Woocommerce Website Development Checklist: 50 Points

If you intend to uncover and optimize the hidden opportunities of a Woocommerce website, our 50 point checklist should be your stopover. We hope that the checklist ensures the smooth launch of your WooCommerce store.

Simple Intelligent Systems has framed a Woocommerce checklist that will help you take care of everything about your WordPress/WooCommerce website.

Let’s begin!

Phase 1 : Before Migration

1. Take a backup of your website for even the minor changes that you made on your site.
2. Run your website across multiple browsers, resolutions, and devices to check for responsiveness and design. Any issue encountered in the process needs to be resolved.
3. The Header and Footer menus on both desktop and mobiles need to be checked.
4. Check to see that all the links are in place with their active and hover states fixed.
5. Check all web forms on your website. Both error and success messages should be displayed correctly.
6. Use free available plugins to check for broken links.
7. Enable warnings and errors and then check the site for any issues. Any issue found needs to be sorted out.
8. Check the System Status under the Woocommerce menu option to see if everything is in place.
9. Upgrade memory to at least 256MB.
10. Check to see if your SSL is set up because specific payment gateways such as PayPal pro or Stripe require SSL certificates.
11. Go through all the web pages and resolve all mixed content issues.
12.  Your shipping settings should work in all the regions where you intend to sell your goods.
13. If taxation is to be levied, then check your Tax settings.
14. Check your Email tab settings to ensure that your clients do not reject your emails. Your DNS settings should be proper so that the emails from your site do not turn into SPAM.
15. Your products should be checked for accurate descriptions, sizes, prices and titles and images.
16. Check inventory settings and stocks for all products.
17. Update the cart and add and remove products to test the checkout process.
18. If you have enabled coupon codes, check to see if they are correctly functioning.
19. Check the look of user account pages, if any.
20. Make a real test purchase and refund to test your payment gateway.
21. Check the look of the order confirmation page.
22. Your SALE should be accounted for in your Google Analytics account if Ecom tracking is enabled.
23. Include terms and conditions and the Privacy Policy section.
24. Before going live, turn off the test mode of payment gateways.
25. The following page templates should be tested- search results, 404, category, Order confirmation page, archive pages, and contact page.
26. Following email templates should contain branding and contact details – Processing Order, Completed Order, Order-on-hold, refunded order, customer invoice, Password reset, New account.
27. We recommend installing and configuring the following plugins – WordFence(Security plugin), Yoast SEO(SEO services), Wp Rocket or Fastest cache (Caching Plugin), Imagify/ Smush Image Optimizer(Image Optimizer), Redirection/ Quick Page/ Post Redirect Plugin (Redirection setter)

Phase 2: During Migration

28. Move all your database and site files from staging server to production server.
29. Make sure that all your site files and database are working correctly without any error messages.
30. When you move from staging to production, make sure that the website works properly with the new Php version.
31. Update the primary domain to a new domain by Going to Settings > General on the WordPress dashboard and update the primary domain to new domain.
32. Update primary email address in site admin.
33. Check for the installation of SSL on the production site.
34. Enable Search Engine visibility
35. Permalink settings are to be checked as well.

Phase 3: After Migration

36. Create a backup of your old website.
37. The URLs in the database should be replaced with the ones for the production site.
38. Setup 301 redirects for existing websites whose URL’s have been modified.
39. Update the sitemap and submit it to the Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console.
40. Ensure relevant people receive new order notifications.
41. Remove any unwanted Test payment gateways.
42. Disable test coupon codes.
43. Ensure that your website is powered with the latest version of themes and plugins.
44. Any unutilized theme or plugin should be deleted.
45. Use Google Analytics, webmaster tools, and Google Page Speed to check your website.
46. Sitemap.xml needs to be added and fetched by webmaster tools.
47. Check to see that robot.txt carries the correct particulars.
48. Any generic Woocommerce pages such as Account should not look disjointed. They should match the design of the website.
49. If you are using Paypal, Authorize.net, or any other payment gateway, confirm that you are equipped with HTTPS set up for your website to ensure the security of information.
50. Run the website in the new production environment to ensure that all the webpages are performing as expected.

Conclusion:

Following this checklist is essential to ensure that everything is on the right track. Your new website Golive will sail smoothly. If you have further questions or need support with you WordPress/Woocommerce sites, you can contact Simple Intelligent Systems. We will be happy to help you.