Site launch checklist

I was recently asked for a checklist of essential items to check on a website before it launched. So I have shared it with you all here:

Page titles
You should know by now that every page must have a page title. It's what appears in the top of the browser for that page and how it gets shown by default as a bookmark or Social Media post.
However it is also a key Search Engine Optimisation ranking factor, so ensure that it is relevant, the right length (approx 55 characters including spaces seems to be fine) and ideally unique across your new site. There is also a significant consensus in the SEO community that the keyword you are targeting for this page should be as close to the beginning of this title as possible.... but I will leave that for you to assess the value of.
Also since Google usually displays just the first 50–60 characters of a title tag, I would keep to that range without very good reason.

Meta data / Meta tags
These have grown in the number and function they perform over time, with some having a bearing on Social channels and SEO. But the key one here is Meta Description.
I'm not going to give you advice about what to exactly write in this field... as I've covered it in so many other blog posts. However, ensure that have a description on every page (correctly placed inside the <head> of the page). Plus consider that the current average length of the description field for desktop results is around 160 characters, whereas an average of 130 characters for mobile seems to be the best.
Note: Ignore using Meta Keyword tags

Sitemap
This little text file (mostly named sitemap.xml) usually sits in the root directory (or obvious sub-directory) of your site. It is a tried & tested way to tell search engines which pages are available for them to be crawled. It does this by giving a list of URLs for every public page in the site along with extra metadata about them.

Robots.txt
This little text file (all lower-case only please) should sit in your root directory of your site. It is usually the first file a search engine bot checks on a site and is there to tell all or individual bots what they are NOT supposed to do. For example, they are supposed to ignore certain directories or files.
So in this way it is the opposite of a sitemap.xml file and care should be taken to not have pages in both.
Note: some search engines may ignore the robots.txt so do not use this as a way to  hide site content or data you definitely don't want found.

Redirects
When launching a new site, URLs can change.
At the most fundamental level, this can mean a change of domain (e.g. brandx.com to brand y.com) or a change of sub-domain (e.g. blog.brand.com to brand.com/blog). So sites should ensure they understand and handle all redirects correctly at new site launch.

6 Ways To Harm Your Business When Updating Your Website

Updating and redeveloping an organisation’s website is almost an inevitability these days. Whether the aim is to add new content sections, comply with legislation, provide a new ‘look & feel’ or because of business changes (such as merger & acquisitions)… a web presence is likely to go through some form of significant change or two in its lifetime.

But the way in which you upgrade and rebuild your site can have a big effect on your business, and more specifically how your rank organically in the major search engines. Organic traffic for most sites makes up between 30% to 50% of all visits and applying changes that affects this traffic means you get less visits, leads or conversions.

So here are 6 of the biggest ways to harm your online search traffic and therefore your key online business metrics in the process:

1. Change the domain
   Your organisation’s domain is a brand asset and changing it means losing all the search engine reputation it may have built-up over time. On the flip-side, if your domain has been significantly tainted by bad (black hat) SEO practices in the past, it may be best to start from scratch again with a fresh URL. 
2. Change the user experience
   A change in the site design, the navigation, the directory structure you use and many other factors can influence how your site ranks. 
3. Change the content
   Not all online content is created equal. The way your copy is written can have a major influence on how your site is indexed and then ranked online.. from its relevance to the search term(s) to the way the text is structured. However, a new web presence is an opportunity to review all of your content (including your images and the meta content behind the scenes). 
4. Change the hosting platform
   Migrating from one website host to another may seem like a simple task. But where and how you host your website can have an effect on how you rank in Google, Yahoo, etc. especially if the hosting is slow or not located in the country / region where your customers (and target search engines) are. 
5. Ignore web standards
   It takes hard work and determined effort to deliver a new website, especially if you have tight timescales to deliver to. And the area that can get compromised include: the quality of the code, the compliance to accessibility, the use of ‘alt’ tags for image alternatives, etc. In other words, a failure to follow web standards can have a negative impact on your site’s rankings in search engines.
6. Re-launch it incorrectly
   Sites fail to launch properly in all sorts of ways, from failing to cut-over all content correctly through to not getting the new site indexed in Google as quickly as possible… you are never going to get a second chance to make a first impression on the main search engines.

So I have a mobile app developed - now what?

In today's final guest post from Mark Walsh from Nation of Apps, he answers questions on the important subject of what to do once you have your mobile application actually developed for you.

Do I need to promote my mobile app once it has been launched?
Well actually, the promotion should start before launch so that you have already generated interest in the app and your target audience are waiting in anticipation. Once the app has been launched you then have about a week to really push it and take advantage of being featured in the ‘new app’ sections of app stores. After this, you need to follow an ongoing programme of activities to maintain interest in your mobile app.

So how do I go about promoting my app?
There are a number of ways to promote your app and many depend on the type of app and target audience. Some ideas are:
- Consider a website to promote your mobile app
- Consider the use of social media to promote your app : Twitter, Facebook
- Present a YouTube video
- Post blog entries on your and other people’s blogs
- Consider getting app reviewers to review your app at launch to generate interest.

What if my app doesn’t work properly and I need to get it modified?
If bugs are found, resilience is poor, users are having navigation issues etc. then it is possible to get the application developers to make the necessary changes and re-deploy the app.
However, if this proves to be the case, you may well have missed the boat as it is likely users will have stopped using the app and maybe even deleted it. The app will also probably get bad reviews which will impact future uptake. It will be very difficult to recover from this and that critical week 1 impact will have been lost.
This is why thorough app testing is vital. Prior to launch, not only must the app be tested for technical issues but it should be tested by the target audience to ensure they ‘get it’. They need to know exactly what the app does without having to stop and think, be able to navigate easily, and achieve the desired result intuitively.

Mark's details:
company site: http://nationofapps.co.uk/
blog : http://www.nationofapps.co.uk/news-mobile-application-development.html
Twitter: @nationofapps