How to Launch Your New Website with Ease & Authority

After weeks of slaving away on your website and getting all the details just so, the last thing on your mind may be how to launch your new website. But, I look at it as a great opportunity. At the beginning of your business, this will be the time when you have the most traffic coming to your website. A little bit of strategy and planning can set you up for success in the long run and save months of trying to get more traffic to your website. So, take full advantage of your initial launch and make the most of it! Here’s how:

01

Determine if you are ready to launch your new website.

Ok, I know… you’ve spent weeks if not months perfecting your website and are just ready to launch already! But hear me out for a minute. The purpose of a website launch is to generate traffic to your site.

Consider when you generate all this traffic, what is there to offer your visitors? If you just have an about page, a list of your services and a contact form that may not be enough. Most visitors will not buy from you on their first visit. Therefore, your website must first serve your audience well before you ask for anything in exchange.

So, how do you serve your audience?

A blog, vlog or podcast are great examples of this. If your content is high quality, this will generate continued traffic back to your website. Especially, if posted to websites such as YouTube or Pinterest where people will be searching for what you’ve created. It also helps establish you and your business as an authority in your field.

Sometimes referred to as “Champagne”, what are you welcoming guests to your online home with? This could be a downloadable workbook, checklist, e-book, audio training, video training series, etc. Anything that will help them overcome a pain point they are struggling with right now. Helping browsers, even in a small way, will help build trust and authority in your brand.

When visitors come to your website, do you have a way of continuing to build a relationship with them? Capturing email addresses is vital to building a relationship with your audience. Social media is simply not enough when only a fraction of your followers will actually get to see your posts & updates.

Awesome, so your website is ready to go! Now what?

02

Publish a “Coming Soon” or “Under Construction” landing page

What is a coming soon landing page? It’s a page that announces the launch of your soon-to-be-live website. What’s the point you might ask? Well, I like to compare the function of a coming soon page to that of a movie trailer. The intention or purpose of both is to get people excited about what’s to come and then actually check out what’s being advertised. In our case, your new website!

If we break down the components of a movie trailer, let’s think about how they accomplish this. They show excerpts of exciting, funny or otherwise memorable moments from the film to entice the target audience. Those excerpts are specifically chosen to make you feel something, creating anticipation. They also give a small amount of information urging you to come back for more. Finally, they let you know when you can expect the feature film.

As trailer editor Mark Woollen said:

How do you accomplish this on your landing page?

You give visitors a sneak peek at your brand personality through your copywriting tone of voice. Have fun with the wording on this page, injecting your personality where you can.

Think about how you can visually communicate a celebration or a big event. The image for this blog post is a great example. Confetti coming out of a box visually communicates a special event or celebration of some kind.

Entice your target audience by giving them a preview of what’s to come. Tell visitors who you serve and what they can expect from you. Those that need your offerings will be more likely to come back once you launch to see how you can serve them.

If you are going to entice viewers to come back after you launch, you need to let them know when they can expect your website to go live.

This is the first promise you are making to potential clients. Once you set a date, stick to it! Use a countdown clock to really build the hype. If you don’t want to specify an exact date, use the month or season instead. For example: “August 2018” or “Winter of 2019”.

03

Set up your email list and place an opt-in area on your landing page

In step one, we already discussed the importance of having an email list opt-in section on your website. This is also a very important component of a good coming soon landing page.

The truth is potential clients may see your landing page and be intrigued to see your website live in action, but they won’t remember to come back on their own. However, if they like what they see and you’ve done a great job at teasing your website, they may provide you with an email address so you can let them know when you do launch.

When they subscribe to your email list, have an email ready to go. In the email, thank them for their support and ask them to join you on social media for a sneak peek at your new brand and business as you are preparing for launch day.

Remember, every interaction whether it be a page on your website, an email, a blog post or a social media post should have a call to action encouraging your audience to engage with your business.

04

Build up hype on your social media channels, driving traffic to your coming soon page.

By now you should set a fixed date to launch your new website. You don’t necessarily need to announce it publically but the duration of your marketing efforts leading up to this date is important.

Launches can vary in duration but a good, general timeline is about 1 to 2 weeks. Too short of a launch window and you won’t have enough time to capture people’s attention. Too long of a launch and your marketing efforts may backfire on you and you’ll lose your audience’s attention.

Start to promote your new website on your social channels. You could share snips of your new brand or a screenshot of your new web design. You could count down by posting the number of days until launch. If you love being on video, stream yourself promoting the launch and your business. Maybe even give something away Oprah style.

Make sure to mention the address for your new website, driving your followers to your landing page and capturing their email address in the process. Also, ensure the URL is in your social profiles so people know where to find your online home.

05

Launch your new website!

You’ve done all the prep work and today is the day. It’s time to launch your new website!

The “Coming Soon” page comes down and your new website goes live. Be sure to announce the launch to your email followers as well as your social media friends to come have a look. If all goes as planned, you should have some good traffic and some engagement on both your blog and your social channels.

Be sure to respond to every, single comment.

People are taking the time out of their day to see what you have to offer and engage with you. It’s so important to show up and engage back. You’ve been working so hard to build and launch your new website and business.

Enjoy the moment!