Your business website is one of the best marketing tools you have in your arsenal. This is why it’s vital you make sure it’s perfect before you launch it. Consumers have high expectations when it comes to websites, and your site says a lot about your company. If it’s badly designed or it doesn’t function properly, it makes you look incredibly unprofessional; it will turn people off. If you sell products through your website, poor functionality can seriously hurt your sales. You need to take the time to make sure everything is working as it should.
The main reason businesses have issues with their website is because they don’t test them properly before they launch. If you rush into it without doing all of the necessary checks, it’s only going to hurt your business. Here are some of the essential checks you need to do before you launch your business website.
Proofread All Content
You might not think a few spelling errors are the end of the world, but users will make a judgment about your business based on the site. Simple mistakes like that can give the wrong impression. Multiple spelling and grammar errors tell the user you rushed creating the website. It also tells them you didn’t put any effort into checking the quality of the content. They’re naturally going to wonder if you take the same relaxed attitude to your products or your customer service. That’s not the kind of business they want to deal with. Where eCommerce sites are concerned, they may also have fears that the site is a scam. They may fear the site has been put together to entice customers and rip them off.
It doesn’t take long to read through all of the text and make sure there are no errors. Skipping this step could seriously damage your business. If you are unsure, you should run everything through spelling and grammar software so you can be sure there are no mistakes. You can also have a trusted friend or colleague go through the site to see if they notice any errors.
Check The Layout
The layout of your business website is very important. You need people to be able to find what they’re looking for right away. If you make things hard for the user, they’re likely to give up and leave the site after a few minutes. A good website should be easy to scan and have clear menu and search options so people can jump right to the relevant pages. Once you have the layout finalized, you should always conduct first click testing on each page. Test users will be given a screenshot of the page and asked where to click to reach individual pages or find a piece of information. Conducting first click testing will show you whether or not it is clear to people how to navigate the site. If the results are inconsistent, you need to go back to the drawing board and rethink the layout.
Check Security
Online security is a big concern for consumers these days. If they aren’t confident your website is secure, they won’t stick around and browse. This is especially important on eCommerce sites. People won’t put their credit card details into a site unless they’re sure it’s secure. The first thing that people will look for is the HTTP tag and padlock symbol at the start of the web address. Not finding this security symbol is one of the main reasons that people will distrust a website. Because of this reason, you must ensure that it is there. If you’re an eCommerce site, you need to use the right payment platform as well. If it is a platform that people recognize and trust, they will be happy to put their details in, but if it isn’t, people will think twice.
On your end, you need to invest in the right cyber-security software to protect your website from online attacks. If you don’t have the proper protection in place, you risk data breaches, and that’s bad news for your business. If you lose a lot of sensitive customer data, you will lose their trust, and it is incredibly hard to come back from that. There is also the danger that hackers could shut the site down and that amounts to a lot of lost revenue until you can get it back up and running again.
Cross-Platform Testing
In 2018, 52.2 percent of worldwide web traffic came from mobile devices, compared with just 0.7 percent in 2009. This trend is likely to continue, and over the next few years, it’s likely the majority of website traffic will come from mobile devices. That being said, your site needs to be optimized for mobile devices. When you’re in the testing phase, you must run the website on a variety of different
mobile devices. Doing so will ensure the website works properly on all platforms, not just a select few. If a website isn’t optimized for mobile, it can be incredibly challenging to use. You’ll be alienating a large section of your potential customer base. Testing on all platforms will take longer, but you need to do it if you want to make sure your website performs well across the board.
Check Links
Broken links are simple to fix, but if you miss them, they can completely ruin the user experience on your website. If somebody is trying to get to a page and the link doesn’t work correctly, you’ve probably lost that customer for good. Before you launch the site, you need to go through and check every link to make sure it works properly, and it goes to the right place. You can use a free link checker to see whether there are any dead links on the site that need to be fixed.
As long as you do all of these essential checks before your business website goes live, your website will be up and running smoothly. Here’s to YOUR success!
Carolyn R. Owens has over 25 years of proven experience and serves as a Career Strategist, Leadership and Life Coach. She is the Chairwoman and CEO of Infinity Coaching, Inc. where they help you up-level your skills so you can up-level your income. Infinity Coaching, Inc. provides one-on-one and group coaching, organizational training, and personality assessments. Carolyn is certified to give both The Energy Leadership Index Assessment and Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Assessment. You can find out more about both assessments and other products and services at https://infinitycoaching.net.
