8 overlooked “Go Live” Checklist Points For Magento Website
Making website live is the most crucial step in the entire process of development. You have given months in to the development of a website as countless hours of hard work – designing, coding, staging, editing, testing and retesting. After all these efforts and endeavors the website finally gets ready to “GO LIVE”.
Launching a new website is just like the finish line of a big race. You don’t want to lose the big race because of a small mistake. That’s why Magento oCodewire follows stringent protocols and testing practices to ensure that your websites go live without any hiccups.
There are numerous things to be taken care of while making a Magento site live – here are top 8 most overlooked pointers that you need to check:
Configure Robots.txt file
When search engines are not allowed to crawl the website, it certainly affects your business. When making your website live, prevent search engines to crawl your backend or admin data. Allow it to be done only with the Robots.txt file. Enable your search engines to crawl only the front end data.
Disable unutilized modules
It is natural that your online store is going to use almost all the features offered by the Magento platform. But somehow you use only certain features, so it’s better that you enable only those features that you use. To disable unutilized websites features use the following step:-
• Disable modules in System > Configuration > Advanced – For example, you disable Magento Newsletter Subscription if they use third party email marketing services. You may also want to disable Mage_Tag, Mage_Newsletter and Mage_Poll.
Remove all test orders, customers and products
Regardless of the fact that test orders don’t exist in any of the categories, search engine will search it and show it to the users if they are not deleted before launch. Assure that these things are removed before the launch. So, double check it!
Switch the payment gateways to live mode from test mode
If payment gateways are not working properly, it increases the chances of more customers abandoning their shopping carts, that to at a fast rate. Therefore, confirm that your payment gateway is ready to go live after testing. Make sure it is running smoothly and that error handling protocol is working correctly in live mode.
Ensure that the Cache is turned On
During the process of development, developers turn off the caching. But before taking your Magento website live ensure that caching is on.
Edit 404 error default page
One of the major overlooked point is the default 404 error page. The default page is unattractive showcasing an inside glimpse to the customers. Beside you certainly don’t want to lose the opportunities that can be leveraged through this page. Be sure that the design and copy of your 404 page represents your brand voice, gives a clear message and guides your visitors to what they are looking for.
Website Speed Optimization
The speed of your website counts as the basic necessity for a good Users Experience. So before making your website live don’t forget to optimize the speed of your website. Make the actual speed of your website fast by combining and compressing JS and CSS file. Also, don’t forget to optimize the images.
Define Emails Properly
Make sure that the store address on the web admin is proper and that the emails have been properly defined. In case the emails are not defined properly, it can create problems once the website becomes live. Also, look into the template, change them according to your store.
Store Configuration
Assure that the store has also configured the address of its physical location, if any.
Making a website live is the final task of the big game – so don’t leave any stone unturned – Nail it down at the right location.
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