Your website is finally ready to launch!
You’ve spent weeks (or maybe even months) working on your website. All your hard work has paid off and you can’t wait to show the world what you’ve been working on.
But before you push that big red launch button, there’s one more important task to take care of: testing.
Website Testing is an Important Tedious Task
Testing might seem like a tedious task, but it’s actually essential for ensuring that your website is ready for prime time.
By taking the time to thoroughly test your site, you can identify any potential issues and make sure that everything is working correctly. Additionally, testing can help to improve user experience by identifying areas where users might get confused or have difficulty navigating.
Don’t make the mistake of rushing through the testing process or taking shortcuts. Rushing rarely ends well, and it’s often better to spend a little extra time making sure everything is perfect before launch.
After all, once your website is live, there’s no going back!
When building websites for our clients, we always run through our checklist below before making the site public. This helps to ensure that we’ve covered all our bases and that the website is ready for launch.
Key Factors to Test
We’re not going to through our whole checklist here (that would be a little too tedious), but we’ve highlighted some of the key items that you should make sure to test before launching your website.
Content
“Proofread, proofread, proofread!”
This should be your mantra before launching or publishing your content, let alone your website.
Why proofread everything? There’s probably nothing worse than your shiny new content or website going public, only to find out that there are typos everywhere, or worse, factual errors.
Not only do these make you look unprofessional, but they can also be confusing for users causing people to question your credibility.
Make proofreading a part of your content creation process, and don’t launch your website until everything has been checked and double-checked.
If you’re not confident in your proofreading abilities, ask a friend or colleague to take a look at your content before launch. It’s always better to have someone else give it a once-over to catch anything you might have missed.
If you work alone, try using the built-in tools from your favourite word processor or try apps like Grammarly to help avoid any typos or grammatical errors.
Readability
Once you’re satisfied that your content is error-free, take a step back and ask yourself:
- Is this content easy to read?
- Is the copy clearly conveying your message clearly?
- Is it organised?
- Is it structured in a way that makes sense?
- Does it flow well?
These are just some of the questions you should be asking yourself when assessing your content’s readability.
People often skim-read content online, so it’s important to make sure that your content is easy to scan and digest.
Some tips to improve your content’s readability include:
- Breaking up large chunks of text into smaller paragraphs
- Using headlines and subheadings to help readers navigate your content
- Highlighting key points with lists, bullet points or bolding
- Adding images, infographics, or videos to break up the text and add visual interest
If you’re not sure how readable your content is, try reading it out loud or ask someone else to read it for you. This can help to identify any areas where the copy is unclear or difficult to follow.
Visuals
Check that your images, videos, and other visual content are displaying correctly and that they’re optimised for the web.
Images that are too large or not compressed for the web can take forever to load, which is frustrating for users. This means they should be the correct file type, size, and resolution.
Also, make sure that your images are relevant and add value to your content. Adding random images just for the sake of it will only serve to clutter up your site and make it look unprofessional.
The same goes for videos. If you’re embedding videos from YouTube or Vimeo, check that they’re displaying correctly on your site and that they’re not set to auto-play. Auto-playing videos can be annoying for users and might cause them to leave your site. Also, auto-play is not good for accessibility as it can impact the user experience of those using screen readers.
Make sure that the visuals are high-quality and relevant to your content. Blurry or low-resolution images will make your site look unprofessional and might turn users away. This is especially important for ecommerce sites as product images are often what help to sell the product.
Responsiveness
Test to ensure that your website is optimised for different screen sizes.
Mobile devices are now the most popular way to access the internet, so it’s important that your site is responsive and easy to use on mobile.
Some things to check for include:
- Is your content easy to read on a small screen?
- Are your buttons and links sized correctly and easy to tap on mobile?
- Does your site load quickly on mobile?
- Are your images displaying correctly on mobile?
- Is your content easy to navigate on mobile?
You can test the responsiveness of your site using online tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Even better, if you can, test on actual devices to get a true sense of how your site looks and feels on different screen sizes.
Navigation / Links
Make sure that all of your links are working and that users can easily find their way around your site.
Another thing to test is the functionality of your links.
Check all of your links to make sure that they take users to the intended location. Broken links can frustrate users and cause them to leave your site, so it’s important to fix any broken links before you launch your site.
It’s not a good experience when you follow a link and get an error message, so make sure that all of your links are going to the correct place.
Speed
No one likes a slow website. Not only will it frustrate visitors, but it will also impact the user experience. Make sure to run a speed test before launching your site to see where you need to make improvements.
There are a number of online tools you can use to test the speed of your site, including Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
Set a speed budget and make sure that your site loads within that budget. If it doesn’t, you’ll need to figure out where the bottlenecks are and how to improve the speed.
Conclusion: Avoid Common Website Launch Mistakes
These are just a few of the things you should test before launching your website. By testing your site before launch, you can identify any issues and fix them before they impact your users.
Not only will this improve the user experience, but it will also help to ensure that your site is successful once it goes live.
We’ve only highlighted some key items to test, and there are many more things ranging from accessibility to SEO.
For now, we hope this has been helpful and that you avoid common website launch mistakes!
Take the time to test your site thoroughly with a checklist before you launch it. It will be worth it in the long run!
Recap
- Website testing is an essential step for ensuring a successful launch.
- Content should be thoroughly proofread to avoid typos and factual errors.
- Content readability should be assessed, with steps taken to improve if necessary.
- Visuals should be checked for relevance, quality, and optimisation.
- The website’s responsiveness across different screen sizes should be tested.
- All links need to work correctly and take users to the correct location.
- Site speed should also be tested before launch.
Limitless Networks, A Kerry Web Design Company
We offer professional website design and development services that will help you achieve your business goals. We’ll work with you to create a website that is both stylish and functional, and we’ll make sure that it meets all of your requirements.
To find out more about our services, or to get a quote, please contact us today. We would be happy to discuss your project with you and answer any questions you may have.
