Test, launch and review

Once you’ve created a new website, you will be excited to share it. Just before you launch it more widely, make sure you’ve tested that everything is working. It’s particularly important to: 

• Check that links are working 
• Make sure any forms or contact buttons are working 
• Test how the site looks on mobiles and tablets. 

Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to launch your new website to the world! Tell your audience what they can find on the website, and you can even explain which user needs you’re hoping you’ve met and what your process was – it can help your audience feel that you’re meeting their needs to understand why you’ve made changes.  

It’s a good idea to have a way of accepting feedback on your new site too – this should help you pick up and fix any teething problems.  

User testing 

You might have a specific website feature you are developing, for example booking an event or an appointment, or making a donation. 

When working on a particular feature or process, it’s important to do some user testing to ensure that the process works properly. Doing user testing with a small group of external users can help you spot assumptions and problems that you might miss if you only test something internally. 

Loose ends

If you’ve had an old site up and running before your new one, you will want to set up redirects to ensure that old links to important content still work properly. 

Your website developer will probably have had an admin account set up as part of the build process. Once the site is live, you should review and reset user access, making sure that you only have admin access set up for people who need it. 

Make sure your social media profiles and email footers have been updated if your website address has changed. 

Review 

Build in a time to review your website and ask your team to spot any bugs or issues where the site needs a bit more work. 

Check stats of which pages are performing well, or less well 

Monitor traffic to your helpline or enquiry email. If you’re seeing a spike in traffic, you may need to take action to get core information more easily accessible on your website. Conversely, if helpline and email enquiries on routine queries is lower, this can be a sign that your new website is helping people more effectively.