Getting ready to go live

You’ve built your website and now need to get it ready for go live. It is important to plan the go live of your website and there are stages that you should go through to get your website ready:

• Install security onto the website (Discussed later in this article)
• Ensure all plugins are up to date (Simply go to plugins and click update on any that updates are available for)
• Install a backup plugin (Discussed later in this article)
• Ensure that your website is mobile responsive (Elementor will out of the box be mobile responsive but still check)
• Make sure all internal links work (Run through the website clicking on all links to ensure they are not broken)
• Install Google Analytics (Discussed later in this article)
• Submit the site to Google for indexing (Discussed later in this article)

Once all of the above has been done you can safely take your website out of maintenance mode and affectively go live.

Installing security onto your site

There are many plugins available but one that we use all the time and would always recommend is iThemes Security this can be installed using the standard plugin installation process. Go to Plugins and click on ‘Add New’ then in the search type in ithemes security. You should have the following as an option:

Once installed go to configuration and make at least the following changes:

• Go to advanced settings and hide backend, add in ‘Login slug’ (This can be anything you like and will replace wp-admin which is the default slug)
• Whilst in advanced click on WordPress tweaks and ensure that the Disable File Editor is ticked
• Ensure everything is ticked within the System Tweaks under the advanced settings
• Go to Global settings and make sure you are happy with lockout settings etc.

The above is the minimum recommended but the plugin has other areas of security that you can tweak.

Install a backup plugin

Backing up your website is a crucial step of the monthly website maintenance which we discuss further in our insider information – Monthly website maintenance article.

We recommend All-in-One WP Migration Unlimited Extension by ServMask. You will need to install the basic version and then upgrade to the unlimited extension if your website is a large website.

This can be installed via the plugin screen in the normal way. Once you have installed the plugin, to back up your website in its entirety, which will include the database hover over all-in-one WP Migration and click on Backups. From this screen you will be able to create backups of your website and the recommended number to keep at any one time is two.

Doing the Google Stuff

There are two important things to do at minimum when you go live with your website, these are discussed below:

Install Google Analytics

There are plugins available to do this and our recommended plugin is Google site kit:

Once you have this installed you will need to have a Google account which can be set up for free. Once logged into Google search for Google Analytics. There should be an option to add an account. Enter the Account name (Required). We normally untick everything else but that is a personal choice. Click Next then enter the Property Name, in our case this would be Taylor Made Clothing and change the reporting time zone and currency to your local one, for us it is ‘United Kingdom’ and ‘British Pound’. Once completed click Next and enter business information and click Create. Accept the Google terms of service.

You will now be in the ‘Start collecting data’ screen. Click on ‘Web’ and enter your website address for example www.taylormadeclothing.co.uk then enter a friendly stream name. Once completed click ‘Create stream’.

It is now time to add the tracking code to your website using the Google site kit.

Click on the Get started within the plugin and tick the ‘Connect Google Analytics as part of your setup’ then click ‘Sign in with Google’.  You should now be presented with a screen asking for the permissions from site kit. We tick all in this case and click continue. The system will now go through a verification process, click Verify. Turn on metrics in your dashboard click ‘Allow’. The next screen will ask you to setup Google search console, click Setup. Finally click next at the Set up Google Analytics section. The plugin will now take you back to WordPress back end within the plugin. Analytics will eventually connect and you are all done.