Website Design Checklist

Website Checklist

1. Register Domain Name. This should be done done at the same time the name of the company is developed to avoid unattractive alternative spellings if your choice is not available. I would change a company name without hesitation if the exact matching domain name is not available. If there is a possible singular / plural confusion on your domain name, register both.
2. Determine purpose and scope of website. Is this a simple brochure site, a blog, an e-commerce site, educational, broadcasting or something else. This will determine the best type of website architecture to deploy. The functionality you need may change over time, so make sure you consider your choice carefully. You'll want to avoid the instant websites since they'll lack the flexibility you'll eventually need.
3. Set up website server space. This will typically be an Apache / Linux server, with a MySql database installed. Layered on top of this may be a content management system such as Wordpress or Joomla, an educational framework such as Moodle, or an e-commerce system.
4. Hash out site design and colors. Create or purchase a template.
5. Buy and install a Secure Certificate if needed. This is required for e-commerce with payments on the website. You'll need to have your business name registered to do this in most cases.
6. Content Development. Your story should capture your readers and contain enough pertinent keywords to ensure the search engines understand your site. Links between the pages and outside the site need to be carefully crafted to achieve these goals.
7. Images: Photography and Illustration. Visitors like images. Buy stock if custom images are out of the budget. Don't forget to resize them and take the spaces out of the filenames before uploading.

Search Engine Optimization Checklist

1. Content: This should be developed with two goals in mind: You must be able to keep visitors interested, and you need to include enough relevant keywords to make sure the automated search engines understand and correctly index your site. Include plenty of internal links built on your keywords.
2. Images: Make sure they are sized correctly before uploading and do not contain spaces in the file names. The image tags should specify the size so the page can lay out the correct dimensions before the image loads. Make sure you include accessible "alt" tags.
3. Blogs are great because they create a conversation if you are open to comments. Let your visitors create your content.
4. Step beyond promotional content. Present yourself as an expert in your industry, and develop authoritative reference content. Links referencing this content will develop organically, and Google will recognize and reward this activity. This type of content will also attract customers.
5. More short articles are better than one big article.
6. Do not use sparse splash pages. Both users and search engines hate them.
7. The page title is hidden in the code, but appears on top of the browser window and is usually the first line in your Google listing. It should accurately describe the page and should be different for each page on your website.
8. Use original content. Google will know if content is duplicated. They will defer to the site that created the content, or the one with higher credibility.
9. Don't use Adobe Flash. The search engines don't completely index this technology, and iPhone and iPads can't read it at all. Adobe has recently dropped support for Flash on all mobile devices.
10. Create an .xml sitemap of your site. A robots.txt file will stop the search engines from indexing areas of your site you would rather keep private.
11. List your site with Google using Google Webmaster Tools, and register your sitemap. You'll need to be able to upload a small file to your website to prove you own it. Do the same with Yahoo Site Explorer and Bing's Webmaster.
12. Submit your site to dmoz.org. There is no guarantee that they'll accept it. Great listing if you are accepted.
13. Generally, paid directory submissions are not worth the money. Possible exceptions may be "Best of the Web", the and the Yahoo paid directory. Yahoo is fading, but Google still seems to reward listings in the Yahoo directory.
14. Set up Google Analytics, and place the code snippet on every page of your website. You'll need to run it for at least two months to build up enough data to create benchmarks. There's plenty of information here, but concentrate on unique visitors, specific pages viewed, keywords used to find your site and bounce rates. Total website hits is an impressive number, but not useful unless you need to impress someone.
15. Your webpage has hidden content called meta tags that describe the content in your pages to the search engines. Make sure the folks that write your content know about these. You can safely ignore "meta-keywords" but "meta-description" should be carefully crafted to accurately describe your page. This will usually appear in Google under your page title. This is your first opportunity to attract visitors to your site.
16. Redirect example.com to www.example.com or the other way around.
17. Don't try to game the search engines! Old tricks include keywords repeated with microscopic fonts or white text on white. Unless you want to get delisted. Someone already did whatever you were thinking of before you.
18. Some points will be given by the search engine for a sense of being around for the long run: Renew your domain names for five years instead of one. Same with SSL certificates. Plus you won't forget to renew like Microsoft did with hotmail.com. They only forgot once.
19. Use heading tags (h1, h2, etc) to create a logical outline of your page that the search engines understand. By doing this, you can create content that is searchable, but still interesting for your readers.
20. Don't use font tags! Separate content from styling by using a separate css page. Then make sure that css page is as lean as possible.
21. Google reset the search algorithm in Jan 2012 to not favor pages with a lot of advertising, especially if it appears on top of the page (above the fold).
22. Don't require users to download special plugins or java applets. They'll just go elsewhere.
23. Keep your homepage lean and fast loading. Big images and videos slow load times. Fast clicking visitors will be out in 3 seconds if your page doesn't load. Save the big stuff for internal pages.
24. Work on getting backlinks from sites with high traffic and credibility. These links will help the rank of your site. Make sure these sites are relevant to your content. Good reference content on your site can help generate these links organically.
25. Linkbacks from .gov and .org sites are very valuable.
26. Be sure you cultivate your linkbacks in relevant industries and high quality sites. Being listed on "linkfarms" or buying into link building scheme can get you blacklisted from Google. Stay in the good neighborhoods of the net.
27. Participate in blogs and forums related to your industry. Include links back to your site where possible.
28. Be careful about email SEO companies or firms offering to sell links to your site. Google knows about these folks and their irrelevant links. These tactics can backfire and even cause your site to be delisted.
29. Google Adwords and other click advertising programs can be valuable in many situations. They don't help the search engine ranking of your website directly, although some folks that find you that way may link back to you. You'll spend plenty of money on Search marketing companies that will click on your ads and bombard you with calls and emails.

