AI Website Launch Checklist 2024: 16 Essential Things to Do Before and After Publishing Your Site

However, a step-by-step guide helps ensure you've considered everything, from building your site to when it goes live.

In this guide, we’ll help you launch your Durable website and set it up for success.

Website Launch Checklist

1. Review AI-Generated Content
2. Personalize Visual Components
3. Verify AI-Integrated Features
4. Confirm Contact Information & Social Media Integrations
5. Optimize for SEO
6. Test User Experience and Navigation
7. Ensure Subscription or Payment Details
8. Set Up Analytics
9. Ensure Mobile Responsiveness
10. Optimize for Technical Aspects
11. Final Peer Review
    

1. Review AI-Generated Content

When you start creating a site with Durable, our platform asks you for specific details such as your business type, location, and name. We then use this information to craft a website rich in content, copies, and keywords uniquely tailored to your industry.

For instance, if you're a dentist in Austin, Durable will generate content that speaks to dental services and ensures it's localized for the Austin community. This makes your website more relevant to potential local clients and helps in better search engine visibility.

However, remember that while our AI is powerful, it might not capture every business' unique essence or nuances. 

It's always a good idea to review the AI-generated content to ensure it aligns with your brand's voice and messaging.

• Browse Every Page: Ensure that every piece of content, from headlines to body text, aligns with your brand tone. Look for any generic phrases that might not resonate with your specific audience. Also, ensure consistency in the tone across all pages. For instance, if your brand has a casual and friendly tone, ensure no page sounds overly formal or distant. Lastly, check for repetition or any content that seems out of place.
• Customize For Authenticity: Infusing personal experiences or specific details about your business transforms a generic page into one that tells your unique story. Integrate testimonials or feedback from real customers. Share stories or anecdotes that highlight your business journey or values. Include specifics, such as how you started, what challenges you faced, or what makes your offering distinctive.

People connect with stories and genuine experiences. You don’t want a generic landing page. By intertwining your journey and brand ethos into your website, you'll create a more profound connection with your visitors.

In the Durable website editor, click a section that you want to edit and click “Edit.” Here, you can easily change the copy.

2. Personalize Visual Components

Visual components capture attention, set the mood, and often convey messages more quickly than text can. 

Durable provides you with access to millions of professional photos. If you’re unsatisfied with the generated images, you can populate your site with new high-quality images with just a few clicks.

Go to the section where you want to change the images. Click “Edit”.

An edit panel will pop up from the right-hand side. 

Click on the pencil icon in the section with images. Another edit panel will pop up. Here, click regenerate to get new images. You can generate as many times as you want.

While utilizing stock photos offers convenience and professionalism,  we recommend incorporating unique brand images.

Why?

Custom images, especially those featuring your products, team, or workspace, become synonymous with your brand. Over time, as visitors and customers see these images repeatedly, they'll associate them with your brand, fostering instant recognition.

Take, for instance, you have a sportswear e-commerce store. You could easily use stock photos of generic athletes or models wearing generic sportswear. This would convey the idea of athleticism but might not communicate your brand's unique value proposition or resonate deeply with visitors.

However, if you invest in custom photo shoots featuring your actual products in action—real athletes running in their shoes, fitness enthusiasts doing workouts in their apparel, or even local sports teams sporting their gear—it paints a vivid picture of authenticity.

You can also optimize unique images for search engines. By giving them descriptive file names and alt texts related to your business, you improve the chances of appearing in image search results, driving additional traffic to your site.

3. Verify AI-Integrated Features

We offer integrated AI features like AI CRM and the Invoicing tool at Durable. Before you launch your website, ensure that these AI-driven features are functioning at their peak.

AI CRM Functionality

• Responding to Leads: Test the response system by simulating a lead generation scenario. Ensure the AI CRM appropriately categorizes and responds to these leads through automated emails or notifications.
• Organizing Contacts: Add a few dummy contacts to the CRM and observe how it organizes and categorizes them. The system should automatically segment contacts based on their interactions, preferences, or other criteria.
• Instant Client Communication: Send a test communication to one of the dummy contacts. The AI CRM should draft and dispatch the message seamlessly. Also, verify if it schedules follow-ups or reminders based on the communication.

