The 10 steps to launch your website

The time has come, you want to launch your website to boost your business and you don’t want to make any mistakes? For an optimal launch, it’s important to follow certain steps that can save you time and money! We explain the ten steps to launch your website!

Before launching your website

To simplify the different steps, we’ll group them into two main parts: the first covers the steps to implement before launching the site, and the second covers the steps to implement during or just after the website launch.

Let’s start with six steps you must absolutely complete before putting your site online.

1- Define your website’s goal before launching it

This may seem obvious, but your site’s goal must be clearly defined. You need to know the exact purpose for which you want to create a website, what it will bring you, what you’ll gain from it. For example,to sell services, sell a product, share information, etc.

Your website’s goal must be clear and achievable so you can create all your content in line with it.

Depending on your site’s goal, you can choose different types of websites: a showcase site, an e-commerce site, a one-page site, a blog, etc. Each format has its own purpose.

2- Target the right audience from your website’s launch

Depending on your goal and the audience you want to target, you need to adapt your website. If you’re targeting a B2B or B2C audience, your site won’t be presented the same way. Text content, graphics, tone, user journey, all these elements must be carefully tailored to your target audience.

So start by defining a precise persona and base your website launch on it.

3- Write a specification document to launch a high-quality website

To launch a website that perfectly meets your expectations, draft a specification document. The specification should include as much information as possible about the purpose of your site; it will help the developer design the website of your dreams. For example, in your specification, you can detail: the site’s purpose, the type of website, required features, graphic elements to use, number of pages, content organization, brand guidelines, things to avoid, etc.

The specification document is an important file that streamlines development by providing the developer with clear guidelines to build the site exactly as you envision it.

4- Test your site before launch

Once your site is developed, don’t forget to test it thoroughly before going live! Test the entire site. Simulate user navigation, put yourself in the users’ shoes, test links, buttons, and verify that everything displays correctly and in the right place. Ensure no pages are missing and that there are no 404 errors.

Launching a high-quality website will reassure early users and increase the likelihood they’ll return.

5- Check the technical aspects of the site before launch

Before launching your site, it’s crucial to ensure there are no technical issues.

To do this, you can verify basic elements such as HTTPS presence, necessary redirects, responsiveness across desktop, tablet, and mobile formats, and finally, page load speed, which should not be too slow.

That list is worth turning into verifiable checks, done once and for all before going live. On HTTPS: redirect all HTTP traffic, then set the Strict-Transport-Security header so the browser never tries the unencrypted version again. On redirects: if the site replaces an existing one, every old address must point with a 301 to its equivalent page, not to the homepage. On performance, three thresholds published by Google, measured at the 75th percentile of real visits and separately on mobile: LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, layout shift under 0.1. Three numbers you can hold a supplier to, unlike “the site must be fast”.

If any of these elements are not up to standard, it’s important to fix them before going live, as they could impact the site’s performance from the start.

6- Set up traffic tracking and analytics tools

You’re almost there! The final step before launching your site is to implement tracking and analytics tools. You can start by setting up Google Analytics and Google Search Console, which will allow you to monitor traffic from the very first visit.

One detail governs the legality of this step, and it is settled in one line of configuration. Audience measurement escapes the consent requirement only within a narrow frame: the French data protection authority exempts trackers strictly necessary for the site to work and, under conditions, audience-measurement ones, purpose limited to statistics, no cross-referencing with other processing, no transmission to third parties, limited lifetime. Google Analytics in its default configuration does not meet those conditions. The script must therefore not load until the visitor has answered the banner, and refusing must be as easy as accepting.

If you wish and depending on your needs, you can configure other tracking tools. Just make sure to do so from the start to benefit from the most comprehensive database possible when you need to analyze your traffic. Setting up these tools will also help you detect any errors on the site if they exist.

Once your website is launched

Now that your site is live, you only have four more steps to follow to ensure a perfect launch!

7- Test your site after launch

Once your site is online, test it thoroughly again to ensure everything works correctly and no elements were lost during launch. Test all pages, buttons, links, and forms if any exist. Make sure there are no navigation issues.

8- Monitor your website’s indexing on search engines

A few days after launching the site, check that the pages are being indexed correctly on search engines. For example, on Google, type in the search bar: “site:https://www.your-site.com” (without the quotes). By entering this query, you can see all the pages of your site that are indexed. If some are missing, check that they don’t have any issues. Some pages may take several weeks to index properly; you can speed up the process by adding your sitemap.xml file and requesting manual indexing of pages via Google Search Console.

Two concrete checks beat searching for the company name on Google. First, submit an XML sitemap in Search Console and follow the indexing report: it shows, page by page, what was crawled, indexed, or excluded and why. Second, confirm that no noindex tag survived acceptance testing, the most common launch incident, with the tag set on the staging environment shipping to production along with everything else. Google also notes that a page blocked in robots.txt cannot be deindexed, since the crawler never reads the instruction: to remove a page, leave it crawlable and give it a noindex.

9- Once launched, keep your website updated!

Once your site is live, don’t make the mistake of leaving it abandoned! Publish content on it and regularly update the information. A website that isn’t updated with content and has outdated information will lose credibility and struggle to rank on search engines.

10- Announce that you’ve launched your website!

Final step for a successful website launch: let people know your site is live! Talk about it, invite your network to share it, communicate the launch via social media or ads. A strong share of your site right after launch can boost performance. Don’t skip this step, it can help your site take off faster than you imagine.

The Scroll agency supports you in launching your website

For an easy and 100% successful website launch, turn to Scroll agency. At Scroll, we support you from design to the launch of your website to create tailored solutions that perfectly meet your expectations. Our experts Webflow, develop custom, high-quality solutions on the platform. If you have a project, don’t hesitate to contact us!