Before you go live with a new website, you need to spend time in planning and perform tests at each level to minimize problems and to avoid SEO disaster. The following is the complete website launch guide that I have categorized into TWO:
1. Before the Launch:
2. After the Launch:
Steps are Taken Before the Launch
1. Benchmark Your Current Site Stats
Before launching a new website, benchmark how your site is currently performing in Search Engines. Domain authority, number of paged indexed by search engines, cache date, crawl errors reported in GWT are very important and will allow you to observe essential analytics during the launch process.
You can note down the updated data by creating a table in excel after the launch.
2. Register in Webmaster Console
You should register the new website with Google Console tools and Bing Webmaster tools, in order to increase the process of being indexed by major search engines — Google and Bing. By registering the website you can track crawl errors & optimization issues quickly.
3. Canonicalization
Choose the best URL for content when there are several options on a webpage. Following example URLs that most people consider for the same webpage:
http://xyz.com
http://www.xyz.com
http://www.xyz.com/index
http://www.xyz.com/home
You have to select domain with www. or without www., because technically all these URLs are different and creates site-wide duplication issue. To fix this issue, you need to pick the preferred URL and redirect (301) all content and links to the preferred domain. Google does not have features to choose which URL is best, just provided that you are reliable with it.
4. Create a ‘Coming Soon’ Page
Upload a ‘coming soon’ page on your new domain with some content that explain about you, before you launch a new website. By doing so you allow Search engines to start to crawl and index the new website. Basically you are telling search engines that your site is real and not just parked and this should be finished 7-8 weeks earlier to the website launch.
5. Upload Unique Content to Your New Website
The next step is to write unique content for each web page of your website and upload it. You can use relevant and appealing images that will make your web page more attractive and understandable.
6. Create Unique Title and Meta Descriptions for Each Page
Create title tags, Meta description and H1 tags for each page and make sure all tags are unique. Using some tool, you can view missing and duplicate metadata as well as short or long metadata to ensure your site is optimized for search engines.
7. Set Up Google Analytics:
Set up Google analytics by placing tracking script before closing tag to monitor website’s traffic. Google Analytics has many important features like event tracking, goal tracking, site search, webmaster tools integration, e-commerce tracking etc.
Steps are Taken after the Launch
1. Check for Broken Links
Check website for broken links using reliable tools like broken link check and fix the broken links that are reported. You can also check GWT for crawl error.
2. Submit XML Sitemaps
Create xml sitemap for your new website and submit to webmaster tools. You can also include the sitemap in robots.txt file.
3. List Website in Local Listings
Add your new website to local listing directories that will provide backlinks and also help to get local traffic as well. Google+ local page, Yelp, DMOZ, Yell, Get listed are popular sites.
4. Promote Website on Social Media Websites
Promote your new website on popular social media channels such as facebook, twitter, Google+, pinterest etc. Social media is the great resource for referral traffic that helps spread your launch website.
5. Test Your Website Speed
Test you website speed, using Google’s page speed insight tools. Improve your website speed score up to 90 out of 100 by following instructions given.
6. Make Responsive Design for Mobile View
Mobile users are increasing day by day so it is very important to make your website mobile friendly. Responsive design is the best option in place of buying mobile domain.
