The day is quickly approaching! You have added your content, created your spotlights, and have given everything the once over. Everything seems to be in place, but how to do you know if you are ready to switch over? Use these procedures and checklist to make sure you are ready for your site's big debut.
Website Launch Checklist (or Download the Launch Checklist)
Preparing Documents & Images
Preparing images and documents to transition from the test site to live site
These tasks will only need to be done when working in your test site. Because your current URL will be different from your real site (it will not include test.ucs in the address), your links will break if not formatted properly. The process for doing this is quite simple but will need to be done each time you add a document link or image in your test site. You will not need to do this once your site is live.
Editing an existing document link
1. Navigate to the page that contains the link to a document.
2. Click on the Edit tab above the content window.
3. Double click on the link.
4. Remove everything in the URL before “/sites/….”
• The Protocol should automatically change to “<other>.”
5. Click OK.
6. Select Save at the bottom of the window.
Formatting a new document link
You will add a new document using the current method, however when pasting the link URL you will delete everything before “/sites/...”
Editing an existing image
1. Navigate to the page that contains the link to a document.
2. Click on the Edit tab above the content window.
3. Double click on the image.
4. Remove everything in the URL before “/sites/…”
5. Select OK.
6. Select Save at the bottom of the window.
Formatting a new image
You will add an image the usual way, but you will need to double click on the image and delete everything in the URL before “/sites/…”
Website Launch Checklist
Pre-Launch
Content and Style
- Typography and layout
- Check for incorrect punctuation marks, particularly apostrophes, quotation marks and hyphens/dashes o Check headings for where you could potentially use ligatures
- Spelling and grammar
- Ensure consistency
- Capitalization (especially of main headings)
- Tense/Style of writing
- Recurring/common phrases (e.g. ‘More about X’ links)
- Variations in words
- Treatment of bulleted lists (e.g. periods or commas at end of each item)
- Ensure no test content on site
- Text how important pages (e.g. content items) print
- Ensure important old/existing URLs are redirected to relevant new URLs, if the URL scheme is changing
- Ensure page titles make sense, match linkage, and have relevant keywords in them
Images and Files
- Check PDF files for correct UR
- Ensure all photos are displaying properly
- Hover over images to determine “alt” text appears correctly—update if not for screen readers Ensure all centerpiece and spotlight text does not flow out of designated area
Navigation and Contact
- Test link ability of main logo in banner
- Ensure all links are capitalized and use “&”
- Check main and secondary navigation to ensure links work Test links inserted in body content
- Ensure links to other sites appear in a new tab or window Review footer information for accuracy and links
Functional Testing
- Check all spotlight and centerpiece functionality
- Check search functionality (including relevance of results)
- Check all internal links work
- Check all external links work and are valid
- Check for hard-coded links to staging domain (i.e. ensure all links will change to ‘live’ URL/domain when site is launched)
- Test all forms (e.g. contact us, blog comments), including anti-spam features, response emails/text, etc.
- Check search functionality (including relevance of results)
Post-Launch
Marketing
- Social marketing: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
- Update print materials before sending
- Use new official logo for department, college, office, etc.
Ongoing
- Monitor and respond to feedback (direct feedback, on social media sites, check for chatter through Google, etc.)
- Check with webmaster for analytics to identify problems, popular pages, etc. and adjust as necessary
- Update content