Invoicing Tool

• CRM Sync: The invoicing tool is designed to work with the CRM. Create a mock invoice for one of your dummy contacts and ensure the CRM reflects this transaction, updating the contact's status or triggering relevant communications.
• Google Reviews Integration: Post-purchase, the system should prompt users to leave a review on Google. Simulate a purchase process and verify that this prompt appears and functions correctly. Positive reviews boost your brand's credibility.
• Payment Gateways & Receipt Generation: While drafting an invoice, ensure all payment gateway options are visible and functional—credit cards, ACH, and Apple Pay. Once a mock payment is made, the system should automatically generate a receipt reflecting the transaction details.

Before hitting that publish button, navigate your Durable-built site, interact with these AI components, and ensure they operate smoothly.

4. Confirm Contact Information & Social Media Integrations

One of the quickest ways to lose potential customers or partners is having incorrect contact information or broken social media links on your website.

Validate Contact Information

• Email Address: Ensure the listed email address is correct. Send a test email to verify it reaches the intended inbox and that you can respond seamlessly.
• Phone Numbers: If you've listed a contact number, call it. Ensure it is directed to the appropriate person or department.
• Physical Address: If relevant, ensure the listed address is accurate. Durable embeds a map on your website, making it easy for visitors to locate your business. However, double-check to see that the map we have embedded is correct.
• Contact Form: If your website features a contact form, complete it and submit a test query. Confirm that the submissions get to the appropriate inbox and that an acknowledgment is sent to the sender.

Check Social Media Integrations

• Direct Links: Ensure that icons or links to your social media platforms direct users to the correct pages. Test each link individually.
• Embedded Feeds: If you have added an embed to display a live social media activity feed, check to ensure the feed updates in real-time and has no display issues.
• Comments and Reviews: If you've integrated the Google reviews section that lets users leave comments or reviews through Google and Facebook, test this to ensure it's working correctly and syncing data appropriately.

Mistakes in these areas create doubts about the reliability and professionalism of your brand.

5. Optimize for SEO

A blog page is the best way to optimize your website for SEO. A blog is a platform for regularly updating content, showcasing industry expertise, and embedding keywords that can drive organic traffic to your website.

Search engines like Google favor websites that are updated regularly. With a blog, you ensure a steady stream of fresh content, signaling to search engines that your website is active, relevant, and up-to-date.

However, creating a blog is not easy, but with Durable AI Blog Builder, the process becomes easy.

You can use our blog builder to craft relevant blog posts. You only need to provide it with a topic and watch it generate a comprehensive article in seconds.

The AI-driven system ensures that the content is aligned with current SEO standards, integrating important keywords naturally.

After the blogs have been generated, edit them and give them your brand voice. Also, use internal links to guide users through your website, directing them from one relevant piece of content to another. Use descriptive anchor text for these links, ensuring they give readers (and search engines) a clear idea of the linked content.

Another thing is to ensure every image on your site has a descriptive 'alt' text. This improves accessibility and informs search engines about the image content.

6. Test User Experience and Navigation

No matter how visually appealing or content-rich your site might be, visitors are likely to leave if they face challenges navigating or accessing information.

Statistics show that it takes about 50 milliseconds for visitors to form an opinion about your website and whether they’ll stay or leave.

The first thing to test is load time. Test how quickly your pages load on various devices and browsers. If a page takes more than a few seconds, consider optimizing images. With Durable, you're in good hands. Our platform uses a global Content Delivery Network (CDN), ensuring lightning-fast load times no matter where your visitors access your site. The CDN works by distributing your site’s content across multiple servers worldwide, reducing the distance between the server and the user.

The next thing to do is review your website's menu structure.

• Can users easily find the most crucial pages?
• Is there a logical flow from one section to another?

Eliminate dead links and ensure the navigation menu is consistent across all pages.

