3 Reasons Why You Should Leave Time to Test Your Website and Processes

Two things have prompted me to write a blog post about why you should leave time to test your website and processes. The first is we launched our new Website Shame to Website Fame Programme last week and while we were testing everything it sparked some lightbulb moments around how and why we do things which I thought would be useful to share.

The second is there have been a few times recently when we have seen people come unstuck and get a bit flustered because they have launched something or changed something on their website or membership site without testing it and they’re having to deal with the consequences. That leads us nicely to the first reason why you should leave time to test your website and processes.

Number 1 – To Avoid Stress and Panic

Launching something new can be stressful. You might be worried about how well it’s going to be received. If you’re launching a new product or service you might be worrying about whether anyone is actually going to buy it or sign up. You don’t want to add further stress thinking about whether the website or payment system or email sign up process is actually going to work. If you have tested it thoroughly on all devices (mobile, tablet and computer) then you know it’s going to work.

If you are taking payments make a real payment yourself and then test that refunding it works as well. If you have a contact form, fill it in and submit it. If you have a lead magnet, sign up for it and make sure you receive it. Go through every process your website visitor might and then once you know it all works that’s one thing you really don’t need to worry about, reducing your panic and stress.

Number 2 – To Create an Amazing User Experience

When people have a lovely experience or find something really easy to use they will be impressed. They are more likely to want to work with you or buy from you and to become a repeat client or customer. They will say nice things about you to people they know and take the time to leave a good review.

If you don’t create a great user experience and things go wrong people will complain to you leading to that stress again, they’ll mention it to others, they’ll potentially lose faith in you or your business and you really don’t want that.

Obviously, we are all human. We all make mistakes and might miss something in the testing process and if you’re quick to respond to this, make amends and create a great experience when resolving the issue then people will appreciate this but if you just haven’t tested at all and there are a catalogue of issues this isn’t going to do down well.

Number 3 – To Give Yourself Time to Have and Implement Genius Brainwaves

This is the thing that happened to us during the preparation phase for our launch last week. (OK, the use of “genius” might be too strong here but I’m easily impressed.) We were using some tech we hadn’t used before and so our process for onboarding people onto our programme was different to our usual onboarding. We were talking each step through and testing it and we thought we were finished and had everything sorted but then we realised it would be really nice to add in a welcome video and because we were testing it with time on our side, we were able to record a video, edit it and upload it and test again.

We had also written a welcome email with all the things our programme members needed to do before the programme started but while reviewing the email and linking it up we identified a better way to introduce some of the programme and we were again able to make those changes.

We would probably have identified those things if we had been testing close to the launch but we wouldn’t have had the time implement them and so we would have launched feeling like we were putting something out there with an onboarding process that wasn’t as good as it could have been. That’s not a good mindset to go into a live launch with but instead we went in confident and excited to get people on board.

A Resource to Help You Test Your Website and Processes

In The Website Handbook we have a website testing checklist to ensure when you launch your website or a new landing page or sales page that everything goes smoothly! You can get your copy of the book here.

Photo credit to Donna Slater Photography