This is part of the series that is designed to complement the free download

Online Business Launch Strategy (21 step Process, Tech and Launch infographic).

If you don't have that yet, go to the download page to get it now before reading this post.

Go to Download Page

Part 2 (Tech), Step 7   - Testing 

Phew! the tech side of pulling together an online product is not easy is it?

In a blog series we can't hope to cover everything you need to do in your unique situation, but over the last 6 lessons, hopefully you should have knocked over most of the major hurdles.

If you're coming here without going through those steps and the work involved, then go back and download the 7x7x7 step overview and start at the beginning.  The following info will not be much use otherwise.

But if you have gone through that, then this last step is a vital one to make sure that all your hard work isn't wasted. 

Horror Stories

How about some of these for horror stories:

"Ahhhh!!! .... help! ... my close cart email just went out as my cart opened."

or

"HELP! ... I'm getting messages that the link I sent to my video doesn't work. How do I fix it?"

or

" .... my launch goes live in a few hours and my website is broken.  No one can access the page. Its not working!!"

or

"aaaand now my admin-dashboard is giving me 404"

These are real and it can happen to you if you haven't put the time into tech step 7 - Analyze and Test.

It's Not Sexy, but ...

neither is having those nightmares come true.

The reality is that what doesn't get tested, let's you down.

Not testing your tech is like playing Russian roulette with your business.

So, TEST TEST and TEST.

How To Test Your Tech

Well, everyone's setup is different, so how you will test will depend on what you are testing, but here are a few common themes that often make sense to follow when thinking through how to test your tech:

1. Use a clean email. The simplest but most common mistake people make is to use the same email as their Kajabi account.  This can mean some errors (particularly login errors) are missed. So try and use an email account you haven't used, and certainly not your Kajabi admin email.

2. Clear your browser cache.  Clear your browser cache for your website so that it isn't loading stored data.  You want your browser to reproduce what is happening the first time someone comes to your page.

3. Use different browsers.  Try and use a few different browsers - Chrome, Safari, Edge, DuckDuckGo and Firefox are the most common.

4. Try on mobile, and computer (maybe tablet as well).  Do check across a range of platforms if you can, and yes at LEAST mobile.  Some of the themes in Kajabi look quite different in mobile and have hidden elements, and so if you don't test, then your page may not look like what you intend (I had this happen to me! - my mobile page still had the basic theme Latin and placeholder graphics ). 

5. Get someone else to test who isn't familiar with navigating through your content.  This will not only help with your tech, but your flow of content and explanations through the customer journey.

6. Document your process.  I document my content so that I have the process mapped out, links documented, and know where to go when I make a change.  It's not full proof, but it helps to get things down on paper as they can get complex quickly.  Mistakes happen when you keep it inside your head.  For example: this blog series is part of a funnel that includes an email series and pages with downloads.  I have it documented in a word document, with all the titles, descriptions, links, email subject headings, days content goes out, page links, keywords and even the html code.  I force myself to be organised because it saves me time and mistakes in the long run.

7. Consider a tech audit.  The ultimate is to pay a professional in the online space familiar with your platform to audit your tech setup.  They will go through it from the inside out and from the customer side, test it thoroughly and should find 99% of your weak points in your tech.  It can be dollars VERY well spent to avoid the above nightmares.

Alright. I hope I've drilled that into you. Test your tech.

How Do I Find The Time?

I imagine you're probably scrambling now to work out how to do all this testing you didn't know you had to make time for.  Am I right?

If that's you, consider two friends in this department:

1. Automation.  The more you can automate, the less that has to be repeat tested. Done once and tested, it should remain solid for quite some time.  Occasional testing will still be required, but not as often. And ...
2. Get some help (eg tech audit).  Money well spent for both piece of mind and real relief when bugs are found and corrected.

If you'd like some help in the tech audit side, we do provide some audit services when we have resources available.  Reach out, explain what you want and we can provide a high - low range for what it will cost to complete.

Coming up next

Right.  That's tech done.

Next up, it's launching.  Exciting stuff.  Step one coming up next.