Preparing for launch day of your platform! What to look out for?

[speedbird]

Hello! I hope you're doing well on your side of the screen!

So, the last few months, after I started reading TMF , I immediately started on a side-project I saw opportunities in! And, I can finally see that it's coming to an end and have to start preparing for the long-waited launch day!

I've conducted some research about this topic and was able to summarise and list some of the key ingredients in making a successful launch (at least it's what the sources are promising):

• Make sure everything is working properly (run tests before deploying anything, all links, forms, functionalities should work fine)
• Make sure you got a fallback for all kinds of http errors (from a '404 not found' page to a 'something went wrong...' page)
• Make sure you add all the necessary meta tags and make sure your site is well optimized for search engines to rank your website at the top (SEO)
• Recheck all pages and make sure you do not have any grammar or spelling errors (these can hit hard if you have an error on for example your landing page, got this tip from a copywriting post I read recently)
• Get SSL in place. You really need to encrypt your http requests if you want to keep your users secure, especially if you got a critical components (such as login/signup page, checkingout page, ...) in your web app. Also websites supporting HTTPS are ranked higher on search engines than websites that do not support it!
• Maintain a blog and publish a post (that way, users are getting more familiar with your service/website)
• Have a responsive UI, not everyone is using a desktop to visit your site.
• Get all the necessary legal done for your website/service. It's boring but it will cover you, like a lot, some countries require you to inform your users about cookies, data you collect, ... .
• Use an analytics tool to get an idea about who is visiting your website, ...
• Keep posting for a couple of weeks about your launch, be realistic, most people won't click on your ad, post or link immediately (unless they were really looking for your website or service). Posting about it for a few weeks gives you the margin to not only attract new users, but also get it to become more known in the community that you're serving!

These are almost only answers on the technical side of my question. I personally, have never tried or have attempted to do anything like this before, it's all brand new to me and wanted to get some insights from other people on this platform before coming up with a strategy that suits my platform best!

I would highly appreciate it if you could share your experience! Like did you encounter something that had a negative impact on your early days? Or did you regret doing or implementing something that you've thought was useful or would have a positive impact on your growing rate?

Thanks all for reading this far! I hope that this post will help other people as well!

 

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[Leo Hartas]

Hello! I hope you're doing well on your side of the screen!

So, the last few months, after I started reading TMF , I immediately started on a side-project I saw opportunities in! And, I can finally see that it's coming to an end and have to start preparing for the long-waited launch day!

I've conducted some research about this topic and was able to summarise and list some of the key ingredients in making a successful launch (at least it's what the sources are promising):

• Make sure everything is working properly (run tests before deploying anything, all links, forms, functionalities should work fine)
• Make sure you got a fallback for all kinds of http errors (from a '404 not found' page to a 'something went wrong...' page)
• Make sure you add all the necessary meta tags and make sure your site is well optimized for search engines to rank your website at the top (SEO)
• Recheck all pages and make sure you do not have any grammar or spelling errors (these can hit hard if you have an error on for example your landing page, got this tip from a copywriting post I read recently)
• Get SSL in place. You really need to encrypt your http requests if you want to keep your users secure, especially if you got a critical components (such as login/signup page, checkingout page, ...) in your web app. Also websites supporting HTTPS are ranked higher on search engines than websites that do not support it!
• Maintain a blog and publish a post (that way, users are getting more familiar with your service/website)
• Have a responsive UI, not everyone is using a desktop to visit your site.
• Get all the necessary legal done for your website/service. It's boring but it will cover you, like a lot, some countries require you to inform your users about cookies, data you collect, ... .
• Use an analytics tool to get an idea about who is visiting your website, ...
• Keep posting for a couple of weeks about your launch, be realistic, most people won't click on your ad, post or link immediately (unless they were really looking for your website or service). Posting about it for a few weeks gives you the margin to not only attract new users, but also get it to become more known in the community that you're serving!

These are almost only answers on the technical side of my question. I personally, have never tried or have attempted to do anything like this before, it's all brand new to me and wanted to get some insights from other people on this platform before coming up with a strategy that suits my platform best!

I would highly appreciate it if you could share your experience! Like did you encounter something that had a negative impact on your early days? Or did you regret doing or implementing something that you've thought was useful or would have a positive impact on your growing rate?

Thanks all for reading this far! I hope that this post will help other people as well!

Hello Speedbird, Great checklist. I would add..

If you have a basket test the whole checkout experience and finesse it to as near perfect as possible.

Check your ecommerce automatic emails for the correct info, wording, branding, etc. A lot of people ignore this and go for the system defaults when these emails are an opportunity to leave a good impression, even upsell.

The same goes for mailing list sign-up emails.

Check your branding is consistent and in place across your site, emails, every little corner.

We're about to launch too (how many times have I said that only to be delayed but an unexpected issue!). First timers too. I think too much emphasis is put on a 'launch', unless you have put a load of work into pre-launch marketing. Because my site and products have a lot of backend complexity We're going for a soft, tentative launch, telling my personal network first, so if anything breaks we can fix it before opening to a wider audience.

Best of luck with your launch!

 

[speedbird]

Hello Speedbird, Great checklist. I would add..

If you have a basket test the whole checkout experience and finesse it to as near perfect as possible.

Check your ecommerce automatic emails for the correct info, wording, branding, etc. A lot of people ignore this and go for the system defaults when these emails are an opportunity to leave a good impression, even upsell.

The same goes for mailing list sign-up emails.

Check your branding is consistent and in place across your site, emails, every little corner.

We're about to launch too (how many times have I said that only to be delayed but an unexpected issue!). First timers too. I think too much emphasis is put on a 'launch', unless you have put a load of work into pre-launch marketing. Because my site and products have a lot of backend complexity We're going for a soft, tentative launch, telling my personal network first, so if anything breaks we can fix it before opening to a wider audience.

Best of luck with your launch!

Thanks a lot for adding these! Yeah, indeed, these are some import factors too! For example, consistency in theming or branding is a must. In my case, I do not have an ecommerce site or so, not a lot of experience in testing ordering and making it as easy as possible to let a user place an order.

Also, for non-native English speakers (like me), it's easy to check grammar of your sentences nowadays! Plenty of services that provide this service!

Best of luck to you too with your launch! Hopefully everything will go smoothly! Although I always keep thinking that everything can go wrong and have to focus on this to mitigate and resolve any issues as soon as possible (first experience of a new user/customer will always be the one he/she will remember the most).