Here are more steps to validate the user experience:

• Data Capture: For contact forms, subscription boxes, or any other interactive forms, fill them out to ensure they capture and store data correctly.
• Confirmation Message: Once a form is submitted, the user should receive a confirmation message or be redirected to a thank-you page confirming their action.
• Auto-responses: If you have set up automated email responses, test these to ensure they are triggered and delivered appropriately.
• Internal Links: Go through your website thoroughly. Click on every internal link to ensure they direct to the intended pages, service pages, product listings, blogs, or contact forms.
• External Links: If you've linked to other websites or platforms, ensure these links function and lead to the correct external web pages.

7. Ensure Subscription or Payment Details

When running an e-commerce platform or providing premium content, a hiccup in this department can quickly deter a potential customer or subscriber. 

Durable makes it easy to convert your website to an e-commerce store. We have designed to make this process smooth, but a thorough review is always needed.

Ensure that all payment methods are functioning correctly. Do a mock transaction to confirm that payments are processed as intended without glitches.

Clearly state your refund policies and outline the steps users need to take to cancel their subscription or get a refund. Make it easy for users to locate and understand this information.

When it comes to online payments, customers need assurance that their data is safe. Highlight the security measures Durable implements, such as end-to-end encryption and SSL certificates, to instill confidence in your users.

In case of any issues or inquiries regarding payments or subscriptions, users should easily find ways to reach out. Ensure contact information is readily accessible, possibly even in the footer of every page.

Lastly, verify product details — product images, descriptions, and prices. Ensure every product photo is clear, well-lit, and displays the product from multiple angles if possible. Maintain a consistent look for all your product images. This involves using the same background, lighting, and image dimensions. A uniform look adds a professional touch to your online store.

8. Familiarize Yourself with Analytics

Analytics provide insights that can shape your content, marketing strategies, and product or service offerings.

While Durable may not allow direct integration with third-party tools like Google Analytics through HTML code modifications, we compensate by offering a robust analytics tool in the backend.

To begin, navigate to your Durable dashboard. Click on "Website" and select "Analytics" from the menu. This will give you a comprehensive overview of your website's performance metrics.

Although you have nothing to set up at this stage, familiarize yourself with every metric.

• Visitor count
• Unique visitors
• Page views
• Visits per day
• Most busy hours

After understanding these metrics, you’ll then be doing monthly or even weekly reviews to stay updated on your site's performance and make timely changes.

9. Ensure Mobile Responsiveness

With a considerable surge in mobile browsing, it's safe to say that a significant portion of your potential visitors or customers will access your website via their smartphones or tablets. Recent studies have shown that over half of the global website traffic originates from mobile devices.

So, if your website isn't optimized for mobile devices, Google might not take this very kindly and will definitely slow down the flow of traffic to your site.

Durable ensures every website built using its platform is inherently mobile-responsive. 

Before publishing, make it a routine to use Durable device preview features. These options allow you to visualize exactly how your website will appear on mobile devices and tablets, ensuring alignment with your design aspirations. The device preview eliminates guesswork, ensuring your content, images, and CTAs are optimally positioned for all device types.

Go to your website editor. On the top right-hand side, you’ll see the desktop icon. Click on it to toggle between desktop, mobile, and tablet.

While the device preview is a potent tool, manual checks have an undeniable value.

Simply open your website on your smartphone or tablet. Navigate through its pages, click on links, and interact with different elements. This hands-on approach offers a genuine user experience perspective, helping you identify any areas of potential friction.

For an added layer of verification, turn to Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. This tool provides insights into how Google views your site from a mobile standpoint. Simply enter your website URL, and the tool will offer feedback on its mobile performance, even suggesting areas of improvement, if any.

10. Optimize for Technical Aspects

Durable streamlines many aspects of website creation, but ensuring optimal technical performance remains a key consideration before publishing. 

The technical backbone of your website influences the user experience and can impact search engine rankings. Here's how to make sure the technical side of things is up to snuff:

• Page Load Speed: A few seconds of page loading delay can deter visitors. Test your website's speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights. Although Durable uses a global CDN to optimize loading times, further refining elements such as image sizes and formats can enhance speed.
• Check for Broken Links: Every link on your website should lead somewhere. Broken links can frustrate users and harm your SEO. Utilize Broken Link Checker to find and fix links that don’t work.
• Server Uptime: Ensure your website is always available to visitors. Durable boasts a robust infrastructure ensuring minimal downtime. However, regularly checking uptime statistics can be beneficial for peace of mind.

