We already know that a well designed website is crucial to an online business’ success. Special care has to be taken in the pre-launch stage before you tell the world about your online presence. Making sure that your website is effective is an ongoing process, but especially just before you launch it. You will need to make sure that there are no broken links, no spelling mistakes in your content - because it adds to your credibility. Just imagine a visitor clicking a link that turns out to be broken - or even worse, having your affiliate program links not working efficiently!

To avoid last minute glitches and ensure that your website is launched successfully, here are some tips you must keep as a checklist no matter how many sites you launch!

• Check all links. Even though you have done nothing in the past weeks except crosschecking each link, just do it again. Broken links are a curse. Make sure that each link points your visitor to the right information page. No visitor enjoys receiving error messages. They will simply think that you don’t care enough and be lost in cyberspace forever!
• The fold - this is the border at the bottom of your web page and you must ensure that all the information above that line must have content you want your prospective customer to see. Lay the page out in such a way that your visitor sees what you want them to see first. Catchy headlines, bulleted content, subheadings, highlighted text, space, links to more information - are techniques to avoid clutter.
• Spell check - use it. All web building software come with spell check function. In fact, get a friend to re-check manually as well. Since you’ve been looking at the page constantly, any error will be more obvious to someone else.
• Take a fresh look at your website. Test the site. Have your close associates and friends look at it and get their reactions. It doesn’t hurt to make those little changes that will make a big difference. It could be something as simple as font size, color, the flow of text…
• Test your navigation links - menu titles must be succinct and to the point. There’s no point being overly creative with ambiguous words here. The most important information must jump out at your visitor in the few seconds he or she takes to glance over various elements of your website. This will make sure your conversion rate is high.
• Too much is too bad. This applies to the content on your page. Your prospective customers already know what they want. So make a page that is user friendly and easy to navigate. They can always be directed to ‘know more’ if they wish.
• Keep images relevant and to a minimum. An overdose of graphics will make the page take ages to load and no one is going to wait around until it happens.
• Check all your registration forms, submission forms, sign up links - everything.

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