Starting your own website doesn’t seem to be rocket science and, it’s not. But, having a plan in place to launch, knowing exactly what to do before and after the launch is very important for your success.
I have often wondered, and I have seen many of my friends beating around the bushes to find success after starting a new website. Sometimes, I have ended up making the same mistakes a second and a third time. If you have launched a website or are planning to, you know what I’m talking about.
With MisterAcronym.com website design and development in full swing, I am again thinking to revisit my launch plan of this website with my partner, Bill Butler. MisterAcronym.com is a creative project with the intention to entertain and educate, while helping our readers expand their vocabulary in English language in a very creative manner.
We also plan to add books for children and adults, special services and many fun things when the website launches. Bill and I are very excited about this ambitious project launching later this year.
Planning Is Very Important For Success
When you are launching your personal blog for the first time, you likely don’t know much about online marketing. Initially, you may not even be interested in online marketing because you just want to build your personal brand.
That is totally understandable. I did the same thing!
However, once you know a little bit about online marketing, once you are comfortable with the process of creating new websites, planning before launch is very, very important. You may enjoy this quote right now:
If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail! ―Benjamin Franklin
I have seen bloggers starting one website, getting some traffic and some engagement, and then starting another website to do the exact same thing. Before long they have multiple websites to manage with a little audience on each.
While this is not a bad thing necessarily, this might not have been the result they were looking for when they launched these websites.
The key word is “Planning”. Doing all the work and having no plan to measure success usually leads to frustration.
Things To Do Before You Launch A New Website
So, let’s talk about what are some of the most important things to consider before launching a new website.
Yes, you don’t need a launch plan to succeed with your website or your online business. Agreed. But, it may take way longer than you thought to have the success you desire without a plan.
The idea is to cut down on time, money and resources and succeed faster.
1. Set Your Goals
It is very important to know why you want to launch your website.
- Is it to sell some products?
- Is it to create a new service in a niche you are good at?
- Is it to capitalize on a new opportunity which others haven’t seen yet?
- Is it to benefit from a trend which is very profitable?
You need to know your and goals and you also need to know how fast or slow you want to achieve those goals.
It is no fun to think about the goals of your new website after the launch. What needs to be done first should be done first.
2. Plan Your Strategy
Knowing the goals is great. But, having a strategy in place to achieve those goals is even more important before you start investing your time, money and other resources into the project.
- What kind of traffic do you need on the day of your launch?
- How are you going to achieve that level of traffic?
- Who are the people you want to engage with you in making your launch successful?
- What kind of products and/or services do you want to sell on your website right off the bat from day one?
- What is your social media strategy with this new website?
- What is your blogging strategy after the launch?
- How are you going to create engagement on this website after the launch?
This is not a comprehensive list of items that you need to plan before you begin your launch. However, I hope that you get an idea about the things that are important to plan for before you go too far down the bunny hole.
3. Plan Your Pre-Launch Activity
I like to think of a new website launch as an important event. Just as we talk about an exciting event coming up, we need to talk about our new website launch day. We need to have a plan to promote the launch itself.
I have watched some of the top marketers launch a new service, a new product, a new book and also a new website. One thing in common among all of them is the pre-launch activity. They put all they have got into the preparation and promotion of the launch before the launch.
On the other hand, I have seen average bloggers, marketers launch a website first and then begin to tell other people about their new website. They start promotion after everything has gone public.
The net result average people get with their launches is very exciting. On the other hand, the strategies of promotion, collaboration and partnerships that top marketers employ before the launch always proves to be very rewarding.
If I want to launch a website, a new product or new service, I want to emulate what successful people do so I can have, at the least, a shot and having the success those successful online marketers have.
Some of the top items on my checklist of activities to be done before the launch are:
- Make a list of people who can and will be able to help with the launch.
- Come up with a value proposition for those people so that you can approach them for helping you out.
- Actually approach the people in the list and seek their help with your value proposition.
- Create a pre-launch marketing campaign to leverage social media and the Internet for promotion of the launch.
- Get a decent pre-launch landing page for the website to collect email addresses of those who would like to be notified as soon as the launch happens. You may want to offer a bonus for those who subscribe before the launch.
Again, this is not a complete list. But, it should give you an idea as to what you need to prepare for, strategize an act upon even before your website comes to public life.
4. Plan Your Content Strategy
This is something that you might already know and you might as well be doing if you have some experience in launching websites.
However, content strategy doesn’t just mean that you write a set of blog posts and get them ready so you can publish them on the launch day.
