Web Design Launch Process Checklist – Comprehensive

By Andrew on July 14, 2016 in Website Launch Tips 

At PaperStreet we are often asked what our process is for launching a new website. Clients wonder what is involved after they give us final approval to push their project live. The process all of our websites go through during the launch phase is fairly extensive and is outlined below.

Final Review

Once your firm gives us final approval of the testing link we will schedule the launch.  We need a minimum of two business days to adequately prepare for a launch.  Depending on our schedule, more than two days’ notice may be necessary.

Launch Scheduling

We only launch websites between Monday and Thursday during normal business hours.  We do not launch websites on Friday due to any unexpected issues that may occur over the weekend (when PaperStreet is closed). PaperStreet only launches websites during normal business hours as modern propagation times ensure the website will not have any downtime.

Our extensive website launch process ensures that our finished websites are polished and ready to go.

Launch Information

In order to launch your new website we need your hosting information as well as Google Analytics login credentials.  This information should have been provided in your project brief (at the very start of the project).  If the information on file is missing or no longer accurate we will contact you for the new or updated information.

General SEO Preparation

As part of our preparation for pushing your website live, we focus on three major technical factors:

1. 301 Redirects – We ensure all pages currently indexed by Google are redirecting to their new pages on the new website.
2. Title Tags – We ensure that title tags were created or transferred from the old website, and that every page has a unique Title Tag
3. Meta Descriptions – We ensure that all meta descriptions are unique.
4. URLs – We make sure all URLs are search friendly.
5. Links – We make sure that there are no broken internal or external links.
6. SEO Review – We perform a final SEO review based on best practices and the most recent industry standards.

Tracking Codes

We transfer over all tracking codes.  If you are currently running a Google Adwords campaign or any form of internet marketing campaign that needs to be transferred to the new website, we will migrate all of the tracking codes as well as the landing pages.  If you are using a third party team we will need them to provide the tracking codes and URLS to the landing pages.  This can include:

1. Google Analytics
2. Google AdWords & Google Remarketing
3. Call Tracking (need to know your vendor)
4. Chat Programs & Pop-Ups

If you have any specific tags or tracking that needs to be transferred, please make sure we have that information prior to launch.  We will try to use existing Google Analytics, but will need login information.

Launch Process

The process for launching a website at PaperStreet is very comprehensive.  We have an internal checklist just for the launch process that typically takes an entire day to complete (depending on the size of the website).  We have included our checklist below so you may reference the tasks being completed during your launch day.

Launch Checklist

You may view our full website launch checklist here.  This is our internal checklist we follow on the day of your project going live.

Website is Live

Once we have finalized processing our launch checklist we will send you a confirmation email containing all of the necessary information to access your new website via the content management system, the contact form database and your Google Account, as well as any additional information that is necessary to share.

If you have any issues post launch, you can see a ticket to helpme@paperstreet.com for support.  We are available to assist your firm.

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