When launching a WordPress website for the first time, there are a few things to keep in mind to make it as successful as possible. This article will give you 11 tips to ensure your WordPress site hits the mark.
Forms are the most popular way to stay in touch with our users. However, it’s also a prime target for attackers, so we need to ensure they’re as secure as possible.
Ensure you inspect every form on your site, whether comments, email subscriptions, contact forms, or anything else. Make sure these forms are appropriately linked to the correct email account or send the information to the right place so that your website can lose no potential data.
Many websites tend to keep the content on their pages without changing much. Naturally, not every website needs to have frequent updates or constant changes. However, keeping in mind that your website should be updated and fresh, so your users stay updated and informed is good.
Most sections don’t need to be changed, but things like blogs and testimonials are prime areas to be updated frequently. Blogs are popular with users to stay informed about your site’s changes and news and can drive a significant portion of your traffic. Other elements that inform users are vital and should be updated regularly.
Potential customers are often doubtful and skeptical of new products in many cases. Offering testimonials and customer comments can help build trust with these potential customers and can include:
That can give them a perspective of what they can expect from the product or service. These sections are critical for most websites, and we’ve seen them significantly impact their users. You should always keep these well maintained.
Any multimedia on your website, including images, videos, and logos, are incredibly important for your overall design. Not only do they provide aesthetics to the page, but they also provide information to your users and guide their eyes. It’s essential to check that all of the images on your site are the appropriate size, link directly to the correct place and that any media doesn’t affect your site’s design.
These videos and images are all placed correctly and don’t break the flow of the site.
When it comes to icons, you should be especially careful with them, as they can easily be misconfigured and affect your site’s design. Whether they’re in your header, footer, or anywhere else on your page, verify they are all aligned and fill the function they were intended to.
404 errors can be a hassle to deal with for new websites. Before launching your site, you should make sure that all the pages of your website load properly and that there are no links that lead to dead-ends. If you’ve added a web analysis tool that allows you to see any errors on your website, be sure to use it to check for any pages that might return a 404 error.
For new websites, it’s likely that your website hasn’t been added to the Google Search Console or Webmaster Tools. If not, you’ll need to manually navigate through your site and ensure that everything works as expected. If you have a lot of content, you may want to start with essential pages such as information, contact, registration, or login pages.
You can set up email alerts for any 404 errors that appear on your WordPress site. With that, you can easily monitor and correct them if need be.
Search engines are a significant source of traffic for most websites. Making sure your site is set up to take advantage of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will help you attract visitors as your site grows and increase your rankings on search engines such as Google.
This can include using proper tags and headers in blogs and pages and using meta descriptions to let search engines know what your pages are for. If you need a quick crash course in SEO optimization, we recommend starting with Google’s Starter Guide.
Not having the option to send or receive email from your WordPress website is a big mistake. This is great to make sure any website notifications go to the right spot and allow your users to contact you directly if needed.
You can enable your website’s hosting server to use SMTP for emails, which is much more secure than using PHP. You can install a plugin called WP Mail SMTP, which is a safe way to send emails back and forth. Not only is this more secure, but it also allows you never to miss a website notification.
Social networks play a significant role nowadays in any kind of business, and your website is no exception. That’s why it is essential to implement them in the right way.
Make sure all the links connecting to your website are functional and lead to where they should be. If your theme builder is not properly optimized to handle all the social networks that your company employs, we recommend that you go to the WordPress store and download the plugin that suits your needs.
An excellent way to track our website visitors is with Google Analitycs, and if you are wondering how this tool can help you, there are several things such as:
You can get other advantages by installing this tool on your WordPress website.
A backup of your site is one of the most essential tools for your WordPress website. Why? Well, it’s always better to be prepared in case of a rainy day.
Backup tools offer the best line of defense if your website has a critical issue. Whenever you perform maintenance, major changes, update a specific plugin or something that may influence the configuration of your website, you must complete a backup to protect all your data in case something goes wrong.
With a proper backup in place, if your site goes down or needs to be reverted for any reason, you’ll always have a copy ready to deploy in the meantime.
The final step of launching a website is not, in fact, the launch itself but refining your website so that it remains functional after you’ve launched it. As we’ve covered in this article, there are many things you can do to ensure your website will perform to your expectations and more. We wish you luck with your new website!