The Ultimate WordPress Pre-Launch Checklist

A comprehensive list of necessary checks for wordpress based websites before the official launch.

• To enjoy latest Web standards benefits in the field of SEO and load speed optimization, make sure that you have installed latest version of WordPress. You can download the latest version from here http://wordpress.org/latest.zip.
• Change the title and tagline of the WordPress website. You can change the name through WordPress admin panel itself by going to Appearances tab -> Themes -> {your theme name} -> Customize -> Tagline/Title.
• For security purposes and for user-friendliness, make sure that the database has unique name prefix. You can change the database prefixes through wp-config.php and database admin page. A guide to change wp-config.php :- http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php
• Establish an underlying theme for the blog or website and launch the website with at least 5 quality posts.
• Make sure that you have included a properly formatted and styled 404.php file that will allow WordPress to display custom 404 error messages.
• Add Copyright Statements, Privacy Policies, and general Terms and Conditions pages to the website footer.
• Create About Us and Contact Us pages. Here are some plugins to add contact us forms: – Contact Form 7, Contact Form, and Fast Secure Contact Form.
• Change the login URL of the admin login page to websitename/login or any other URL you like. Here’s a post to aid you in customizing admin login screen :- https://www.wordpressintegration.com/blog/how-to-customize-the-wordpress-admin-login-screen/
• Create and add XML Site map for the website. Also create a sitemap page and add it in the footer. Here is a great plugin to create site maps Google XML Sitemaps.
• Check the website for W3C HTML validation. http://validator.w3.org/
• Check the website for W3C CSS validation. http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
• Check the website for optimum page load speed. http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
• Check for broken links. Though WordPress rarely has broken links its best to check them. Here is a tool to check for broken links. http://validator.w3.org/checklink
• Check for cross browser compatibility. The best way is to open the website in as many different types of browsers as possible but here are some good tools to check for browser compatibility:- http://crossbrowsertesting.com and http://browsershots.org
• Check all the forms and rollovers multiple times and in different browsers and devices.
• Use strong passwords for creating user logins and admin logins. Tools to check password strength https://password.kaspersky.com/in/, and http://www.passwordmeter.com/.
• Increase the page load speed of the WordPress website by using caching plugins. Some best caching plugins include W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, and Hyper Cache
• Add RSS buttons above the fold of website pages. Some really good WordPress plugins to include RSS feed and RSS button in website are:- Social Media Widget, WP RSS Aggregator, and FD Feedburner Plugin
• Add social media buttons to every page of the WordPress website. Here are few great plugins to add Social sharing buttons:- Sociable, Sharebar, and ShareThis
• Add Favicon images to the WordPress website. Here are a few plugins to efficiently add favicon images:- All In One Favicon, Custom Favicon, and Easy Set Favicon
• Enable Search Engine Visibility of the WordPress website. Make your website index-able by going through following steps through WordPress admin Admin-> Settings-> Search Engine Visibility-> uncheck the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” option
• Add analytics code to each page of the WordPress website. You can add analytics code through simple plugins such as Google Analytics for WordPress plugin by Joost de Valk, or you can directly add the analytics code to the page. Here’s a guide to adding Google analytics http://digwp.com/2012/06/add-google-analytics-wordpress/
• Add and verify the website in Google webmaster { https://www.google.com/webmasters} and Bing webmaster { http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster/}
• Create search engine friendly post slugs. You can individually change the permalink of every post or you can set a default permalink format from admin panel. Just follow these steps {wordpress-admin}-> Settings-> Permalinks
• Try to use relevant keywords in the titles of the post and create keyword rich permalink post slugs.
• Each post should contain relevant meta tag description, meta title and rich snippet codes. You can manage the whole SEO aspects of each website post through the following WordPress SEO plugins. WordPress SEO by Yoast, and All in One SEO Pack
• Use Spell check in every post. Latest browsers have inbuilt spell checks so use latest browsers to create pages and posts. But if not, here are a few tools that can be used for spell check:- http://www.spellcheck.net/, http://www.jspell.com/public-spell-checker.html and http://www.w3.org/2002/01/spellchecker
• Use correct grammar to write posts and content. You can use the following tools to check for grammar : – http://www.grammarly.com/ , http://www.reverso.net/spell-checker/english-spelling-grammar/, and http://www.onlinecorrection.com/
• All the content should be unique and each image should be owned by you. Or else take permissions from the authors and give relevant credits. You can check the uniqueness of your content at http://www.copyscape.com/. Use < rel= “canonical” > tags when quoting already published content.
• Add authorship to each post and link each post with Google+ authorship through <rel=”author”> tags.

Click here to download a concise PDF version of this checklist

We have also created an infographic highlighting all the important aspects of the checklist. It could prove to be a good visual aid for developers and designers.