When most companies think of web design, they consider the planning, building and testing stages of a new website. However, few of them keep in mind one of the most crucial steps: pushing the newly designed site onto a live server. To successfully launch your digital presence, you should keep website deployment in mind wherever possible. Here are 5 steps that help you make it successful:
1) Preparation
Ideally, you and your developer should begin to think about the deployment early in the design process. Some decisions made in the below steps can impact other aspects of the process: a domain name may impact your technical SEO, and deciding whether to integrate a SQL database will change your development structure.
But don’t think you’re in it alone. Your design partner knows all about the process, and will talk to you about the milestones and decisions necessary for deployment to go smoothly.
2) Research Potential Domains
A crucial part of deployment is the domain on which your website will live. Do you know just where that domain will be? Choosing a domain name will have a large impact:
- As mentioned above, it plays a vital role in your search engine optimization. Your business name should be a part of it, but you should also think of integrating a few frequently-searched keywords.
- Ensure that you don’t hone in on a domain name that exists as an exact or appropriate duplicate. If you’re a fashion outlet, it may be tempting to go for something broad like female-fashion.com. But what if female.com or female-fashion.net already exist? You risk losing significant traffic to other sites based on typos and incorrect autofill.
- Know what your competitors use. Ideally, you should use a domain name that is nothing like any of your competitors, in order to differentiate yourself.
3) Secure Final Domain & Host
Armed with the research in the previous step, make your decision on the appropriate domain name and host. Costs vary based on providers, and your developer will be able to give you recommendations in terms of host quality and costs. Again, securing your domain name early in the process ensures that you don’t lose it to others while working on the website.
4) Integrating SSL and SQL
Your developer will know all about the details to these seemingly obscure acronyms. SSL is a security certificate that encrypts your website, making it especially valuable if you collect personal or financial information from your visitors. You will recognize it by the small lock sign near the URL of secure websites.
Meanwhile, SQL is a programming language that allows your website to collect, access, and modify databases. Website developers use it to help human beings interact with databases. Your design partner will know whether your website includes SQL or SSL, and how that impacts the deployment process. For the purposes of this blog, simply being aware of these two variables can help understand the process necessary for deployment.
5) Establishing Maintenance Structures
Finally, no web deployment should be complete without establishing necessary next steps once the website is live. Who will maintain the host and domain, and what happens if troubleshooting is needed? Knowing the answers to these questions is crucial to avoid being stumped if or when something goes wrong.
Depending on your design partner, your relationship may end with deployment. In that case, make sure that you discuss with them everything there is to know about post-deployment maintenance before the process is finished. Alternatively, consider an arrangement in which you will continue to work with your developer on an as-needed basis if issues arise.
Web deployment is an often-overlooked, but crucial part of establishing a new or improved digital presence. To learn more about the process, and how we can help you run it as smoothly as possible, contact us.
