Things To Test Before Your Website Go Live
Before launching your website, it is important to check or test it once. There are many teams involved during creation and development of website. These teams are: content writers, web developers, web designers, search engine optimizers and network administrators. Testing a website can be overwhelming as teams are not at all sure from where to start the testing. Every team who has created it can help in testing the website. In this article, it is discussed about the things to be tested by various teams before launching the website.
For Web designers:
Web designers can spot the things that don’t look pretty quickly as they have an eye for visual details. The things which they must test are as follows:
1. Compatibility: Rendering multiple browsers is a bane of internet but as a website designer, we have to live with it. So we must check that all the web pages render efficiently in common browsers.
2. Images: Make sure that alt attribute is used for all the images and hence the text displays when you hover over it. Besides this the images should neither be too large and nor too small. For the quality image, you only need 72 dpi (dots per inch) images.
3. Fonts: Sometimes the font codes get dropped into the web pages by mistake and make
the letter or the word funny. Check that there is consistent formatting.
For Web developers:
Web developers know the inner working of the web pages like HTML, JavaScript, CSS. Here are some of the terms which a web developer can efficiently check it before making the website live
1. Live URL’s: The websites are built on the URL which is not the final destination of the website. When the website is launched or goes live, all the URL’s are transferred from the initial stage to the production stage. The URL’s are changed, therefore it is important to check or test it after transferring. It is easy to check this for the small sites manually and if the site comprises of less than 500 URL’s, then you can make use of tools like Screaming frog tool. This tool will help you find the bad URL’s
2. Favicon: Favicon are the small images which appear on the tabs or the address bar hen you open your website. It is important and plays an important role in branding your business and provides credibility to it. It is good to have one before launching your website.
3. 404 pages: When the 404 error occurs, make sure that a custom page appears which will help your visitors to find something else, if they had not found what they were looking for. Place an HTML site map there.
For Content writers or editors:
Writers and editors have a vast expertise when it comes to the content written on the website. Mentioned below are some of the tasks which they can perform to test the website before its launch:
1. Check grammar, punctuation and spellings
2. While giving a eye to the WebPages ask to your self the following:
• Why would I visit this webpage?
• Does the page is for the audience?
• Is the content ready for the audience?
3. Fill out the forms and watch the following:
• Can the flow of the form be better?
• Are all the instructions accurate?
• Does the form get sent to the right person and place?
For search Engine optimizers:
SEO experts are familiar to web marketing. They can look at lots of things with the perspective that can help a website to progress great in search engine results.
• Title tags and Meta tags: It sounds a little old but in reality this mistake happens at the large number everyday. Ensure that each and every page of your website has a unique title tag. Besides this also ensure that every page has Meta description. This is a source for search engine to know what the content is about at that particular page and this information can be seen below the link in search results.
• Social Media integration: test that- do all the pages have social media buttons and does clicking those buttons take the users or visitors to the correct page?
• 301 redirects: If you have an existing site and you are changing your URL structure, then you will have to make sure that you have redirected your old URL’s to new one.
For network administrator:
The network administrators have to manage and test the following:
• Checks the page regularly to ensure that it is visible to the visitors.
• Make sure that the backup system is configured efficiently and the recovery process has also been tested.
• Make use of load test software tools as it allows you to simulate heavy loads of traffic.
Summary:
You can now observe that everyone involved in creation and development of website can be assigned the tasks to test the site before launching. If you can gather all your teams for these tests, then the work will get divided and no one person will bear the pressure of testing the site.
Author Bio :- Sabrina is an SEO Executive doing SEO Work with SEO RANK SMART from last 3 years, It is India based SEO Company provide good SEO Services to its clients.