Step 8: Going live

Your website has been on the internet since the day we handed it over. What is new today is that it is yours: your words, your work, your number.

Run this check before you tell anybody about it. Before the van signs, the flyers, the Google listing.

Every line below is something you can look at yourself. Do them in order and check them off.

Your details

• The name and the line under it in your footer are yours, not ours. Settings
• You called your own number from a phone and it rang. Contact Methods
• The email address on your Contact page reads right, letter by letter.
• The address on that page is the one you want customers driving to.
• Your opening hours have one row per day you are open. Business Profile
• Every license number matches the paper it came from. Credentials
• The footer shows one icon per social profile, and each one opens your account. Social Links

No examples left

• No entry named EXAMPLE is left in Services, Testimonials, Service Area Pages or Gallery. Step 4
• No EXAMPLE row is left on the Credentials card, and none in your address. Step 1
• The towns in your footer are the towns you work in. Service Area
• If your Pricing page is published, it is in your own words, and its buttons go somewhere real. Step 5
• Nothing on your home page or your About page still says EXAMPLE. Step 5
• If you have a food menu: every dish and price is yours. Menus (Food)

Every page

• You have read every page on your live website, top to bottom.
• Every link across the top opens a real page of yours. Menus
• Every link in the footer does too. On an older website, the Blog and Careers links are gone. Step 6
• Any page you added yourself is published and linked from a menu. Pages
• No picture is broken anywhere. Media
• No list in the panel is showing a yellow Pending changes tag. Anything yellow is work the public cannot see. Saving and publishing

On a phone

Most of your customers are on one. Pick up yours and open your website.

• The home page reads well on the small screen.
• You tapped the phone number on the Contact page, and your dialer opened with the right number in it.
• Your logo, or your business name, is readable at the top.

Inquiries

• A test inquiry you sent yourself reached Leads and your inbox. Step 7
• The quote form did the same.
• Both test leads are archived, so your inbox starts clean. Leads

Getting back in

• Under Admin, then Settings, then General, the Site URL is your own domain. If it is not, tell us. Your domain name
• You can sign in at your own domain, with a passkey made there. After the switch
• The admin panel is bookmarked at your own domain. Cmd+D on a Mac, Ctrl+D on Windows.
• You can sign in from a second device, such as your phone. Signing in
• One other person you trust can sign in as an Admin, and you can reach them by phone. Users

Then tell people

Send the address to your customers. Put it on the van. Add it to your Google listing.

Your website is not finished, and it never will be. Prices change, jobs get photographed, a new service starts. Every one of those is the same short job: open the entry, change it, click Publish changes, then Publish changes again in the box that opens.