One of the most important lessons that I’ve learned after start and fail serveral projects is lack of Standard Operating Procedure. Basically it’s a collection of documents and step by step checklist for every aspect of your business which make everything go with right direction from beginning. Launching a new WordPress site need checklist too!
If you treat your blog as a business it must has SOP. I share my checklist for every new WordPress website in order to make it clear and have best practices when start line. One of my SEO project which rank top #1 Google in just 2 months is follow this checklist as well.
Sometime I setup new site by myself, sometime I outsource and sometime I give it to new team member to handle it depend on what level of project. So I used Evernote to keep my checklist but now I want to share with everyone because I truly believe the more I give the more I’ll receive later.
Main Contents
Here is my WordPress launch checklist for 2019
This is a very long article so if you don’t have time to follow it now just download this Checklist PDF version to read later.
Let’s go!
Before launching new WordPress project
- Do Niche research carefully;
- Estimate traffic from keyword and niche research;
- Pick a good domain: Namecheap is my choice for register new domain with free Privacy Protect feature;
- Choose your host wisely: Hawk Host is good start;
- Pick a good WordPress theme: I use GeneratePress & Publisher theme;
- Organize project folder: branding assets, planning files, PSD files, Site Structure file;
Basic Setup WordPress
- Point domain to host
- Setup WordPress installation
- Config SSL + http2
- Basic WordPress config: title, description, date time format, permalink structure, disable pingback trackback
- Install and Activate Akismet plugin to anti spam
- Install and Activate WordFence: for monitoring bruteforce attacks, security problem
- Install and Active WP-Sweep plugin: database optimization
- Install and Active JetPack: site stats, subscribe, performance improve and more
- Install and Active Classic Editor plugin: if you don’t like Gutenberge too!
- Permalink structure set to https://yourdomain.com/post-url/
- Setup basic website branding: logo, favicon, color scheme, typography, layout
- Create Site Structure for SEO: follow keyword research step before and mindmap/sheet files
- Delete unnessary stuffs: sample page, sample comment, sample post, Hello Dolly plugin
- Submit sitemap to Google Search Console (former Google Webmaster Tool)
- Add your Free content protection with DMCA here
- Setup Mailist funnel: Mailchimp, ConvertKit or Jetpack
Tracking Setup
- add Google Search Console;
- add Google Analytics;
- add Bing Webmaster Tool;
- add Social Share button: I use Sumo;
- add Heatmap tracking: I use Hotjar;
SEO Setup
- Install Yoast SEO plugin;
- Config Yoast SEO;
- Check robots.txt and sitemap working or not;
- Setup redirect;
- Create Tag and Category: title, slug and write description for them thoroughly;
Social Network Setup
- Create main Social Network Profile: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube, Google+;
Web Performance Checklist
- Setup Content Delivery Network;
- Optimize Google pagespeed score: check my detail guide here;
- Install lazy load plugin;
- Install cache plugin;
- Install image compression plugin: use this free plugin;
After launching
- Publish your first ever article on this website;
- Submit above article to pingfarm, Google Webmaster Tool;
- Send this article to Social Network you’ve created above;
After launching 1 week
- Check Google Search Console to see any error;
- Run SEO Audit your website to fix problems asap: get Free SEO audit tool here
I update more detail step by step checklist soon. What is the problem you are facing while setup new WordPress site? Comment below I’ll help and update into checklist above!