Thirty Questions To Ask Yourself Before Your Website Goes Live

​Just as social media has become critical to modern marketing, so too has a web presence become critical to modern branding. Most - if not all - customers expect a business to maintain at least a simple website. If yours doesn’t, it’s time to get up and start making one.

But let’s assume you already knew that. Let’s assume you’ve put countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears into crafting a beautiful site, and you’re just about ready to launch. Before you do, there are a few questions you should definitely ask - a few items you should make sure you’ve taken care of.

1. Have you edited your copy for spelling and grammatical errors?
2. Does your site display properly on mobile devices? What about the major web browser?
3. Are your images all properly optimized for the web?  
4. Is your site’s security up to date? Have you installed all the necessary patches for any software you’re using?  
5. Does each page on your site serve its intended purpose? Is there a reason for a visitor to browse a particular page, and would they find what they’re looking for on that page?  
6. Do the pages on your site load quickly enough?  
7. How do your fonts look - is everything in order? Is all your formatting consistent?  
8. Are your URLS short, sweet, and memorable, or are they a garbled mess?  
9. Have you properly configured 404 pages for your site?  
10. Do you have a favicon?
11. Does your website have an accurate XLM/HTML Sitemap?
12. Have you entered proper title tags and meta descriptions for each page on your site?
13. Do you have an answer for periods of particularly high website traffic?
14. Do the credentials on protected pages of your website work?
15. Have you scanned your site for potential vulnerabilities?  
16. What credentials are you using for your site’s administration console? Are you practicing good password hygiene with those credentials?
17. Do all the forms on your site work properly, and are they easily understood by users?  
18. Have you configured automated backups?
19. If you’re integrating social media into your website, is the integration working properly?  
20. Does your site display properly on the search engine results page?  
21. Have you optimized pages on your site for local and keyword searches?
22. Have you set up and configured Google Analytics?
23. Do you have a solution to protect your site against malware and spam?  
24. Do you have a solution that will allow you to monitor your site for performance issues and potential security threats?  
25. Are all your links working properly?
26. Have you set up filters to exclude traffic from your own IP address?  
27. Did you conduct a proper stress test on your site’s servers?  
28. Have you scanned your site for potential legal, trademark, or copyright issues?  
29. Is your site configured with an SSL Certificate?
30. Do you have a plan for announcing the launch of your website?

It’s a pretty long list, sure. But your website is the first impression your business will make on digital consumers. It’s sort of like the resume or cover letter of a job applicant. Just as a shoddy application probably won’t get you a job, a shoddy website likely isn’t going to land you many new customers.