10 Things to Know When Launching a Website

If you own a business in the 21st century, it’s imperative that you have a website. After all, the vast majority of your potential customers are online and are likely using the internet to find businesses similar to yours. If your business doesn’t have a website, it’s missing out on countless customers.

However, before you rush to your computer and start throwing a website together, you need to stop, breathe, and think about a few things. Only then will you be able to build a website that is functional, attractive, and effective.

Curious as to what you need to think about? Without further ado, here are 10 things you need to know when launching a new website.

1. Your CMS Is Important

The first thing you should know before launching your website is that your CMS or content management system is important. Not only will your CMS affect the functionality of your website, but its SEO as well.

For this reason, it’s vital that you choose a reputable CMS. At the present time, the top CMS in the world is WordPress, an open source management system which is both versatile and functional. At Drive, we focus on WordPress and our custom developed Marketing Milk Web Builder Pro content management systems. Other popular content management systems include Shopify, Joomla and Drupal.

2. Planning Is Key

A website is a complex entity consisting of a web of different pages and elements. As such, its creation must be planned carefully.

Before you start throwing your website together, you need to sit down and draw out different design elements. Decide on the pages that will exist, the widgets that you’ll use, and content that you’ll create.

Once you’ve planned these aspects of your website, you can set out to make them a reality. While you’re still bound to experience a few hiccups throughout the design process, you’ll at least have a foundation to work off of.

3. You Should Optimize for Search Engines

Having a beautiful website is great, but if it never gets visited, it’s all for nothing. For this reason, you should optimize your website for search engines with the use of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This is a process in which you attempt to get your website to rank high for specific keywords in search engines like Google.

Why should you prioritize SEO? Because the websites which rank on the first page of Google stand to see a substantial increase in web traffic. Over time, this increase will lead to increased sales for your business.

Need help with SEO? Consider utilizing the help of a professional.

4. Web Design Matters

While the content contained on your website is perhaps its most important aspect, its design matters as well. After all, if your website looks like it was last updated in 1999, web users aren’t going to spend a lot of time perusing it.

Though it’s possible for businesses to design their websites on their own, they’re generally advised to utilize the services of professional web developers. Professionals know what does and doesn’t work in terms of design, and are more than capable of turning design trends into realities.

5. Copy Can Make All the Difference in the World

Often times, new web developers get so caught up in the look of their website that they forget the importance of content. In order for a website to thrive, it must contain intriguing, attractive, and informative copy.

The purpose of web copy is to sell the website, to demonstrate value to visitors, and to, ultimately, make sales. Unfortunately, creating good web copy isn’t easy. For this reason, businesses often opt to hire professional copywriters to handle the task for them.

6. Testing Is a Necessity

There is a great deal of programming code involved with a website, regardless of whether or not you’re directly writing the code yourself. Unfortunately, even the slightest mistake can render code useless, causing your website to malfunction. Because of this, testing is a necessity.

There are all types of testing that need to be performed, including security testing, UI testing, functional testing, documentation testing, and mobile-friendly testing, to name just a few. These tests should be performed on a regular basis. Failure to perform testing could result in a portion of your website malfunctioning without your knowledge, impairing the user experience.

7. Technical Issues Will Arise

While testing regularly helps to reduce technical issues, it rarely eliminates them entirely. Technical issues will arise, regardless of what you do to prevent them.

A website is not a set-it-and-forget-it entity. It must be watched vigilantly and corrected over time. If you’re getting ready to publish a website for the first time, just know that there will be much more to do in the future.

8. Mobile Compatibility Is a Must

These days, over half of internet usage is conducted on a mobile device, most typically a smartphone. Unfortunately, the way that a website presents itself on a computer is different from how it presents itself on a mobile device. Because of this, web creators must take steps to make websites mobile-compatible.

Failure to make your website compatible with mobile devices will result in a substantial loss of traffic. Not to mention, it will hurt your SEO.

9. Analysis Leads to Success

A big part of running a successful website is analysis. By analyzing the traffic that comes to your website, you are able to become more knowledgeable of your website. Using this knowledge, you can make improvements to your various pages, drawing more visitors in.

There are all types of web analysis tools out there, each of which can help you to optimize your website. These include Google Search Console, SEMrush, and many more.

10. User Experience Is Everything

The last thing to remember when launching a website is that user experience is everything. The entire point of your website is to attract and retain web traffic. If it doesn’t do that, it’s a failure.

This is most important to remember when designing your website. While a specific design element might look cool, if it distracts or confuses visitors, it does more harm than it does good.

Need Help in Launching a New Website?

Are you on the cusp of launching a new website? Need a little help getting it underway? If so, we here at Drive Social Media are the people to see.

We offer a range of digital marketing services, including web development, SEO, email marketing, and more. Sporting a team of experienced and dedicated professionals, we’ve helped numerous businesses to successfully launch their websites.