So you have a shiny new website- congratulations!! But now what? You’re probably wondering what to do after you launch a website!

If you’re thinking, “What should I do after creating a website?” “How do I announce a website launch? “What should be on my website launch marketing plan?” or “How do I drive sales on my new website,” you’re in the right place!

A gorgeous, optimized, professionally built website won’t immediately get your inbox flooded with new clients and sales all on its own. Like bees to honey, you need to lay some enticing traps to pull potential clients onto your new website in order to move them down your sales funnel. That’s where this post-launch website checklist comes in! I’m sharing the must-dos to create buzz and attract qualified potential clients to your new site.

First things first- if you worked with a professional website designer (like SO Digital + Design!), we’ve already done the most important technical and boring things for launch and post-launch for you! A professional website designer will connect your domain, optimize your website for SEO, design the website for ADA accessibility, triple check that all links and buttons are working, check the website design on all devices, secure your website with a SSL certificate, and more.

However, if you DIYed your website, it’s time for you to get to Googling- all of the above items need to be checked (and many more!) before you can move on to the following website launch checklist!

So- here they are! My absolute MUSTS for what to do after launching a new website for your business!

1. Connect SSL certificate

If you worked with a professional website designer, they should have done this for you, but I know there are some designers that may not.

Have you ever tried to go to a website and gotten that scary white screen that says something like, “website not secure! attackers may be trying to steal your information!”? If so, the website may be perfectly legit- they just don’t have their SSL certificate.

So what is a SSL certificate? SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer certificate, and is a data file that contains info about a website’s identity and public key. It’s hosted on the website’s origin server and keeps user data secure, verifies website ownership, prevents attackers from creating fake versions of the site, and conveys trust to users.

This is obviously a HUGE issue if you don’t have one, and will drive away potential business because users will get that scary warning screen!

Here’s how to check if you have a SSL certificate on your website: Type in your URL and go to the site. Does the URL start with http or https? The “s” means secure and indicates that you DO have the SSL certificate. If it’s http, you don’t have one.

2. Announce your website launch like crazy!

Announce your website launch everywhere that you are active!

• Social media posts, stories, and reels
• Email your email list
• Write a blog about it
• Create a Google My Business profile and add the link there
• Join local business directories and include the link to your website
• Share it in any networking or professional groups that you are in

3. Add your website link everywhere it needs to be!

There are tons of places to add your website link- the link in bio on your social media channels, the footer of any email campaigns you’re sending, to your personal email signature, on all marketing materials and business cards, on physical signage and advertisements, etc!

4. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console

If you want to put your website to work for you in the SEO world, the most important thing you an do is submit your sitemap to Google Search Console (and it’s totally free)!

Doing this alerts Google to the existence of your website so it can start serving it to relevant searchers. For example, if you’re a website designer in Washington DC and want to show up in search results when someone Googles “best website designer in Washington DC,” then the first step is to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console!

I build all of my websites on Showit, so here are step by step instructions for how to submit your Showit website to Google Search Console! If you’re building on something else, here are more general instructions for how to submit your sitemap.

5. Sign up for Google Analytics

If you’re serious about using your website as your main tool to drive sales, then you need to monitor and act on your website analytics. This information is KEY to gaining insight on your website visitor’s behavior! Armed with that data, you can make improvements and changes to drive more website conversions. Some website platforms have built in analytics, but NOTHING beats the level of detail you get from Google Analytics!

Google Analytics is a free tool, and some of the most important metrics in shares with you are:

• Users and active users: How many users engaged with the site and when, what their demographics and locations are, etc
• Bounce rate: The percentage of users who leave the site from the landing page without going to another page
• Pageviews: The number of pages viewed, which pages are popular, etc
• Average session duration: The average length of a user’s session
• Goal completions: The number of users who complete a goal, such as making a purchase 

There are unlimited ways to use the data from Google Analytics, but some of the ways I personally use it are to see:

• Acquisition data– how are people finding me? I can see a pie chart of how many of my website visitors come from organic SEO, Pinterest, Instagram, Email campaigns, Ads, etc. This is super useful for telling me what’s working and what I should/shouldn’t be allocating time or marketing dollars to. If I’m spending hours and hours on Instagram marketing and not seeing any traffic from it, that time can be reallocated to Pinterest, which is my best traffic driver and more worthy of the time and effort!
• What blog topics are performing best? What are people interested in learning about? Then I can write more blogs on that topic to drive more traffic. It might also tell me what kind of content will perform well on social media based on my user’s interests!
• What pages do people bounce from, or what pages do people spend the least amount of time on? That tells me something might be wrong on that page, like poor site loading speed, information that isn’t engaging enough, etc.
• Goals– you can set up goals in Google Analytics, like someone making a purchase or clicking through to a purchase page. I look at my goal metrics weekly to measure trends and also add markers, like if I ran an ad or announced a special that might have affected an increase or decrease in goal conversions.

If you have a Showit website, it’s easy to connect your Google Analytics- go here to learn how!

6. Add conversion tools to your website

This is a fun one! Do you have a great website, product, or service to offer, but are still struggling to get leads? There may be issues with your website (especially if you DIYed), but it could just be that you aren’t employing any, enough, or the right lead-warming or digital marketing tactics! More often than not, people need to be warmed up before they buy. This can be with valuable information that establishes you as a subject matter expert, with compelling email campaings, or with fun interactive elements.

Try some of the following!

• Add a lead magnet or two to your website. You can also use organic digital marketing or paid ads to drive traffic to your lead magnets to grow an email list!
• Add an email newsletter sign up section to your website
• Build interactive quizzes or polls where people trade their email address for quiz results
• Create blogs full of valuable information and include strong calls to action and information about how your products or services can help them!

Still have questions about this? Get my free guides, Lead Magnets 101 and the 5 Action Steps You Need to Take to Drive Conversions now!