eCommerce Website Launch Checklist – The Essentials

Your website’s designed, you have all of your products created, and you’re ready to launch your eCommerce site.  But with how much work goes into launching a new online store, it can be easy to miss something.  Who knows, you may even be missing something you didn’t know you were supposed to do!

Forgetting a small detail can be as easy as missing that crucial item at the grocery store – but the consequences are much more severe. 

So, to make sure you never get that sinking “what did I forget” feeling, we’ve put together the essential pre-launch checklist. Just like a rocket, don’t launch until you’ve gone through the entire checklist – twice!  

Want to print out this checklist or share it to social media?

When a potential customer visits your website, you want to make a statement!  Your site should get their attention, show that your products are high-quality and that your company is professional, and guide them where you want them to go (hint: it’s usually the checkout page!). 

Here are a few important design considerations:

It doesn’t really matter if your site looks beautiful and makes an impression if it doesn’t work!  Go through each of these details to make sure that your website is easy for your customers to use.

You are launching a store, after all, so you want to make sure that it’s functioning properly and that it will help you convert site visitors.  Here are some important considerations:

SEO is a term with a lot of buzz around it, but for good reason. Search Engine Optimization is the art of being found on platforms like Google when people are looking for something you offer.

You can spend a lot of time and money on the nuances of every aspect of SEO (critically important if you want to beat heavy competition), but simply doing the basics right will put you a step ahead of most new eCommerce stores. 

Below, you’ll find a few considerations, but for a more in-depth look at SEO, read our post about the technical side of SEO.  Most of the tasks below can easily be achieved using a plugin like Yoast SEO.

The last thing you want is for your new website to be hacked and your customers’ information compromised after you launch.  That’s why it’s important that you take the right steps to secure your site!

Having the right legal infrastructure in place protects you from potential lawsuits and helps your customers understand how you use their data and how your store policies work.  You may want to hire a lawyer to help draft these initial documents – it’s well worth the investment! Regardless, make sure these are easy to find on your site.

The final thing you should do before launch is to have real users test your site.  Ask employees, friends, family or, better yet, members of your target audience to use the site and note anything they find difficult or confusing.  There’s nothing better than having a fresh set of unbiased eyes going through everything.

Have you launched a site before and forgotten something critical?  Do you have suggestions for those about to launch their first site?  We’d love to hear your stories in the comments!

Want to print out this checklist or share it to social media?

Source: Woocommerce.com

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