Yes, that’s important. But, having a well done “About” page, “Contact Us/Me” and a well organized products/services page is also critical.
On the day of the launch, when people come to your website, you clearly want them to know what the website is on about and what benefits they can have by being there. Your website should have high quality and friendly content to engage with the readers from the very first day.
You should have at least a good number of highly valuable content pages your readers can consume right away. You definitely don’t want your readers to feel empty because your website doesn’t have enough content.
It is also equally important to have highly valuable content ready to be published for several weeks after the launch day so that your first time visitor can convert into your loyal readers and community members.
5. Build An Audience Before The Launch
Just because your website isn’t live yet doesn’t mean that you can’t start building a community of fans and followers on social media. This is the part I need to be working on more aggressively as well.
It is very important to can create a Facebook Page and start to build a community there. If you can afford it, running paid promotional campaigns on Facebook is definitely a great option to build audience quickly.
Similarly, building a community on Google+ and Twitter is equally important. These online communities will help drive traffic, engagement and revenue after the launch as well. It is worth investing time and money in doing these activities.
Joining discussion forums, writing guests posts on influential blogs, building relationships with influential people in your niche can boost the effect of your launch before the launch itself and it can help build your off-site audience quickly and very effectively.
What If You Don’t Do These Things?
If you don’t do any of these things, you can still launch a website. These are not mandatory steps. But, these are some of the lessons I have learned by closely watching and learning from successful online marketers.
If you desire success online, these five things are highly recommended. I tried this also to make myself accountable before Bill and I launch our MisterAcronym.com website.
Share Your Thoughts – Add Value
In your experience, what are some of the most important aspects of launching a new website? What are some of the most important things that Bill and I should do before the launch of our new website, MisterAcronym.com ?
Please share your thoughts, your experiences and suggestions. I am always eager to learn from you. Thank you kindly!
Excellent article… “winging” it doesn’t always work. But having a plan of action helps to direct you so you don’t get distracted. You offer some excellent questions to ask to stay on tract. I think one of the biggest challenges is not being clear about what you want to do online with your blog. The choices are many, but you really have to stick with what you’re really interested in, what you want to share with others from your perspective, and providing useful information they can use.
Hi Lesly,
It’s wonderful to see you for the first time at my blog and am so happy that you appreciated of things and I shared based on what Bill and I are trying to do with our new website launch.
Appreciate you for dropping by, sharing your thoughts and adding value. Have a wonderful new week.
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Congratulations indeed, this is wonderful news 🙂
In fact, I should also congratulate Bill along with you for the launch of MisterAcronym – and I can see the excitement all through this post – great going indeed!
I think you have covered up everything so well in this post regarding all that one needs to do before we launch a new site or blog, that nothing’s really left out. I guess once you have worked on a few sites earlier, the others fall in place easily because you know the mistakes you made earlier or the problems you came across, so you are very sure about your way around for the ones to come. Most importantly, you’d be starting on a new and different topic from this one, so that would surely be something interesting to learn about.
Thanks for sharing this with us, and wishing both of you the very best with the launch. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Hi Harleena,
Thank you for your words of encouragement and endorsing that all the things I am planning to do before the launch are appropriate. Appreciate you!
Well, it is an exciting venture for sure and at the same time, I am a little nervous as well because it is a completely different niche in which I am getting into my holding Bill’s hand.
We decided to combine our forces to make this venture happen and Bill has been putting some serious number of hours into this project already creating some awesome content, videos and some very interesting games etc.
I definitely want to get this launch done the right way sometime later this year. I might need some help from you in terms of some suggestions and I will reach out to you personally.
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
As you well know, you have set up my membership site. I am not doing a “full pre launch” at the moment, just spreading the word around a bit. Getting some people to grandfather in.
I do have a big pre-launch for this in mind, but for now, slow and steady as we go. Reading this post gave me such valuable ideas.
As I was reading through I checked off things in my mind like yes, I did that , No I didn’t even think of that and so on. So my friend, you have helped me more than you will ever know with this valuable information.
I am looking forward to MisterAcronym.com I already signed in! I love the way it was done, especially with the owl. I am certain that you and Bill will be doing something very special and I am so excited for you.
Of course, I will pass this on to my friends!
-Donna
Hi Donna,
Thank you for being such an encouraging friend as always! MisterAcronym has not even reached the stage where your membership website has. We are still working on our content strategy and design aspects.
But, I am so glad to know that you found this post helpful in your own endeavors.
