Finally, it's done! After weeks (maybe even months) of frustration and friendly bickering with a designer, you're ready to launch your company's crowning jewel, a stunning new website.

After all the sweat, tears, and countless cups of coffee, it may be difficult to know where to turn next after your website launches; however, doing nothing  is the best way to spit upon all the hours of hard work that went into developing the site.

We want your website and business to succeed, and we understand the desire to want everyone to view your big accomplishment. If you're wondering, "what should I do after my website launches?", fear not.

This post discusses five crucial tasks to complete after you've launched your new website.

Optimize Your Shiny New Site for Improved Search Engine Visibility

Ideally, now that you have completed the finishing touches on your new site, you’ll want to shift focus towards the question, “how will people find my website?” Though users can come to your site directly by typing in your URL, through referrals on other sites, or through social media, you’ll want to create a strong foundation for users to find your site through Google. Start by defining your goals for search. What keywords and phrases would you like to prioritize?

Ultimately, your visibility in search will be driven by unique content, and considering that the development of content is so time intensive, your strategy must be targeted to what you can own and sustain. If you need to refresh on basic SEO, check out this post “What are the Basics of On-Page SEO?"

Keep in mind, SEO is not a one-and-done activity. There are multiple elements on a given page to optimize, and Google tweaks their algorithm hundreds of times per year, which means that the rules and goals for search can and do change all the time. It’s crucial that you understand SEO is an ongoing, and potentially significant investment, both in time and money.

Are You Setup for Social?

If your company has previously set up accounts on the appropriate social media platforms, feel free to promote your new site! Include screenshots of the beautiful design and be sure to explain any new and important features to entice users to click through and check out your masterpiece! You don’t need to include a long description, but it’s a good idea to make sure it sounds exciting and engages followers to go check out the new website. This is a great way to get people talking about your company and your new website online.

If you re-branded before the website redesign, be sure to update your social profiles with any new brand colors and logos.

If you haven’t set up social media accounts for your company, it’s best that you start right away. Admittedly, this won’t be helpful in time for your site launch.

Spread the Word Through an Email to Current and Potential Clients

If you have the opportunity, prior to your website launch, it’s helpful to build an email list of current clients, potential clients, vendors and partners. After your website launches, create a brief email to announce the launch of your new website. Be sure to keep it short, sweet, and mention the new features— especially anything that would make it easier for current or potential clients to do business with you.

The main reason we advise people to send the email announcement to existing clients is that it may help to maintain a positive relationship with them. Sending the email to vendors and partners will help you keep them in the loop with what’s happening at your company (plus, it’s a good way to give yourself a little bump of extra traffic for vanity!).

Map Out Your Content Strategy

Unless you’ve been out of the loop for a few years, you understand that the biggest trend in marketing is valuable content. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to create valuable content on a consistent basis, as many companies confuse quantity with quality and process with strategy. It doesn’t matter how much content you have, if it isn’t relevant to any of your buyer personas.

Consider this: you could have a website with upwards of 1,000 pages; yet, if the content is unique, organized, and optimized for humans and search, it won’t rank well. If users don’t find the content to be compelling, they won’t go beyond scanning the page. Simply, it’s hard to gain a reader’s attention in 2017.

So, how do you create an effective content strategy? There are obviously many tactics to approach this but it’s best to start by auditing and evaluating your website through the perspective of an ideal customer. Is the website copy compelling and actionable? Can users find it? Rewrite and revise your copy based on audience priority. Beyond this, it may be valuable to speak with a content marketing team to understand how to best utilize your time and to provide shape for you strategy.

Set Up Tools To Analyze Site Metrics

Thankfully, this step is fairly simple. Install Google Analytics (or some other analytics platform) on your site to track your site’s visits and visit behavior over time. If your website was built in WordPress, you can easily install one of several Google Analytics plugins, which will add your analytics tracking code to your website without forcing you to get dirty and dig into the code. This in-depth article by Google can help you past any initial barriers.