Launching a website on the internet is a crucial step that highlights the importance of refining every aspect of your site beforehand.
You need to make sure that your website is visually appealing on all devices, including mobile phones and tablets, not just desktops.
Moreover, it is crucial that real users can easily find and navigate your site.
This checklist encompasses 14 essential tasks, addressing aspects such as usability, accessibility, SEO optimizations, contingency plans for unforeseen issues, ensuring security with SSL, and enhancing load times through CDNs.
๐ Professional Domain
๐ฐ To give your website a polished appearance, invest in a professional domain.
๐ฐ Avoid utilizing domains such as '.netlify.app,' '.vercel.app,' etc.
๐ฐ While some beginners may find it challenging to budget for a professional domain, it invariably enhances the overall look compared to using a subdomain.
๐ Accessibility
๐ฐ Web accessibility involves creating websites and technologies that are usable by people with disabilities. Put simply, a website should be designed to be inclusive, ensuring that even individuals with disabilities can comprehend, navigate, and engage with it.
๐ฐ When developing a site, various factors need consideration. These include implementing keyboard navigation, utilizing ARIA roles, ensuring sufficient color contrast between text and background, adding alt text to all images, and using descriptive names for links.
๐ SEO
๐ฐ Prioritizing SEO is crucial for your online presence. It enhances your website's standing in search results, ultimately aiming to draw increased traffic and convert those visitors into customers for your business.
๐ Responsiveness
๐ฐ In contemporary web development, ensuring the responsiveness of your website is crucial. Verify that your site displays effectively on various devices such as laptops, desktops, phones, and tablets.
๐ฐ Conduct thorough testing across popular browsers to guarantee compatibility with the latest versions. Keep in mind that users may access your website through a variety of devices and browsers. Be prepared for scenarios where someone might attempt to navigate your site using an older device, like a Galaxy S3 with an outdated version of the Samsung Browser.
๐ Usability
๐ฐ Usability assesses the ability of a particular user to navigate a website and accomplish a designated goal with effectiveness and efficiency.
๐ฐ Ensure that your website is user-friendly. Users should swiftly and effortlessly locate the information they need.
๐ฐ Examine each element on your website from the perspective of a visitor. The text should be legible on various devices, including mobile devices, and your navigation should be transparent and easily comprehensible.
๐ฐ Maintain consistency in content across both versions of your website.
๐ Short Loading Time
๐ฐ The speed at which your website pages load is a critical factor that demands careful consideration.
๐ฐ Prolonged waiting times for users can significantly degrade the overall user experience of your website.
๐ฐ Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that your website loads swiftly. Additionally, site speed has emerged as one of the foremost priorities in SEO today.
๐ SSL Certificate
๐ฐ Secure Sockets Layer, commonly known as SSL, is a technology that enables secure data transfer over the internet. By obtaining an SSL certificate, your website can use HTTPS, ensuring encryption and preventing hackers from intercepting sensitive data.
๐ฐ Implementing SSL not only instills confidence in your visitors but also contributes to enhancing your website's SEO, as SSL is now a factor in Google's search algorithm.
๐ Optimize Images
๐ฐ Despite your website being highly optimized, images consistently remain among the slowest-loading elements on a page. Therefore, optimizing the images on your website is crucial.
๐ฐ It is advisable to steer clear of TIFF or BMP images and instead utilize JPEGs and PNGs.
๐ฐ Additionally, make sure to eliminate empty image source code lines.
๐ฐ Before deploying your site, ensure the optimization of images across web pages to prevent any adverse impact on your page loading time.
๐ Minify Files
๐ฐ Minification involves the reduction of code and markup within web pages and script files.
๐ฐ This technique is crucial for diminishing load times and minimizing bandwidth usage on websites.
๐ฐ The primary objective is to eliminate redundant or unnecessary data, such as spacing and comments.
๐ Double-Check Links and Forms
๐ฐ Before website deployment, it is crucial to thoroughly examine all links, buttons, forms, and other elements to ensure their proper functionality.
๐ฐ It is not uncommon for links that function during development to encounter issues after deployment to the production environment.
๐ฐ The same scrutiny should be applied to buttons and forms, with a diligent check for broken links and documents.
๐ Use Fallbacks
๐ฐ A "fallback" refers to supplementary alternatives provided to a browser in case it encounters difficulty rendering a particular HTML tag, CSS property, or script.
๐ฐ Fallbacks are frequently employed with HTML5 tags and CSS3 properties, especially those that are new and might not have complete support in certain browsers.
๐ 404 Page and Favicon
๐ฐ Having a well-designed 404 page is crucial because visitors might mistype URLs or click on broken links.
๐ฐ You wouldn't want users to encounter an unappealing error warning.
๐ฐ Make sure you have a customized 404 page set up on your website to enhance user experience in such situations.
๐ Use a CMS
๐ฐ Content Management System, abbreviated as CMS, facilitates the convenient management of website content. By utilizing a CMS, you can effortlessly modify content without the need for repetitive code editing.
๐ฐ Furthermore, a CMS proves advantageous when individuals without technical expertise are responsible for creating and editing website content, as it offers an intuitive GUI interface for their convenience.
๐ Bonus Tips
๐ฐ Ensure your websites are free from significant vulnerabilities.
๐ฐ Place scripts at the bottom and stylesheets at the top.
๐ฐ Incorporate a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
๐ฐ Minimize the use of redirects.
๐ฐ Implement caching for optimized performance.
Happy Coding! ๐
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