Website Testing Checklist
Why is it important to test your website?
Testing your website before and after it has gone live ensures that your customers or potential clients are guaranteed a good user experience when they visit your website. When your website is accessible and easy to navigate, you not only ensure that your brand or company gives your current and potential customer base a good impression, but also increase your chance of generating inquiries or conversions.
Pre launch checklist
| 1. | Create a backup of your website Wordpress Backup How Squarespace backs up your website Exporting your Squarespace website for backup How do I duplicate, backup, or transfer my Shopify store? How to backup your Zest website | |
| 2. | Complete an order & process it (Ecom) Pretend you’re a customer and see if you can complete an order, and all orders are arriving at your admin. You can use these dummy credit cards for testing purposes: Test Credit Card Account | |
| 3. | Complete conversion goals Try to request a quote, sign-up for a monthly newsletter, become a member, answer a survey, or send a query via your forms. | |
| 4. | Check if your content is accurate and error-free 1. Check for placeholder images and text (Lorem ipsum). 2. Use a spell-check tool to spot spelling errors. 3. Ensure contact and company details are correct. 4. Check for broken links. Use the following tools: Online Spell Checker Dead Link Checker | |
| 5. | See if all pages have page titles and meta descriptions set Ensure all pages have title tags and descriptions set. You can use the ones from your old site. If possible, consider creating a template for large e-commerce sites. Ensure that the key images have relevant alt attributes. Don’t forget the logo. Zest WordPress Shopify Squarespace | |
| 6. | Check if URL redirects are setup correctly If you have changed your URL structure, ensure that you have 301 redirects setup to link the old pages to the new pages. Redirects: What you need to know | |
| 7. | Check if your products are setup correctly (Ecom) Do a quick search on your e-commerce site to ensure that there are no products with $0 or 0 inventory. Zest Shopify Woocommerce | |
| 8. | Check your website functions with key browsers Perform a cross-browser check on Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer. | |
| 9. | Setup Google Analytics Make sure you have your Google Analytics account set up on your website. Get started with Google Analytics Configuring your Google Analytics Share your Google Analytics with Zeald Insert Google Analytics in Zest Insert Google Analytics in WordPress Insert Google Analytics in Shopify Insert Google Analytics in Squarespace | |
| 10. | Ensure that a wordpress.zeald.com website is not indexed in search engines once the site is being made live. Go to Settings > Reading, then click Discourage search engines from indexing this site | |
| 11. | Check if you have an SSL certificate setup on your website. If you don't have an SSL certificate setup yet, refer to this help file Setup an SSL Certificate to learn how you can purchase one. What is an SSL Certificate? |
After launch checklist
| 1. | Check if your domain name has been set correctly Make sure that your www. is set up as the primary domain, and that all secondary domains are pointing. Zest WordPress Shopify Squarespace | |
| 2. | Setup webmaster tools and submit updated sitemap Submitting your sitemap lets major search engines easily index your website. What are Sitemaps? | |
| 3. | URL redirects are setup correctly Make sure that your page redirects are working. To test, do a Google search of your website, and check the top pages. Ensure that it is not redirected to a 404 or 301 error page. Redirects: What you need to know | |
| 4. | Check load speed Are your website’s key pages taking more than 3 seconds to load? Use this tool to check your website’s load speed: GTMetrix Site Speed Analyzer | |
| 5. | Check social share buttons If you have a Like and Share button, it must be able to share your post to the user’s social media account. If you have a Like Us button, the Likes should reflect on your social media page. Adding social media widgets to: Your Zest website Your WordPress Menu Your Shopify website Your Squarespace website using blocks | |
| 6. | Complete an order & process it (Ecom) Try to process another order from your live site and make sure all orders are arriving at your admin page. You can use these dummy credit cards for testing purposes: Test Credit Card Account | |
| 7. | Check that your order pages are secure (Ecom) Check if your order pages have https: on its URL, and that you see a lock appear on the address bar. If you right click on the lock, you should see your name and it should state that it has been verified and validated by a Secure Certificate Authority Get your very own SSL certificate | |
| 8. | Check that the 404 page not found page is useful Creating a 404 page for Zest Creating a 404 page for WordPress Creating a 404 page for Shopify Creating a 404 page for Squarespace |
Refinement checklist
Are your back-end log-in areas secure?
Make sure that your access to your website’s backend or dashboard is secure.
Check if your website’s admin is:
- Requesting log-in details when you access the dashboard
- secured with a unique alphanumeric password with special characters (if allowed).
Zest
WordPress
Ultimate guide to WordPress security
Shopify
Should you worry about security
Squarespace
Start tracking your website’s success with Google Analytics
See how much traffic and engagement you’re getting from your visitors.
Get started with Google Analytics
Configuring your Google Analytics
Make sure your website’s content is unique
Use a plagiarism tool to ensure that your website content is unique and original.
Save on hosting costs – Cancel your old website
Do this at least a month later.
Are your metadata and page titles displaying correctly on search engines?
Your pages must display the correct title tags and meta descriptions in Search Engine Page Results.
Check your website’s metatags with this tool:
Test your website’s features and navigation
Test you menus, internal search, product categories. Are they working as expected?
Check for any broken links
Make sure that the links redirect to the correct pages, and that these pages are already live.
Use a dead link checker tool:
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