With Durable handling many of these aspects automatically, a quick review and minor tweaks ensure your site is technically sound and ready for the world.

11. Final Peer Review

Before you unveil your website to the world, have a second pair of eyes (or even multiple) glance over it. 

Sometimes, when deeply involved in a project, it's easy to overlook minor issues or take certain knowledge for granted. A colleague or friend might spot ambiguities or points of confusion that you missed.

Someone unfamiliar with the creation process can simulate the experience of a genuine first-time visitor, providing invaluable feedback on navigation, clarity, and overall user experience.

How to Conduct an Effective Peer Review

• Provide Context: Before the review, give your peers a brief on the website's purpose, target audience, and key messages. This helps them align their feedback more precisely.
• Diverse Reviewers: If possible, get a mix of individuals from different departments or backgrounds. A diverse review team can offer insights from design aesthetics to content clarity. Make sure one of the demographics includes someone close to your ideal customer profile.
• Structured Feedback: Provide them with a structured format or template for feedback, ensuring you get comprehensive and actionable insights.
• Open to Criticism: Approach this stage with an open mind. The goal is to refine and optimize; constructive criticism is a pathway to excellence.

What to Do After Publishing Your Site?

1. Promote Your New Website
2. Monitor Traffic & User Behavior
3. Regularly Update Content and Set Up a Blogging Schedule
4. Set Up Email Marketing
5. Encourage Reviews or Testimonials

1. Promote Your New Website

“If you build it, they will come” doesn't apply to websites. And is it even a real quote?

All in all, promotion is a must to ensure your website reaches your target audience and achieves its intended goals. 

Begin by announcing your website launch on all your social media channels. Craft a captivating post with visuals and a link to your new site.

One of the most effective ways to drive immediate traffic to your new website is through paid advertising, and with Durable Google Ad Writer, you're equipped with a powerful tool to maximize your ad performance.

• Use the Ad Writer to generate ad copies tailored for your business. Since it’s AI-driven, it crafts persuasive messages that resonate with your target audience.
• A/B test different ad copies to determine the best click-through rates and conversions.

You can also use the Ad Writer to generate ad copies for Facebook and Twitter. Different platforms have different audiences, and spreading across multiple channels increases your reach.

To access the Ad writer, go to your website’s backend and click “Marketing.” Under Promotions, click “Create Promotion.” Choose one of Google, Facebook, Twitter, or Email. Follow the steps to generate ads.

Once your ads are live, monitor their performance. Use the analytics provided by Durable to understand which ad copies work best and the conversion rates. This helps in refining your future ad campaigns.

Based on the data, make necessary adjustments to your ad campaigns. Maybe a different call-to-action works better, or targeting a different demographic yields better results. The key is to keep iterating for optimal performance.

2. Monitor Traffic & User Behavior

With Durable integrated analytics, you get a clear picture of how users interact with your website, which allows you to make informed decisions for improvements.

Navigate to "Website" and then "Analytics" in your Durable backend. This dashboard offers a comprehensive view of your site's traffic, the best-performing pages, and more.

Track Key Metrics

• Visits: Understand the number of users visiting your website. Monitor both new and returning visitors to gauge growth and retention.
• Pageviews: Identify which pages are the most popular and which aren’t getting as much attention. This helps you understand where users spend most of their time and where you might need to make changes.
• Bounce Rate: A high bounce rate might indicate that users aren’t finding what they’re looking for, or some technical issues might deter them. Aim for a lower bounce rate by refining content and ensuring smooth site navigation.

Data should drive your decisions. Regularly review your analytics to identify areas for improvement. Tweak your call-to-action buttons, reorganize content, or update site images. Every change should aim to enhance user experience and drive conversions.

