Launching Your Site...


Late nights, lots of coffee, and a few staff meetings later and you're ready to launch your site. Congrats! But before we break out in song, you need to make sure everything is ready. The checklist below will help you complete the final phases of getting your site out there for the world to see!

1. Double-check Your Content

Make sure your content is placed and ready for viewing. It should be...

• Complete and cohesive
• Easy to find
• Easy to understand
• Grammatically correct
• Spelled correctly
• Easy to load
• User friendly

2. Notify Your Account Representative

Notify your Account Representative and tell him/her that you are ready to go live. Your account rep will notify our support team.  Our support team will make sure that your site and your email services are ready to receive traffic. This is done by working with the DNS information for your site which is detailed out in step #3 below.  Please read over this information so that when our support team works with you, it will be easier to understand.

3. Domains

To start this process, we will need to begin with your domains that you would like to use for your site.  If you have already purchased your domain, you will need to be able to access the domain so that you can potentially make DNS changes to it following the steps outlined below. If you would like to use more than 1 domain with your account, no problem!  We have numerous clients where the .com is the primary domain, and they also have .org and .net as well.  If you would like for us to register any domain for you and manage the contact info, registry info, as well as, manage the yearly renewal so that you do not forget, the cost is only $20 per year. 

You can read more about having Speak Creative register or transfer your domain(s) here.

Read the domain management article here.  NOTE: Only the primary account owner will be able to see the 'Account' tab to enter domains for your account.

4. Email Configuration and Settings

If you will be using email associated with your domain, be sure that everything is ready to go before launch, so that your email does not go down and so that you do not lose email. If you are in need of a hosted email solution, we no longer offer internal email hosting for our clients. However, we've compiled a list of highly rated Hosted Email Providers here.

5.Modify Your DNS Information

If you are wanting to point a domain to us, as mentioned in any of the steps above, the domain's DNS must be changed. DNS is the system that directs all Internet traffic to the right servers based on a system of names and IP addresses. The changes discussed in the steps below will take your site live by routing your web traffic to our servers.  Keep in mind once DNS changes are made, typically it takes up to 24 hours to see your site become live.  Some DNS Servers and Registry's update very quickly and others take the full 24 hours.  With this being said, you could see your site live in the office the day we make the switch, but you might go home and not see your live site yet.  This is simply due to the way that DNS propagates around the world, which is why we state the 24 hours.

Your choices for DNS management are as follows:

Option 1. We manage DNS for your domain
YOU MUST LET US KNOW IN ADVANCE THAT YOU WILL CHOOSE THIS OPTION. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN YOUR WEBSITE, EMAIL, AND ANY CUSTOM SERVERS GOING DOWN FOR 1 - 24 HOURS.

This is so we can setup our side before you switch your DNS to us, else your email and site will go down, and could be down for up to 24 hours! Also, make sure you have followed the steps above to enter your domains within the system before proceeding with the steps below.

Under this scenario, you make us the DNS authority for your domain. Through your domain registrar (e.g., Network Solutions, Go Daddy, Yahoo Domains, etc), you specify our servers listed below for your primary and secondary DNS servers. This makes us the authority for your DNS, which simply means we will setup the required records to route your web traffic, your email traffic, and other traffic.  Look for the section called "DNS" or "Name Servers". Once inside, change your Primary and Secondary Name servers to the following:

Primary Name Server          ns.rackspace.com
Secondary Name Server      ns2.rackspace.com

Option 2. You Manage Your Own DNS

Under this scenario you are using another DNS management solution to route traffic where it needs to go. You are responsible for proper setup.Make sure you have followed the steps above to enter your domains within the system before proceeding with this step.

You will simply change your web traffic (A record), within your DNS, to point to our IP which is 72.3.157.105

You will have approximately 1-24 hours until your site starts to receive traffic from the world and DNS propagation can take up to 72 hours to complete. Often DNS propagates sooner than 24 hours.

6. Google Analytics

Once your site is live, you will be able to successfully create and verify your Google Analytics account for site reporting purposes.  Please read the help article below on establishing your Google Analytics account. You will want to do this the day you go live so that you can start reporting on launch day, but it's okay if you forget or wait, too.
http://support.sitewrench.com/googleanalytics

7. Keep It Going

Once your site is up and running, the most important thing you can do is make sure that you keep your site up-to-date and relevant. This will ensure continuing traffic and usability. Good luck!