Website launch checklist for your first site

Starting your own website goes more smoothly when you do things in the right order. First decide who the site is for, which domain name you want and what you'll build it with. Then work on the design, the pages and the technical basics. Add the features that bring in enquiries, and check everything once more before you publish. Use this website creation checklist as you build: each step says what to decide and what to check.

Your website launch checklist at a glance

The work falls into six phases, and each one gives the next something to build on:

• Plan: who the site is for, your domain name and hosting, and whether you build with a website builder or a CMS.
• Design: a menu visitors understand, a layout that works on a phone, and colours and fonts that fit your business.
• Content: a home page, an about page, a services or products page, a contact page, a privacy notice and, if you like, news or a blog, written as plain text with headings, and page titles and descriptions for every page.
• Technical fundamentals: an SSL certificate, software updates, malware protection, strong passwords, fast pages with compressed images, and an accessible design with alt text for your images.
• Features: a contact form, a newsletter sign-up, calls to action, social media links and analytics.
• Final checks: links, forms, text, images, the phone view and loading times, tested before the site goes live.

You don't need to finish one phase completely before you start the next. But if you skip the planning, you'll usually end up redoing design and content later.

1. Plan your website

Three decisions shape everything you build later: who the site is for, where it lives and what you build it with.

Define your target audience

Before you design a single page, picture the people you want to reach. Answer these questions about your target audience in a sentence or two each:

• Who should visit your website, and what brings them there?
• What problems or questions do they have when they arrive?
• Which content and functions do they actually need, such as prices, opening hours or a way to book?

The clearer your answers, the easier it is to choose the right design, words and features. A site for local customers who want to book an appointment needs different things from a portfolio that has to win design clients.

Register a domain name and choose hosting

Your website needs an address and a place to live. Both are worth choosing with care, because changing them later takes work.

Your domain name is the address people type to find you, so keep it short and easy to spell. For a UK business, we recommend the domain extension .co.uk as your first choice. If you sell abroad as well, register the .com too, so nobody else can take it.

Web hosting is where your website's files are stored, on a server that's online around the clock. Look for fast, stable servers, room to upgrade as your site grows, an SSL certificate and regular backups. All our hosting plans include an SSL certificate.

Website builder or CMS: which suits a first website?

For most first websites, a website builder is the simpler choice. A website builder is an online tool: you pick or generate a design, edit your pages in the browser and publish, with nothing to install. A CMS (content management system) such as WordPress is software you install on your own hosting. It gives you more freedom, with themes for the design and plugins for extra features, but you also look after it.

With Hosting for WordPress, you update WordPress, your theme and your plugins yourself. With a website builder, there's no software for you to update, so you can spend your time on the content.

Our advice: start with a website builder if your site is mainly there to show what you do and take enquiries. Depending on your plan, it can also take bookings or simple orders. Choose WordPress if you plan to publish a lot, need features a builder doesn't offer, or have a developer building the site. Our comparison of WordPress vs website builder goes through the differences between the two point by point.

What you pay depends mostly on the plan and the features you need, such as an online shop or bookings. Every Aida AI Website Builder plan includes hosting, email on your own domain and a free domain for the first year on selected extensions. Before you choose a plan, check whether the extension you want is one of them.

Describe your business in a chat, and Aida creates your first pages. You can ask Aida for changes or edit most parts yourself before you publish.

If you'd rather not build the site yourself at all, our team designs and builds it for you and looks after updates and security afterwards.

2. Design and site structure

Once you know what you're building, decide how it looks and how visitors find their way around. You set most of this once and adjust it as you learn what visitors do.

Navigation and layout

Keep your main menu short and name each item the way your visitors would, such as Services, Prices, About and Contact. A visitor should reach any important page in a click or two. Give each page one clear next step, such as a button to get in touch or book, so nobody has to guess what to do.

Responsive design

Your site has to adapt to every screen size, so it works as well on a phone as on a computer. This is called responsive design. In practice, text should be readable without zooming and buttons big enough to tap with a thumb. Whatever you build with, open each page on your own phone before you publish.

Colours, fonts and visual identity

Use your brand colours and keep them the same on every page, so the site feels like one business. Choose fonts that are easy to read, ideally no more than two that work well together. If you have a logo, place it in the same spot at the top of every page.

3. Content and must-have pages

Visitors come for information, so your content decides whether they stay. Start with the pages below and add more as your business grows.

What pages does your website need?