Social Networks

1. We're including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and possibly others like Flicker, etc depending on your industry.
2. Make sure you grab your company names on all of these even if you don't plan to use them now. You want to prevent someone else from grabbing your name.
3. Map out your goals. If you're a restaurant or a businesses with events or other news that your customers need to know, you can use these networks to announce specials, events and news. Others can create a conversation around interesting issues in their industry, others can bring their customers into the conversation about their products, and how they are using them. But you can't really use these forums for direct selling.
4. Separate your personal social network accounts from your business accounts
5. This takes a lot of work, and you probably can't participate in all the networks. Choose one or two most suitable to your industry. I usually choose Facebook for a general retail business and LinkedIn for a professional or business to business oriented company. Twitter feeds are great for rapid fire businesses that have frequent updates to announce. Facebook feeds can be ported over to Twitter as well. Most of these are indexed by the Search Engines.
6. Ping.fm and Hootsuite can help organize multiple social media sites. Consider signing up for one of these to lighten the load.
7. Contribute to the conversations that are interesting to your customers, and nurture the discussions around your product or brand. Offer news, information, anecdotes, but don't do the hard sell. You want to be seen as part of the conversation. Also, people will be listening to you, personally, so be yourself. The corporate message generally doesn't fly here. Be sure to participate in other peoples conversations.
8. Surveys and questions are a great way to get the conversation going. It might be interesting to offer a discount coupon to participants.
9. By encouraging your audience to talk about your products, you can avoid overt selling. You are also crowd sourcing your content which helps lighten the load.

Do you do business locally?

1. Register your business with Google Local / Bing Local and complete the profiles, along with pictures. They will need you to verify ownership of the business with an automated phone call or a reply to a postcard they will mail to you. They also want a real street location.
2. Yelp is a valuable resource if you are in an industry they list. List in Chowhound if you are a restaurant.
3. Look for other local links appropriate to your industry. Local groups and the Chamber of Commerce are possibilities.
4. Participate in activities sponsored by local non-profit organizations, and ask for links back to your business. Sponsor a show on public radio, donate products to charity auctions, help organize a fundraising drive, give a talk to the Chamber of Commerce about issues in your industry. You're helping your community, promoting your business in a positive, non-promotional way, and earning valuable .org links back to your site.

E-Commerce Checklist

1. Feb 8: More to come on this part soon…
2. E-Commerce Cart design or purchase.
3. E-Commerce Payments processing, gateway installation, banking, secure testing.
4. List site with Google, Bing, Yahoo using their tool sets
5. Develop links with order processing systems. Don't double enter order data.