By Stephanie Design 

Congratulations on the launch/refresh of your website! It’s a great achievement and sense of relief for any Creative Entrepreneur! If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering what to do next? So I’ve created a running list of things to check right before your Showit website is launched. Here are 5 things to do and check before (or surrounding) the launch of your new site!

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Each template comes equipped with the best SEO practices necessary for Showit websites. To find out which text on the page is setup as a Title, Heading, Subheading, or Paragraph, simply access the Design Settings tab on the top left side menu in Showit. You can also click on the text on the artboard and under ‘Text Style’ in the right sidebar, the Style field will indicate which property the text is set at. Search engines typically give headings a higher priority, so short and descriptive headings that describe the content that follows makes it easier for search engines to detect the major themes of your site.

Conversely, For Titles and Meta Descriptions (which show up in Google results off-site) you can access your SEO settings directly on the right side of the editor, under “SEO Settings”.

Here are some best practice PAGE SEO examples:

About Page

Meet Stephanie | Wedding and Portrait Photographer | Stephanie Hamilton Photography

EXPERIENCE Page

The Wedding Experience | Charleston, SC | Stephanie Hamilton Photography

Here you can see I kept the titles consistent in formatting, but you should definitely vary the text slightly page to page to avoid complete duplicates.

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Optimize Your Images for SEO

Google weighs page load time as a favor for SEO rankings, so it’s good to get in the habit right away of saving your images to boost your chances while aiding in a better user experience. 500kb or under is ideal! Having them set at 300kb won’t affect their resolution especially if they’re photographed perfectly, but will aide in enhancing loading times significantly. A resolution of 72dpi is suggested for digital display of images.

Also get in the habit of naming your files correctly for an additional boost of SEO!

Remember when done correctly, using best practices, testing, and hard work, on-page SEO usually works.

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Social Media

All of my templates include social media icons situated into the layout. You’re welcome to add/remove any icons that don’t serve your businesses needs. To link each icon, click on each icon and then chose Click Actions from the right sidebar menu. From there, chose URL from the dropdown menu and then plug in your social media address for each! Which brings me to my next point!

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Share Your New Website!

Once all this work is out of the way, be sure to alert followers of your website launch on social media. Be sure to link @bystephaniedesign as your Showit Website Template designer!

If you chose a social media template bundle as your complimentary marketing collateral that comes with every website purchase (read more in my Guide to Showit), this is the perfect time to announce your website with on-brand marketing, too! 

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The By Stephanie Design Video Library

Included with each website template purchase in my shop is a collection of 8 private video tutorials that’ll make managing your website a breeze. Whether you need a WordPress demo or more instructions on blogging with WordPress (the design is of course hosted on Showit), need to manage your contact forms, or even dive deeper into Page and Image SEO, my video collection has everything you need for ‘visual learners’ to keep your website organic and ready for more visitors to enjoy! I want you to make your website the best it can be, as each template is 100% customizable, afterall! Enjoy each 5 – 12 min video at your leisure! 

I hope you’ve found this helpful! If you have any questions at all please feel free to shoot me a message on Instagram or email me directly at stephanie@bystephaniedesign.com.