Thank you for dropping by and sharing your thoughts.
Regards,
Kumar
Hey Kumar,
What a great list and I think for anyone coming on the blogging scene today definitely has to keep a lot of this in mind. I know so many people that have great ideas but still are under the impression that all you do is create a blog and then everyone will just find it and love it. Man oh man I only wish it were that easy.
I’m really not sure how anyone can have several blogs unless they have a team behind them because I don’t have to tell you how time consuming they can be. Very rewarding but as you mentioned they all start another one after seeing some traction with their current one expecting to do as well or even better. I find that all they do is burn themselves out and are even more bogged down than before.
I congratulate you and Bill for creating this new blog and I wish you the very best with it. Since both of you are involved I have no doubt that you’ll do well. You are both very brave though, very very brave.
Have a great week and can’t wait to check out the new site.
~Adrienne
Ah! Thank you Adrienne! I take your words of appreciation as a compliment and I strive to love up to the expected level of bravery 🙂
Well, I always wonder how people run around managing multiple blogs with little traffic simultaneously. I wish thy could focus on one, make it a success before starting another.
I couldn’t understand their logic either 🙁
Anyways, Bill and I have commuted to make this project happen and we are aggressively moving towards the goal.
We might need some help from you and our other good friends in the blogosphere. I will reach out to you personally when we are ready with our stuff.
Thank you and have a great rest of the week!
Regards,
Kumar
Hey sir Kumar, it’s nice to be here again this week. 🙂
So speaking of launching a website, I always wanted to launch my new site but couldn’t because I didn’t have all these kinda plan setup but now this is one lesson I’ve learned well and that I’ll give attention to in future launching, it might not be a website. (I’m planning to publish my own product – a book).
Thanks so much for sharing this with this great community sir. And I wish you success with your friend – Bill on your new venture. 🙂
Sam
Hi Sam,
I am glad to see you coming up strong and engaging with some of the top bloggers. That’s an awesome thing that you are doing.
With this kind of focus and commitment level, I am sure your book launch will do just fine. If you need any help, do let me know.
Regards,
Kumar
“When we act base on intention and focus, we rise quickly”. And that’s what I’m starting to do and I hope it helps me.
Thanks so much sir and I sure will let you in the hook off whatever help I might need. 🙂
Sam
Hey Kumar,
I winged it many of times and I was left in stagnation. Why? Because I wasn’t organized and it became overwhelming to the point I took very long breaks! But I think most important of all is setting up your foundation which are your goals.
If you don’t have any goals you can end up like an octopus on rollerskates… going in 8 different directions but yet going no where. Also planning your strategy and taking action on it is vital. You want to figure out what strategies worked in the past and how you can make any type of improvements. Also, to not feel like that Octopus, the best thing I found is to do one strategy at a time. This may be cliche, but it’s best to learn one well and then move on to the next. But having a list of what resonates with you is vital so you have what direction you want to go down on paper! In 2014 terms that may be on evernote or some other type of application 😉
Oh yea, how are you going to have a successful website without an audience. People are going to be the ones thats going to propel it to higher levels, so the wisest thing to do is to figure out ways you can build traffic and your list. You gave some great examples of doing guest posting, facebook page, and being involved with online communities. These avenues are great ways to really brand yourself!
Thanks for sharing and I hope you’re having a great week!
Hi Kumar,
In my starting days I did many mistakes and may be doing many now. But there is always a good factor when we have our strategies before the launch of a website. People should know about social media, their audience and much more.
Most of bloggers launch their website without having any knowledge about blogoshere. They don’t try to know about perfect time for starting their website. It’s not a good sign for them as they need to take a look around them to know about their targeted customers.
SEO is a great factor and for newbies it’s not a small piece of bread. Writing blog post for SEO become the main focus point and they forget about their readers. Beginners need to learn about many things even after their launch.
Thanks for this wonderful post.
Hope you are having fun this weekend.:)
~Ravi
Hi Ravi,
You are very welcome and I am glad to know that you have been consistently improving in your blogging and getting better day after day.
Thank you for dropping by and adding value by sharing your story. Have a great day my friend!
Regards,
Kumar
will you please mention which precautions we should use while starting any micro blogging website?
Very nice article every person starts a blog or website and fails. Why they fail the simple thing to know that improper planning structure. As in article you have mentioned that people create blog and rush for another blog it is actually a wrong procedure the main thing to remember that if we want to build brand the we have to build strategic planning before starting any business.