After finalizing all your website functionalities and content, the time has come to bring it all online. But before launching your website, you should take some precautions. Read on and discover which steps are necessary to insure a successful start to your website project!

IDENTIFYING AND FIXING BROKEN URLS BEFORE GOING ONLINE

The first step takes place immediately after transferring your website to the production environment. This is the ideal moment to adjust your URLs. Problems are waiting to happen which means you must be sure that all your URLs function properly. You can do this manually if your website consists of only a dozen pages. However, if your website is bigger, you’d better use digital tools. Check out the link here below where you can download software for testing the validity of a URL :  HTTP://WWW.LOGITHEQUE.COM/LOGICIELS/WINDOWS/WEBMASTER/LINK_CHECKER/ 

The software detects possible issues with damaged URLs, files with status 4xx and 5xx, pages with a 302 referral etc.  Analyzing may take between one minute and thirty minutes, depending on the number of pages on your website. Once the damaged URLs are detected you can fix them.

PERSONALIZING PAGE 404

Page 404 is shown when your website displays a page that no longer exists or if the URL has been entered incorrectly. Internet users are often annoyed when they encounter this page. A good reason to personalize this page. The idea is that your visitors know you are aware of the issue and you can inform them why this error appears. At the same time, you can direct him to another page on your website.

There are several specialized tools that can help you to personalize your error page. We recommend using 404PAGE, an efficient and easy plugin.

Unless you know HTML and PHP, we recommend hiring the services of an expert who can personalize your 404 page.

ADAPTING YOUR WEBSITE FOR MOBILE DEVICES

Nowadays a majority of internet users consult the World Wide Web on a smartphone. This has forced Google to include mobile-friendliness into the ranking and indexing of its search engine. This means that you should make sure your website is responsive (suitable for smartphones) before putting it online.

If you use CMS (Content Management System) to create your website, you should take the next steps to make it responsive:

  • save your website before making changes;
  • make sure the CMS is up to date;
  • check whether the personalized CMS themes are suitable for smartphones.

You can execute this final step by opening your CMS admin dashboard. Select your website’s theme and search in the documentation for « mobile », « responsive » or « adaptative ». If you have a test phone, you can copy the URL to TEST MOBILE OPTIMALISATION and check if the website is compatible with mobile phones. You can also use GOOGLE PAGESPEED INSIGHTS to solve for example issues with speed.

More information about the conversion of your website to a responsive model, and other specific elements of CMS-packages, can be found in the official Google manual. Download it from:   HTTPS://DEVELOPERS.GOOGLE.COM/SEARCH/MOBILE-SITES/WEBSITE-SOFTWARE/

We recommend hiring a web-developer for creating a responsive website, especially if you don’t use software to manage your content and your website architecture.

VALIDATING THE CODE AND THE CSS

We recommend always verifying your code, even if Google states that some HTML/CSS errors have no influence on your website performance. You can use software like W3C MARKUP VALIDATOR and W3C CSS VALIDATOR.

The final step is checking your index status and security. And then you are ready to launch your website.

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