GO LIVE information
Hi all,
We have been working on this go live scenario doc and so far this is where we are.
Make any comments or revisions necessary. The idea is that after a few times you go through this process, use this post as a guideline and checklist to make sure everything is complete and correct for the go live process.
hope this helps.
LOGINS WE NEED
| Account | Company/URL (Go Daddy for example) | Login | Password |
| Hosting Account OLD | |||
| Hosting Account NEW | |||
| FTP | |||
| Registrar | |||
| Google Analytics |
PRE GO LIVE CHECKLIST
This is the information gathering process so Go Live process goes smoothly
- Find out where the client will be hosting their new website
- If client is interested in our hosting, send hosting email: http://stwproject.cwdevel.com/?s=hosting
- Get login details for hosting account – old and new – and test to make sure you can gain access before giving to Daryl
- If the client is hosting with us, and they have an existing website, we need their old hosting account login information for Daryl
- If client is not hosting with us, make sure you get ALL hosting account logins – including the FTP & database logins. (Some hosting companies give you multiples logins, and we need ALL of them)
- Get registrar (where client bought domain name/URL) login details from Pre Kickoff form & test to make sure you can gain access before giving to Daryl
- If client is using new URL, have them purchase it (there’s a video showing them how in STWP members area), and get the registrar login info – if they haven’t done so already
- Find out ALL emails related to current site
- For example: info@websitename.com, name@websitename.com, etc
- Daryl will then put all these new emails into their new hosting account
- Find out where the client receives all their website related emails and inquiries.
- Find out where client must login to receive email. This could be a @gmail.com account OR it could be that they only get their email through Therapy Sites or GoDaddy.
- Make sure that you set up a pre live plan so that the client maintains their old emails. This is really a case by case basis with different scenarios (see scenarios below)
- Watch out for:
- GoDaddy Email
- Therapy Site Email
- Outlook Exchange Email
- Google Business/Enterprise Account Email
- Microsoft Office 365
- Yahoo Small Business
- Email must be redirected just like a URL needs to be redirected to a new host. So ask detailed questions about the client’s website email.
- Get Google Analytics account login information
- If client has existing site, check for Google Analytics & retrieve UA number for DEV – check out how to do this: http://stwproject.cwdevel.com/?s=google+analytics
- If client gets new URL, create new property and retrieve new UA code for developer – here is how to do this: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1042508?hl=en
- If client doesn’t have a Google Analytics account at all (on existing site) – create Google Analytics Account, create new property and retrieve UA code for developer
- If client has existing site, check for Google Analytics & retrieve UA number for DEV – check out how to do this: http://stwproject.cwdevel.com/?s=google+analytics
- Find out if the client has a Google Adwords account
- If client is getting a new URL, and has their own Google Adwords account, tell them its their responsibility to pause their account & change the URL until new site is live
- If we manage the client’s Google Adwords account, tell Jane to pause account until new site goes live & change URLs
- Find out if they have a Google Places listing (URL may need to be changed – if this is new URL)
- If client is getting a new URL, tell them its their responsibility to change the URL in their Google Places listing after the site goes live
- Set up 301 redirect plan in Excel for developer
- Add all page links for current site in excel and label column ‘Old URLs’ BEFORE NEW SITE GOES LIVE
- Add corresponding NEW page links (for new URL) for new site in excel and label column ‘New URLs’ FOR WHEN SITE GOES LIVE.
- If client is using Mailpoet & has a list of current website optin’s (emails of people that have subscribed to a newsletter, free report, etc. on their current website), then obtain list from client
- Tell client to export the email list from their current email marketing provider (Mailchimp, Constant Contact, etc) & email to you
- Tell developer to integrate email list(s) to Mailpoet (if client has existing subscriber list)
- Make sure all specialty pages are optimized in YOAST – by Jessie/writers or Jane
PRE GO LIVE IF THEY only if client has been using THERAPYSITES
***First, you need to find out if they have an email associated with their TherapySites URL
1. Send the client here: https://www.therapysites.com/terms.htm
2. The client will need to transfer their domain (make sure they definitely purchased it at/from TherapySites :).
a. They needs to go to their account, pay $15 and be given access to ‘move’ their domain to a new registrar. Easiest thing would be to ‘move’ the domain to godaddy.com.
3. First, have them set up the request for transfer.
4. Then, have them send you any verification emails about access for transfer and tell her to transfer the domain to Godaddy (versus any other domain marketplace). This transfer could take up to 7-10 days. Make sure the client is aware of this.
5. Then make sure you have the login username and password for Godaddy (which is information that the PC need to do the redirects).
HOSTING OPTIONS
Option 1: Stay with your current hosting
Option 2: Host with us. If you host with us, and if you have a GoDaddy email – you either have to back up all your emails by yourself (you can use Outlook or Entourage), or pay to stay at GoDaddy (in January, it was $90 per year for up to 5 emails to host their email there), or you can start a new email with us, but your old emails will be lost.
