Site launched, now what?
Yay You!! After weeks… hopefully not months, your new website is finally live for everyone to see.
Time to put your feet up and celebrate you think? Yes and no.
You should definitely take a moment to relish what you have accomplished and recognise all those that have helped you make the launch a success but once that’s done you need to return to your desk and start thinking about:
How you’re going to get people to visit your site, and;
How you can make your site work even harder to achieve your business goals.
A hard-working website is a living breathing thing that needs regular attention. So consider your launch as the first step in an ongoing process. The best websites are never finished - they are routinely added to, tweaked, updated and improved.
Don’t worry - it doesn’t need to be super expensive or time-consuming but it does need to be regular and planned. Try and set aside some time each week - little and often will make a big difference.
Below we break down what you need to do post-launch.
Announce it.
Paraphrasing Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, don’t assume ‘if you build it, they will come’. They won’t.
People need to know you exist. You might think Google will do the work for you and send people your way. Over time, hopefully, yes, but not right away. Building organic traffic takes patience - usually 3 to 6 months. That means you need to start getting the word out yourself. Here are some ideas…
Tell friends and family and everyone you know that you have a new website and make it easy for them to share the details by providing them with an e-mail announcement they can forward to their friends and colleagues.
Shout it out on Social Media
Try a teaser campaign - if you had your planning cap on earlier maybe you started to build anticipation for your site with a teaser campaign and count down posts.
Plan an official launch campaign.
Decide what social media works best for your brand and create a series of posts to announce the launch of your site
Take advantage of the power and popularity of video to give people a glimpse of your site in action.
Be sure to have a call to action and consider adding some kind of incentive - like free postage, discount on the first purchase or special download.
Think about creating a unique branded hashtag as a way for new followers to tag and share your posts. One of my favourite hashtag campaigns was Always #LikeAGirl.
Keep the momentum going by sharing new customer reviews and encouraging user-generated content from unboxing to photos of your customers using your product/service in their everyday lives.
Yikes! How to I put together a Social Media Launch Kit?
If you’ve been working with a branding agency or web designer you could ask them to help you put together a launch kit - this might include a set of branded templates and post ideas to get you started.
Or if you are feeling that you can DIY this, Canva is a great place to start. If you don’t know about Canva you should - it’s an amazingly easy to use free design platform and requires little or no prior design experience.
Reach out to key influencers in your field and get your website on their radar. BuzzSumo can help you find bloggers, journalists and social media influences who might be interested in sharing your site information with their followers.
Try old school PR - yup, that still exists. Create your media database - as always think about quality over quantity. Get to know the journalist and their publications, understand their readers and what is of interest to them. If you think your business is a good fit, start writing your pitch. I highly recommend reading Hype Yourself: A No-nonsense PR Toolkit for Small Businesses by Lucy Werner for more practical information and tips.
Make Google Your Friend.
Your first step in your SEO strategy should be to set up your Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business). As the name suggests, it is your online business profile providing details of your business including location, hours of operation, services and products. It’s easy and free and it can be a great way to increase your visibility across all Google services including Google Search, Google Maps and Google Shopping.
Once set it up you’ll want to encourage customers' reviews. Hopefully, all the reviews will be glowing and if they’re not don’t immediately worry. Bad reviews don’t need to be a death knell to your business so long as you respond professionally, sincerely and promptly. If you’ve made a mistake then apologise and offer to discuss it further offline. For reviews that aren’t justified, you can flag it as inappropriate and Google will review and take it down if they agree that it doesn’t meet their standards.
To set up a Google Business Profile you’ll need a Google account. Add your business name to your account, enter your location and fill out your contact details. Before the account goes live Google will verify your business by sending you a five-digit code to enter. Once this is complete you can customise your profile and add photos.
Be sure to complete all of your profile. Google research shows that customers are 2.7 times more likely to consider your business reputable if you've completed your Google Business Profile and 70% more likely to visit your business.
Finally, Google Business Profile offers some special features for certain industries for example:
Hotels can display class ratings, sustainability practices, check-in and check-out times and amenities
Restaurants and bars can upload menus, show dish photos
A service business can display a list of services
Get started with your Google Business Account today.
Maintain it.
It’s back to the idea that your website is a living breathing thing. Like a house plant, it needs some basic maintenance to keep it alive, extra nutrients to make it flourish and cross-pollination to make it healthier and hardier. A plant that is ignored will die. A website that is neglected will create a negative impression of a business, one that is disinterested and out of step, repelling potential visitors instead of attracting them.