Expert Tip: While Durable's integrated analytics offer many insights, you might consider using external tools to provide different data perspectives. For instance, heat mapping tools show where users click most frequently on a page.

3. Regularly Update Content and Set Up a Blogging Schedule

Regularly updating your website content ensures that your site remains relevant, offers value to your audience, and signals to search engines that your website is active.

We saw earlier how easy it is to create blogs using our AI blog builder. This simplifies your work, as you only need to implement a blogging schedule.

Outline your content strategy for the coming months. Identify key topics, themes, or events that align with your business and audience interests.

Then, choose a blogging frequency you can realistically maintain — weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Being consistent sets an expectation for your readers and helps in maintaining a disciplined approach to content creation.

Periodic Website Content Review

• Audit Existing Content: Review your website's core content at least twice a year. Check for outdated information, broken links, or areas that need improvement.
• Refresh Imagery: Consider updating images or graphics that have become stale or no longer resonate with your brand's evolving identity.

Expert Tip: Encourage User-Generated Content

If your business model allows, encourage reviews, testimonials, or content submissions from your users or customers. 93% of marketers said that content created by consumers performed better than branded content. 

This fosters community and provides fresh content without you constantly creating it.

4. Set Up Email Marketing

Email remains one of the most effective digital marketing channels. A study by Litmus found that, on average, email has an ROI of $36 for every dollar spent.

Unlike other platforms where your content might get lost in the vast sea of information, emails land directly in your audience's inboxes, ensuring better visibility.

Email marketing also allows for segmentation and personalization, ensuring your message resonates with your recipients' individual preferences and behaviors.

Getting Started with Durable Tools

• Utilize Durable AI Copywriter: Crafting compelling email content can be challenging. Use Durable's AI copywriter to generate persuasive email copy tailored to your promotional, informational, or transactional campaigns.
• Segmentation: In your CRM, group your audience based on specific criteria like purchase behavior, location, or engagement levels. This helps in sending targeted messages, increasing the likelihood of positive responses.
• Automation: Set up automated email sequences for triggers like new sign-ups, abandoned carts, or product launches. This ensures timely communication without manual intervention.

Now, every email should have a clear purpose. Whether directing users to a new blog post, announcing a sale, or asking for feedback, ensure your CTAs are compelling and direct.

How do you grow your email list?

• Lead Magnets: Offer valuable content or discounts in exchange for email sign-ups. This could be in the form of ebooks, webinars, or exclusive offers.
• Sign-up Forms: Incorporate email sign-up forms strategically on your website, like at the end of blog posts, in the footer, or as pop-ups.

5. Encourage Reviews or Testimonials

Positive reviews quickly build trust among potential customers. A study found that 91% of people regularly or occasionally read online reviews, and 84% trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.

Adding Google Reviews with Durable

• Access the Website Editor: Log into your Durable dashboard and open the website editor.
• Add a New Section: Navigate to the location where you'd like the reviews to appear. Click on “Add Section” at the desired spot.
• Search for Google Reviews: Use the search function or manually scroll to find the Google Reviews option in the pop-up that appears.
• Configuration: After selecting the Google reviews section, you'll be prompted to configure it.
• Customize Appearance: Durable allows you to customize the look and feel of this section to fit with your website’s design seamlessly. Adjust colors, fonts, and layout as necessary.

With Durable, your business will have a distinct edge. We provide an automated system that simplifies obtaining reviews, ensuring a constant flow of fresh feedback.

Once an invoice is paid through a credit card or Google Pay, your customers will be prompted to rate their experience with your business. This is a simple, user-friendly process, ensuring maximum participation.

The received rating is automatically logged into your CRM under the "Feedback" section. This organized approach means you won't miss out on any valuable insights.

Launching a Website Has Never Been So Easy!

Building a website with Durable is a smart move. By following this checklist, you’re taking solid steps to help your business grow online. 

Every step we've covered, from checking your content to setting up email marketing, ensures your website is ready for visitors and can help turn those visitors into customers.

If you haven’t yet built a website, sign up with Durable. With a click, you can generate a website tailored to your needs in just 30 seconds for $0.