GO LIVE with the URL/DOMAIN
Tell developer to ‘take site live from development site to live site’
If client is hosting with us, tell developer ‘client is hosting with us at hostgator’
If client is not hosting with us, send their hosting account login information to developer – we will need the ftp login and database login for new host as listed in pre-live checklist (see line 2b in pre-go live)
Provide developer with correct domain/url and correct login information for the registrar where they purchased the old URL, the registrar where they purchased their new URL (if they did purchase one).
Have developer backup the site in the development environment
Have developer move the site to the new hosting account
GO LIVE IF CLIENT IS HOSTING WITH US
- For Daryl – Add client site to Securi for malware monitoring (ASSIGN TO DARYL ONLY)
- For Daryl – Add site to ManageWP to monitor WP plugin and various status (ASSIGN TO DARYL ONLY)
- Once the site is live, tell Sarah (sarah@page1pros.org) that client is hosting with us, and which plan they have.
GO LIVE with client’s EMAIL
- Have developer create any email addresses needed in new hosting account(i.e. clientname@sitename.com) and forward email addresses to client’s gmail/yahoo/etc
- Send developer a message that says add the following emails to the new hosting account clientname@sitename.com and redirect to clientname@gmail.com FOR EXAMPLE.
- Remember to make sure emails are redirected if using – each of these cases for redirect are different – usually a matter of knowing where to change the MX records for clients that use these particular email products.
- GoDaddy Email
- Outlook Exchange Email
- Google Business/Enterprise Account Email
- Microsoft Office 365
- Yahoo Small Business
- more that we don’t know yet
IMMEDIATELY AFTER GOING LIVE – QA TESTING MUST BE DONE
- DEV & PC – Once site goes live, check the entire website – check every page on the website, check every link on the website, navigate from homepage to every page, make sure it looks okay, make sure any links on those pages go to the correct place (no 404 error)
- Make sure the images look good throughout the site – make sure they ALL appear on the live site
- ***Try all these in multiple browsers*** (do main check in chrome, then check a few pages in safari and firefox)
- COMPLETE the 301 redirect map so that on the excel spreadsheet the PC enters the NEW URL column. Then ask the developer to do a 301 redirect and attached the completed excel spreadsheet that has the old urls to the now new urls.
- Check that contact form ‘submit’ is going to the correct email and test this with client. For example: tell developer ‘submit’ redirects to client@gmail.com and then test this to make sure client receives it.
- Is name and address in the footer?
- Do their social media icons go to their social media page?
- Make sure terms of service and privacy policy pages are there
- Make sure site IS INDEXED – change reading settings in Yoast SEO plugin
- Have developer set up FTP access in the new site once new site is up permanently – must place this in SITE ACCESS – make sure developer has done this.
- Check to make sure Google Analytics is working
- Send Client a ‘Your Site is Live’ email and give them wp101.com login details and the login for their wordpress dashboard. You can find a sample of the go live email on the P2 or ask Juliette.
- Check emails if necessary – if they are using Google Enterprise, Outlook Exchange/office 365, Yahoo small business.
- Test all free reports on the site once it is live (if there are free reports on the site). make sure the free reports are downloading properly.
- For free report, Change Admin username to client name. Also, change email address in Mailpoet to client’s email address in the ‘from’ field
- For free report email for the autoresponder, the developer has to change the default messaging:
- Contact form message should say: “Thank you for contacting me. I will reply to you as soon as possible”
- Have developer change Mailpoet’s messaging as follows:
- Optin Box on site: “Thank you for requesting my free report. Check your inbox now to confirm your subscription.”
Email Confirmation:
Email Subject: Confirm Your Report Download
Email Text:
“Hello!
Thanks for requesting my free report. In order to receive your report and to activate your subscription to the list, please click the link below:
Click here to confirm your subscription. (link)”
Have developer change any email addresses you have may have used for testing (for example – Mailpoet and Contact page)
Juliette Cook is discussing.
Juliette Cook 3:22 am on July 25, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply
New GO LIVE must do please:
As part of the go live process – in addition to #9 above (Make sure site IS INDEXED – change reading settings in Yoast SEO plugin) we MUST make sure site is indexed in google once we are live and the WP settings are allowing indexing of all pages.
It seems for some wp themes the default settings discourages search engines from indexing (some not all) so this is how you do it.
My example is a client that recently went live – drpeggythomson.com.
Go to google
Place the following in the search box: site: http://www.drpeggythomson.com
All pages should turn up in the results – no just the top result but all results should show all pages/posts of the site.
Try this for any client and you will see what I mean. In the google search box it is – site: http://www.sitename.com (whatever the site name is of course 🙂 🙂
If the pages don’t turn up in results then ask either the developer or you can do this yourself in the general settings side bar of the dashboard uncheck the discourage… box like here so that we can ensure we send a signal out to all search engines. http://screencast.com/t/5x3nRmsm