Monday, December 10, 2007

Last Minute Things to do Before Launching a New Site

If you are like me, you are a content development person or a writer, and not a coder, but there are things you can do to make sure your site looks good and is functional before launch.

  • Cover the basics. Make sure your page titles and descriptions are good. I have seen many sites with a page title of “home page” or “about us.” About who? Try to get your company name in there, for example ABC Technologies: About Us.
  • Make sure your images are labeled. Often images are left with an empty “alt” tag, so when someone mouses over the image or the image does not display alternative text is not displayed.
  • Check all links. Check links in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla FireFox and other browsers if your visitors commonly use them. Also check email links and verify they work, send a sample email to yourself to test.
  • Ask for a third party grammar, spelling and content edit. Often we fail to see our own errors or we think we have conveyed information well, but we have not. Always ask for a third party opinion.
  • Look at every page. Check for good spacing, image placement and so on. Is it easy to read? Can the user learn about your product in the less than three seconds they may visit your page? What stands out?
  • Check dates. Do you need to update any dates or other dated information that you may have written a long time before launch? Are your copyrights current?

After all of these checks and your third party review, you will still find errors, so keep tweaking your site, good luck with your launch.

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