Whether you have a brand new website, or a refresh of an existing website, when you launch the new site will have a big impact on the website success.

Here are our top tips on when to launch your website;

At 90% Completion

All of your core pages and features are in place, for most users, they will see a fully functioning finished website. But you may have a couple of extra pages to create, a new blog to upload, some content wording tweaks or change of images.

Launching your website with these tweaks still to be made can lead to a valuable boost in page rank.

Imagine you buy a newspaper and read it from cover to cover. You then buy another newspaper a week or so later, but the content is all the same. You would leave it longer next time before you bought a new paper, if the content is the same again you may not buy the newspaper for a year or so until you expect it to have new content.

Search engines are the same. On launch, your web agency should alert search engines of the launch and request a full website indexing.

After this index, the search engine will return to check each page again. If the website is the same, it will leave it longer and longer between visits. This will mean new content will take longer to be picked up and indexed organically.

However, if you launch your website, let search engines index the website, then make your final updates, when the search engines return, content has changed. The search engine will index these changes and visit again in a few days, to see if there are any more changes.

Keep managing content between indexes will mean search engines visit more often, pick up new content faster and rank you higher.

Not before a weekend or holiday

You have tested your website and tested again and all is great. But what happens if a problem does occur and you are at the lake on the weekend or on a family break at Disney?

Always launch a new website when you know support is available should the unexpected happen.

It seems simple but often the customer requests a website launch on a Friday or before a major holiday such as Christmas.

Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday

People are most work focussed on these days and typically social media engagement peaks mid-week.

Also following your website launch with a promotional campaign means more people are likely to engage with the new website yielding a higher click through rate than a Friday or Monday.

Time of Day

Following on from which day is best, time of day is also important. B2C 8am – 10am is good as they are commuting and checking phones.

B2B peak time is around 10am – midday. They have cleaned their emails from the day/evening before and give more attention to new emails. Send before this time and you’ll sit in a sea of other emails ready for a quick purge.

When you are ready

Don’t launch to meet a pre-specified date, launch when you are ready. Launching too soon could be detriment to your image if the website clearly looks unfinished or has broken elements. A short delay is better than broken.

That’s pretty much it, follow these top tips on when to launch your website and you’ll see a big difference in immediate website success.

If you need a new website or a website refresh, get in touch for a no obligation chat.