The day has arrived! Your new website is going live in just a few hours. But have you prepared for a successful launch?
Your website launch should be split into 3 sections:
Pre-launch - From realizing you need a website/redesign until launch day
The Launch - The day of the launch
Post-launch - The initial days and weeks after launching your site.
If you follow this guide, you'll be able to organize your time effectively and prepare for a successful launch, resulting in an enjoyable, rather than stressful, journey.
Pre-launch
The first step to a successful launch is realizing the need for a website/redesign. Read about why you need a website. If at any point you need help with the creation and launch of your site, please feel free to get in touch. Let's Make It Happen
Choose launch date
Once you have decided on the need for a new website, sit down with the team that is creating your website and plan the launch date.
Follow the approach you take to launching a new product or service and think about the following questions.
Are you going to be at an exhibition that will already have hype around it?
Are you launching a new revolutionary product alongside your site?
Is there a particular holiday that your business might be associated with?
These are just a few questions to take into consideration. Why? Because they all already have hype attached to them.
Imagine being a Christmas Tree company. You're attending a local Christmas market to sell your latest tree; The Prelit Tree.
It wouldn't make sense to launch your site in August. You should consider making the official launch the day of the Christmas market when you unveil the new product.
Use existing hype to build upon for the launch of your site.
Create the website
You can't launch a website without the new site and you can't build a website without a launch.
The design team you work with will have their own way of working, but get involved in the process. It makes your and their lives easier.
In the meantime, while your site is being built, you can prepare for the launch.
Test and Train
For a successful launch, you need to know your website inside out and back to front.
Imagine launching your new site and receiving an email or phone call from a customer.
"Where can I find _____?"
"I'm struggling to access my account. Can you help me?"
Understand your site and how to use it. It'll not only make you seem reliable if you can answer the questions, but it'll also save you money!
The time you spend trying to find an answer can be spent on running your business.
Create Promo Schedule
Promoting your website is as important as the new website itself.
How do you expect people to find out about your site if you don't tell them about it?
You'll want to publish at least 1-3 'hype' posts in the week before your website launch and publish content every 2-3 days in the weeks during the post-launch. The exact publishing schedule will depend on your audience and what you think works.
Prepare promo content
There's no point in creating a promo schedule if you don't have the content to go alongside it.
From my experience, it is best to prepare and schedule your promo content a little while before the launch of the site.
Whether you feel it or not, the last couple of weeks before the launch of your site are nerve-racking. You are likely to feel a little stressed and doubt your decision. But don't. Embrace it.
By creating and scheduling your content beforehand it's one thing that can be taken off your mind.
Here are a few tips:
Draft the text you will be using on your social media platforms and get someone to read through them. You don't want your launch to be hindered by people not understanding what you've written.
Create your images ahead of time, and optimize them for each platform you use.
Prepare any links you plan to share and make sure they work. (Use clean links where possible. Remove any additional tracking parameters.)
If you need help creating promotional graphics for social media, get in touch, and Let's Make It Happen.
Create Hype
The hardest part of the pre-launch is creating hype.
Earlier, we talked about using pre-existing events to catapult the hype around the launch of your site.
Within the seven days, before you launch your site, you should create teasers about the launch.
The best way to do this is not to directly mention your new site.
'So Noah, you're telling us to not mention our new site?'
Exactly!
We've all heard the phrase - 'Show not tell'. This is the time to put it into practice.
Here are a few social media post ideas:
Create a social post with your launch date on it. Nothing else.
Create countdown posts
Publish a link to a landing page on your site
Launch
Launch day is here! 🎉
All your hard work has paid off; your new site is live, but that's not the end. If you stop there you'll end up falling face first.
But before you move on to post-launch, enjoy the day.
Grab a glass of bubbly and celebrate with your team.
The team that built your site should be on hand to answer any questions you may have and fix any problems on the fly that may not have been picked up when testing the site.
Post-launch
Promote products
Don't rely on the launch day to launch your site.
Choose a new exciting feature or product/service that can be found on your site and promote it.
Driving traffic to your site is a must.
Remember to follow the promo schedule you created earlier. You'll want to continuously promote your site every couple of days, for the next two to four weeks.
Collect social proof
Received a positive comment about your new site? Turn it into a social post.
People are commenting about how great your business is? Add those as testimonials to your site.
People listen to other people.
If you show people testimonials, they are more likely to share the same opinion. Why? Because the opinion isn't yours so it's likely not to be biased.
Social proof affirms the quality of your website and encourages a sense of community.
Review, learn, repeat
Once you reach the end of your promotional schedule, review how you did.
Whilst you won't be launching a new site or a redesign any time soon, you can learn from your experiences.
Take a look at your site analytics.
Where did most of your traffic come from? Take a look at your site analytics and review where people visited from. Was it social media? Organic? Geographically, did they visit from where you were expecting?
Which page did people stay on the most? Was it the page you were expecting them to visit? What about that page made them stay on it?
Which page was least visited? Why didn't people visit that page? Is it too hard to find on the site?
Where did I get the most engagement on promotional content? Not only should you look at how your site performed. Take a look at your promotional content and see how that compared to your usual content. You might even be able to reuse techniques you've learned for future product releases.
Looking for your own site? Need an expert to help? Get in touch and we'll help you on your journey.
Noah Lovell
Noah Lovell - Web Designer
