only provides fresh content for your blog but also serves as a built-in press release for your website. Detail the reason for your new website, any improvements made, and what’s to come if you plan to release your website in phases.
Video
A video, whether it’s an instructional walkthrough of all the new changes on your site or an interview with your CEO or director of marketing about the website, will help highlight your new website for visitors. Video interviews add a personal touch and give a behind-the-scenes view of what it takes to revamp a site completely. Put it on social media to boost engagement metrics!
Social Media
People spend so much time on social media that it only makes sense to meet them where they are. Add screenshots of your new site to boost engagement metrics, and describe the why and what of your new website. Make sure you give people a reason to click through!
Traditional Media
Don’t forget the power of traditional media in spreading the word about your new website. Whether it’s a radio or TV ad, don’t be shy about asking listeners or viewers to visit your new website. You can even encourage them to redeem a special discount or offer by visiting a particular section of your website. Many people use the second screen on their mobile device to browse websites or research companies while watching TV or listening to the radio — use these browsing habits to your advantage!
Pro Tip: Invite Feedback
No matter how you announce your website to your prospects and customers, ask them for their feedback and opinions on your new site. Some of the functionality may make sense to you but not to them, which would constitute the need to take another look.
Need Help With Your Launch Strategy?
After all the hard work that goes into a new website, make sure you have a strategy in place to ensure your launch goes smoothly and that everyone knows about it. For any assistance with creating a website, a launch strategy, or an inbound marketing strategy to go along with your new site, reach out today!
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