If you have had a new website built or have had major changes made to it then testing is vital and something that should be done prior to it going live. You should avoid having any big changes made directly on to live site as if can cause issues for people browsing the site or trying to place an order. A good web agency will take a copy of the website and work on that to ensure that all changes are done correctly prior to transferring it over to the live site. This means that everything can be check thoroughly to make sure it is working.
If you set a new website live that has not been tested vigorously, then you risk losing customers straight from the off. If something doesn’t work correctly, the visitor is likely to leave and may not return to your site again. You may not only of lost out on their business that time but also any future repeat business you may have got.
If the site is new then you need to go through and check every page in detail. Make sure that all images are loading, the layout is correct and that all links work and go to the right place. You need to check the compatibility of the site in several browsers to ensure a good customer experience. You should also check that it is compatible on all mobile devices too.
You need to check that pages are not taking too long to load. Slow page loading can put people off and can also negatively affect your search engine rankings on Google and Bing etc.
Even if you have thoroughly tested the website prior to it going live, be sure to do some basic tests again once it has swapped over. You will need to check that any checkout process is working as it should and that any contact forms are being submitted and received correctly.
If you have replaced an old site with a new one and the URL or structure of the URL’s has changed, then you need to set up some 301 redirects to ensure that any existing links internally, in the search engine results or on external sites go through to the new page. If you do not do this you risk losing rankings on the search engines and taking visitors to a page not found error.