5 Things to Check Before you Launch a Web Site

by Karen on October 5, 2006

I’m joining Instigator Blog for Blog About 5 Things Week. Since I’m finishing up a few web sites, thought I’d jot down 5 things we should all check before launching a site.

1. Spelling

Always a pain, but necessary. Nothing turns me off more than a spelling error on a web site (even a blog, though I’m a bit more lenient there).

2. Print CSS

At the beginning of each project I create a print css file, but have to remember to put the necessary CSS rules in there at the end of the project. Nothing fancy, but IE on Windows really doesn’t like anything floated (it will often print just every other page, floating the other ones off the edge, I suppose) and I have to make the main content area narrower so that IE doesn’t cut it off. I also usually take the nav out.

3. Old Files

I always seem to have a few of these laying around the site: duplicates of the real files, graphics I didn’t use. It’s a good idea to get rid of them from your local site and the remote site.

4. Image Alts & Link Titles

It’s easy to be a bit more accessible and search engine friendly: make sure all your images have an alt tag on them. I don’t use a lot of images in my web pages, so it’s easy to quickly take a look and check. You might also check your links, see if you have a title attribute for each.

5. Page Titles

When I’m doing a lot of search engine optimization for a site, the page titles are all full of good keywords, but one or two pages may have the default (usually name of the company, heaven forbid if it just says ‘untitled document’). I do a quick go through and make sure I’ve got the titles in there for all of them.

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October 7, 2006 at 12:09 pm

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Ben Yoskovitz October 6, 2006 at 12:18 am

Karen — thanks for the great post and contributing to Blog About 5 Things Week!

Soon as I get 3 more submissions I’ll be linking to yours from Instigator Blog.

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