You have spent countless hours of hard work on making your website work. You’ve created tons of features and functions for your clients. But amidst all of the hustle it’s very easy to forget about the basic things, the fundamentals that make your website work. What can you do to make sure that your launch goes smoothly?

We’ve got you covered with our great pre-launch checklist. Use it before launching any Magento website.

Magento Pre-Launch Checklist

Base URL

Base URLs are stored in the database table under core_config_data, but you can also find them in the Admin Panel here: System > Configuration > Web. When your site goes into production, you need to update your base URLs. Otherwise they will keep referring to the previous links. Don’t forget to do this. 

 HTML Head

You need to make sure that meta descriptions, keywords are present in the header, as this is crucial for your site’s SEO. This can be done here: System > Configuration > General > Design > HTML Head.

 Favicon

This is a pretty basic, but still a required element of your design. Otherwise, by default, Magento will place its own logo as your site’s favicon. Make sure to change this before your site goes live. The ideal size for a favicon is 16x16 pixels. You can update it here:  System > Configuration > General > Design > HTML Head > Favicon. 

 Contact Information

It is recommended to check your email address, contact number and mailing address. Make sure that these are correct on your ‘Contact’ page and other locations, where this info might be displayed. It is also preferable to have them in the same format. The standard contact information can be changed here: System > Configuration > General > Configuration > Store Email Addresses.

 Transactional Email Template

Transactional emails are important as they provide details about order status, shipping and other info to the customers. So be sure to check if the logo in the template is appropriate. If not,  change the logo and preferrably name it as logo_email.gif. Then place it in the appropriate Magento folder.

 Shipping From

You need to adjust the original country, state and city so that Magento could calculate correct tax amounts as per your shop’s location.

 Page Load Time

How is your page load speed? You can use Google’s PageSpeed or GTMetrix to find out whether your page load speed requires improvement. Make sure to benchmark against competitors and take the necessary steps to fix it (if necessary) before launch. 

 Database Checkup

Have everything properly backed up and make sure to have a restoration plan, in case if things hit the fan. 

 Disable Unnecessary Modules

Disable the default modules, which are not required for your store's setup.

 Newsletter Subscriptions

Test your email subscription by subscribing and unsubscribing to your newsletter.

 XML Sitemap

Make sure to set up an XML sitemap for your site, as soon as you have all of your product categories and product pages in place. The usual address for a sitemap would be /sitemap.xml.

 Google Analytics

To enable go here: System > Configuration > Sales > Google API > Google Analytics and add your GA code.

 Index Management

After you make all of the necessary changes and updates to your site’s structure - make sure to re-index the pages. This can be done here: System > Index Management.

 Log Cleaning 

Log cleaning is required to run your Magento site faster. You can enable it here: System > Configuration > Advanced > System > Log Cleaning.

 Stay Alert

Even when your website is already live, don’t think that it is the end of Magento development. More work and bug fixes may be required. This checklist should secure you a safe and stable site launch though.

About the Author

Yogesh Trivedi, Business Consultant at M-Connect Media

Yogesh Trivedi is a professional eCommerce business consultant with years of experience in the IT industry. His core expertise is Magento, where he applies all of his eCommerce business skills (planning, design, development, marketing) to help his clients. He is a Magento eCommerce expert and is able to provide a variety of professional solutions for different business verticals.