Through the years I’ve launched multiple websites and web-apps.
One thing I’ve learned is that there are a couple of key features and elements that I regularly forget to add. If you use frameworks like Wordpress, Wix or others you’ll get most of these out of the box. However, since custom solutions are still the best in most cases, I thought I wanted to do a list. The features I am talking about, are not all features, but simple concepts and requirements that your website should support. By making sure you’ve got these, you’ll get optimal usability and an increased life span of your site(s). In the future, I will use this post as a checklist before launching. Let’s jump into it:
Full Meta support for sharing on Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Twitter. This is always hurting me, even to the day I am writing this post.
A section that supports ‘What’s new’ or ‘Updates’ for the site owner or maintainers. I believe all projects/companies/websites need this.
Proper sitemap and robots.txt.
Google indexing.
Make all text around the page editable from a CMS-like solution.
Make all Javascript functionality work in IE11.
Favicon that works on all platforms.
Every page should have a unique URL.
Image considerations.
‘Alt’ tags, feature image for sharing, and support images inside text.
Responsive video support.
A proper 404
Pages, posts and updates should support ‘draft’ and ‘published’ mode.
Dynamic copyright tags.
In 2020 and beyond, httpS is non-negotiable.
The consent bar and TOC page
Terms and conditions page.
[Optional 1] - Email list signup.
[Optional 2] - Contact form.
[Optional 3] - Search form.
[Optional 4] - Documentation section / Dense info section.
[Optional 5] - Social share buttons.