Basic Maintenance
Like housekeeping, some basic maintenance keeps your website up to date and tidy.
Here’s our checklist of some of the things you should do regularly - some items daily and the majority quarterly.
Remove out of date copy, if you’ve been promoting an event and the event has happened be sure to take it down right away.
Test out all your contact forms to make sure you are getting the emails when they’re submitted. Similarly, if you have a newsletter block test that the forms, once submitted are being added to your Squarespace Campaigns or the email marketing platform of choice (e.g. Mailchimp).
Make sure all the pages of your website are loading quickly and without errors. If you find a problem, try reducing the size of your page so it is under 5MB, optimising images, using fewer fonts (ideally, you want to keep to two fonts)and limiting URL redirects. Use can use the following sites to test speed and find potential errors: Page Speed Online, Pingdom and GTmetrix.
Check for broken links and 404 errors using one of the tools below. Then rectify by correcting, removing or redirecting the URL to the right page.
Delete spam comments from your website’s pages and blog posts. Adding Google reCAPTCHA to your site can prevent you from receiving spammy message forms.
And at the beginning of each new year be sure that your copyright text block shows the correct year. Below is a handy piece of code to help you.
PRO-TIP: Code to automatically update your copyright
If you are on a business or higher plan you can use the Code Block but otherwise, the Markdown Block will work. Enter the following HTML code for the various scenarios:
Basic:
<p>Copyright © <script>document.write(new Date().getFullYear())</script> Your Name All Rights Reserved</p>
Date range:
<p> Copyright © 2022-<script>document.write(new Date().getFullYear())</script> Your Name All Rights Reserved</p>
Centre copyright notice:
<p style="text-align: center"> Copyright © 2022-<script>document.write(new Date().getFullYear())</script> Your Name All Rights Reserved</p>
Nourishment
Website nourishment is the good food (otherwise known as “content”) that you add to your site to keep it interesting, vibrant and relevant. Think blog posts, instruction manuals, case studies, FAQs etc.
Why does this matter?
It demonstrates that your business is current and dynamic and allows you to further demonstrate your expertise and dominance in your field.
It encourages visitors to stay longer on your site giving you more time to win them over and make that sale. And if people are staying on your site longer, Google will notice and your ranking should improve helping you to attract even more visitors in the future.
You can measure on-page time and bounce rates (the percentage of visitors who visit just one-page page and then leave the site without visiting other pages and/or taking another action such as signing up to a newsletter, buying a product, clicking on a link) using Google Analytics. I encourage you to start tracking these figures.
It provides a chance for you to create more keyword optimised pages.
Cross-Pollination
In the plant world, cross-pollination is when one plant pollinates a plant of another variety. The two plants’ genetic material combines and the resulting seeds from that pollination will have characteristics of both varieties. In the best-case scenario, this new variety will be stronger, healthier and better able to survive.
In terms of your website, you can look for ways to cross-pollinate by keeping yourself open to new ideas, scanning the competitive environment for better solutions that you could incorporate or repurpose for your online business and of course actively listening to your customers and responding to what you see and hear. It is all about looking for ways to innovate and build your economic moat.
If you are a Squarespace user be sure you are kept up to date on new features and spend a some time evaluating if they might be worth adding to your site. For example, Squarespace’s new Members Area might be a great way to offer your best customers exclusive content.
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POST LAUNCH
‘TO DO’ CHECKLIST
Announce it.
Tell friends and family and everyone you know that you have a new website
Shout it out on Social Media
Try a teaser campaign
Plan an official launch campaign
Create a series of posts to announce the launch of your site.
Take advantage of the power and popularity of video
Be sure to have a call to action and consider adding some kind of incentive
Think about creating a unique branded hashtag
Keep the momentum going by sharing new customer reviews and encouraging user-generated content
Build relationships with key influencers in your field
Try old school PR
2. Set up your Google Business Profile
3. Maintain Site.
Schedule regular housekeeping activities to remove out of date content and routinely test links, forms, web speed.
Nourish it by adding regular and relevant new content. Think blog posts, instruction manuals, case studies, FAQs etc.
Innovate it by being open to new ideas, scanning the environment for new innovations and listening and responding to customer feedback.
