10 Things You Should Think About When Launching A New Website

Launching a new website can be exciting and terrifying at the same time. You will try to carve out a little sliver of the internet to call your own, hopefully finding people that will appreciate the content you bring to the table.

If you haven’t already seen our whitepaper ‘6 STEPS HOW TO PLAN FOR YOUR WEBSITE RE-DESIGN‘ then check it out, it will provide a clear and easy to understand route for launching your new website.

Today we’re trying to bring out a little helping hand with a list of 10 things you should think about when launching a new website – more than just the basics! So, let’s just jump straight into it.

1.   Set up a Test site

This might seem like a strange tip to start out with, but it will prove itself valuable time and time again. The user experience will be the most valuable thing you offer people clicking onto your website. Launching new features, content or formats will bring more value into the equation, but if there are something hidden within giving a bad first impression or making the experience worse for your readers it might cost you traffic. Always set up a test site, most digital marketing agencies and server hosts offer this as a included service where you can launch new features, try out the site for yourself before bringing it live or just have as a test dummy when you want to see how the experience actually is for readers.

2.    Don’t undervalue the Email list

Email marketing might seem like something from the past but collecting people on your list will prove invaluable down the road. There is no better way for bringing traffic to your site, than to put your content directly into people’s inbox. Make sure to promote a signup form on your site early one, either as an integrated part, or as a popup.

3.    Make sure to have content at hand

Before you bring your site live, make sure you have at least 3-5 top quality articles ready to go live. There is nothing worse than a good designed site, lacking content for people to gorge on. Write a few articles strongly related to your niche or focus and have them ready to fly when you go live. This will give people something to read while you prepare the next batch of content. Don’t throw it all out there at once but schedule your content to last. Make a upload schedule that you’ll be able to keep filling up as the site continue to grow.

4.    Start building those backlinks

One of the most important things to any new website is traffic. How do you make the search engines put you in front of people? You create a network of backlinks. Having other sites link to your content is one of the best ways to gain traffic, but how do you make people link to your site? This is where sites such as Help a Reporter comes in handy. You’ll receive 3 emails a day with enquiries from reporter needing sources, if any of your content can be used reply with links to the reporter.

5.    Get started with Analytics straight from zero

Analytics will be key to measure the success of your website. How many people click on your site, read your content and interact with your site? This will all be relevant information when seeking out collaborations, advertisers or just a little bit of motivation for yourself seeing the numbers grow. There is a large amount of providers, but the most commonly used one for several reasons would be Google Analytics or the Monster analytics version of it.

6.    Learn the basics around SEO

You want people to find your site, otherwise why would you publish it in the first place? Typing in anything into a search engine will most likely return you a few million results. So how do you get in front of all the others? SEO, or Search Engine Optimising. This is why we started on those backlinks early on too, it helps with the SEO. Search engines are algorithms and AI that need our help to understand what the site is about, we do this through Keywords, relevant backlinks and metadata. Invest in a crash course in SEO it will be well worth your time.

Getting your website to rank in Google is more competitive than ever. On-page content, performance, social factors and backlinks are all examples of key factors used by search engines like Google to determine which sites should rank highest.

Our FREE comprehensive AI-driven SEO and Website Audit automatically reviews and identifies problems with your website that could hinder ranking performance. Providing a clear, actionable list of prioritised SEO recommendations, you can quickly pinpoint issues, improve website performance and boost search engine rankings.

7.    Advertisement

Most people launch a website to promote a product, sell a service or gain traffic to show them a few well planned ads. We get it, nothing about a website is free and the ads are necessary to make things go around. Be strategic about placement of these ads, make sure they integrate well into your overall layout and don’t put too many. It might be tempting to put as many banner ads as possible onto the site for maximum return, but people being bombarded with ads will less likely return to your site again.

8.    Find the most suitable host for you

Hosting might seem like something any provider can give you and the basic service is pretty universal. You pay someone to put your domain onto their server and host your site. This is also where the similarities often end, there are good hosts and bad hosts out there. Spend some extra time investigating different hosts, trying to map out which provider similar sites use. Location for your target audience and your hosts servers should also be looked at. If you are based in the UK and want brits to click on your site, it would be little help to host the site in America or Asia just to slow it down…

9.    AMP

AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages is probably not something you discuss around the dinner table if you’re not a programmer in university. AMP could be one of the most important things you’ve never heard about when launching your new site. This is because more traffic than ever comes from handheld devices such as tablets and smartphones. Making sure your website is optimised for user experiences from these devices will be a critical part of your development. Don’t slack on AMP, make sure the site looks perfect on both Phone and computer.

10. Domain

You know what you want to publish, where you want to publish it and pretty much how you want it to look. Choose a Domain that can be connected to your website for eternity. Domain is not something we change on a site easily. It should be easy, rememberable but also unique to you and your niche. Unless you already have the perfect domain, finding one should be linked with your branding and strategy from the very beginning. Don’t start out with a generic address such as domain.myveryfirstwebsite.com or other hosting sites, these will rarely succeed.

Whether you’re rebranding or creating a new brand, you will need to update your website and gain an SEO boost, there’s a lot to consider before you begin.

From budgets to business goals, discover the 6 key steps to successfully redesigning your website.

Need more support? 123 Internet Group also offer expert web design and development services to drive more traffic and engage customers with quality branding. Book a free consultation today!