We suggest starting with four core pages, plus a privacy notice if the site collects personal data:

• Home page: says in a sentence or two what you do and who it's for, and points visitors to your main services.
• About page: a short introduction to you or your team. People like to know who they're dealing with.
• Services or products page: what you offer, what it includes and what customers can expect. Clear descriptions answer questions before anyone has to ask.
• Contact page: your email address, phone number and a contact form, plus your address and opening hours if customers visit you.
• Privacy notice: UK GDPR requires you to tell people why you collect personal data, how long you keep it and who you share it with, if your site collects any, for example through a contact form or a newsletter sign-up. You give them this when you collect the data, so link the notice next to every form.
• News or a blog (optional): regular posts keep your site up to date and give visitors a reason to come back.

Clear, readable and search-friendly text

Write for your visitors first and search engines second. Plain words work for both, and a term your customers might not know is worth a short explanation. Headings, short paragraphs and lists make a page easy to skim, so visitors find what they came for. Use the words your customers search with, your keywords, in your headings and text. Repeating them for the sake of it only makes a page harder to read. It also helps when every page has its own page title and a short description, so it's clear what each page is about.

4. Technical fundamentals

Before you publish, make sure the technology behind your site keeps visitors safe and pages quick to load.

SSL certificate and security

Visitors expect their data to be safe on your site, and browsers such as Chrome warn them when it isn't. Put these basics in place before you launch:

• SSL certificate: an SSL certificate lets your website use HTTPS, which encrypts the connection between your site and its visitors, so what they send you, such as a password or a message, stays private. Your address then starts with https://, and without a certificate, Chrome warns visitors that the site doesn't use a private connection.
• Software updates: if your site runs on WordPress, install updates for WordPress, your theme and your plugins as soon as they come out, because they can include fixes for security problems.
• Malware protection: use your host's malware scanning or, on WordPress, a security plugin, so problems are spotted early. Our hosting plans include regular malware scans.
• Passwords: use a strong, unique password for every account that can change your site, and switch on two-factor authentication, which asks for a second code when you log in.

Loading speed and images

Large images are the easiest thing to fix before launch. Choose clear photos of your own business over blurry or generic ones, then compress them before you upload them. Don't use images much wider than the space they fill on the page. Keep videos and animations to the ones that help explain what you do. If you use WordPress, install only the plugins you need and switch on caching, which keeps ready-made copies of your pages so they load faster.

Website accessibility

Website accessibility means designing your site so people with disabilities can use it too, including people who use screen readers or navigate by keyboard. A few basics go a long way: clear headings in a logical order, enough contrast between text and background, and alt text for your images. Alt text is a short description of the image for people who can't see it. Our guide to the technical basics of website accessibility goes into more detail.

5. Features every website needs

A first site needs only a few features, so your website features checklist can stay short. Start with the ones that help visitors get in touch and show you what's working.

Contact forms, newsletter sign-ups and calls to action

A contact form gives visitors an easy way to get in touch without opening their email. A newsletter sign-up lets you stay in touch with people who aren't ready to buy yet, with news and offers. Calls to action are the short buttons or links that tell visitors what to do next, such as asking for a quote, booking or getting in touch.

Social media links

Link to the social media profiles you actually keep up to date, usually in the header or footer of every page. If you publish posts or news, add share buttons so readers can pass them on.

Analytics

An analytics tool such as Google Analytics is worth setting up before you go live, so it counts your very first visits. To begin with, look at three things: how many people visit, where they come from and which pages they read. Together they show whether people find you and what interests them. Before you switch the tool on, check whether it needs your visitors' consent for cookies, and describe it in your privacy notice. The ICO's statistical purposes exception means you don't need consent for analytics that you only use to improve your own site. You do have to tell visitors about them and give them a simple, free way to object. If your tool does more than that, the exception doesn't apply and you need consent, which is what a cookie banner asks for. With a tool run by another company, such as Google Analytics, the exception only applies if that company uses the data just to improve your site. If you're unsure, ask for consent.

6. Final checks before you go live

Go through your whole site once more the way a visitor would, and check that:

• Every link works, both to your own pages and to other websites.
• Every form sends: fill it in yourself and see that the message arrives in your inbox.
• Your address opens the site with and without www, and always with https://.
• Your privacy notice is linked next to every form.
• All text and images display correctly, with no placeholder text left behind.
• Every page has its own page title and description.
• The site works on a phone and a tablet as well as on a computer.
• Pages load quickly, even on a mobile connection.
• You have a backup of the finished site, so you can go back if something breaks after launch.

Our list of things to check before launching your website goes through each check in more detail. Once the site is live, the work carries on: keep your content up to date and watch which pages bring in enquiries. Our checklist of what to do after publishing a website picks up from there.

If you haven't built your site yet, you can build your first website with Aida AI Website Builder and work through this checklist as you go.