A checklist for your ecommerce website

You’ve designed your ecommerce website, you’ve created your products, and you’re ready to launch. However, with how much work there is when launching a brand-new online store, it can be very easy to overlook something.

Here’s a pre-launch checklist for you, so you can present a beautiful and functional website to your future customers.

DESIGN

A DESIGN CHECKLIST TO KEEP YOUR WEBSITE BEAUTIFUL

• Are you consistent with your brand colors?
• Did you use clear and bold calls to action?
• Do you have high-quality brand images?
• Can your cart and checkout be easily accessed by customers?
• Does your website have a favicon?
• Are your products displayed correctly/beautifully?
• Do you have a retina version of your logo? (If your site supports it)

When you review your website, make sure you have consistent style elements like link colors, hover colors, and paragraph alignments. You want to ensure that customers are properly guided throughout their browsing experience.

FUNCTIONALITY

A FUNCTIONALITY CHECKLIST TO KEEP YOUR WEBSITE EXCEPTIONAL

• Do all of your hyperlinks work?
• Do your forms work correctly?
• Is your contact info accurate and clearly visible?
• Do you have a 404 page?
• Does your site load quickly?
• Can existing customers still access their orders?
• Are taxes set up correctly?
• Does your checkout work?
• Do coupon codes work?
• Do product variations display correctly?
• Is your shipping working?
• Does your customer’s local currency update correctly?
• Are cross-sells and upsells recommending the correct products?
• Do you have a way to follow up with customers after purchase?
• Is your customer account page easy to understand?
• Have you reviewed your product descriptions?
• Are digital products being delivered after purchase?
• Are your extensions/plugins working?
• How do products look when shared on social media?
• How’s your search functionality? Is it easy for someone to find what they’re looking for?

After browsing the internet for so long, there are certain behaviors that customers have come to expect from ecommerce websites. It would be very bad for your user engagement if a customer chances upon a broken link, or a slow page. It would also be bad for you because you could have just lost a potential sale. Ensure you are testing your site and making sure it functions as expected.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

AN SEO CHECKLIST TO KEEP YOUR WEBSITE DISCOVERABLE

• Do you have compelling meta descriptions?
• Do all images have keyword titles?
• Have you included alt text for your accessibility users?
• Are you using good headings?
• Do you have good URL structure and breadcrumbs?
• Do your old URLs redirect to new ones?
• Have you created product landing pages?
• Do you have an XML sitemap and has it been submitted to Google?

It can be laborious and daunting to optimize your website for search engines. But remember, if you’re a new business that may not have the capital for ads, it’s going to be very important for your store’s survival to be seen on Google and other search engines.

SECURITY

A SECURITY CHECKLIST TO KEEP YOUR WEBSITE SAFE

• Does your site have a firewall set up? 
• Does your site have an SSL certificate? 
• Are you using strong passwords?
• Do you have backups set up?
• Does your comment section have a spam filter?
• Have you changed your website’s default login URL?
• Is your website up-to-date?

Website security is a very important factor that can nowadays be dealt with very easily, but admins often don’t take the right precautions. Make sure you’re keeping up with your website updates and backups. It would be wise to consider 2 factor authentication for your login process as well.

LEGAL

A LEGAL CHECKLIST TO KEEP YOUR WEBSITE COMPLIANT

• Do you have a terms and conditions page?
• Have you considered GDPR privacy laws?
• Do you have a privacy policy?
• Do you have a return policy?
• Do you have a disclosure for your affiliate products?

Operating an ecommerce website means you’re dealing with people’s money, and their data. It’s very important that you keep your customers informed of how you use and manage their private information.