For those in foreign trade, checking a website before it goes live is like packing your luggage before going abroad—it seems simple, but if any small detail is overlooked, the user experience will be ruined.

Especially for website building beginners, the most common mistake is:

Seeing that the website could be accessed, I assumed it was ready to go live.

In fact, a professional foreign trade website should undergo at least 10 key checks before going live; otherwise, you may encounter the following problems:

• The customer clicked the button but nothing happened.

• Image not loading

• Form submission failed

• Mobile layout mess

• Payment process stuck

• Multilingual page misalignment

• The browser is showing an incompatibility message.
  ...

Today, we'll explain from a complete beginner's perspective what you need to check before launching a foreign trade website. What are the most easily overlooked "basic issues"? And how do you check them one by one? Recommended reading: A roadmap and step-by-step tutorial for promoting a foreign trade website after launch (SEO + Google Ads + Social Media Traffic Generation)

I. 10 Key Checks You Must Ensure Before Going Live

Here are the most common mistakes made by real foreign trade companies. Beginners must go through the checklist item by item!

1. Check all links on the site (Are redirects working correctly? Do 404 errors exist?)

The most easily overlooked point for beginners!

Must be checked:

• Are all menu items clickable?

• Is it normal to access product details from the product list?

• Do all buttons redirect correctly (e.g., Contact Now, Learn More, Download, etc.)?

• Are there any broken links, empty links, or redirection errors (such as redirecting to the homepage, not redirecting, or redirecting to the wrong language version)?

👉 Tips:

Tired of clicking through everything yourself? You can use a tool:

• Screaming Frog (the free version is sufficient)

• Chrome extension: Check My Links

2. Are all images displayed (especially on mobile devices and product pages)?

Most common mistakes:

• The image path is incorrect, causing the image to fail to load.

• The product detail page images are disproportionate.

• Incorrect image scaling on mobile devices

• The homepage banner was cut in half on mobile devices.

Inspection method:

• Scan the entire site

• On the product page, pay close attention to whether the enlarged thumbnails are displayed correctly.

3. Can the form be submitted (can customer inquiries be received?)

The most crucial function of an official website for foreign trade is: receiving inquiries!

You must verify:

✔ Is the form submission normal?

✔ Will I receive email notifications?

✔ Will I be redirected to the "Submission Successful" page?

✔ Is the form validation working correctly? (For example, can you display an error message if the email address is in the wrong format?)

It is recommended to test at least three times:

• Submit once on PC

• Submit once via mobile phone

• Submit the English version only (if there are multiple languages).

4. Payment process check (if applicable: credit card/PayPal)

If your website includes online sample payment or deposit collection functionality...

You must run through the actual process once (the amount can be set to the minimum).

Must be checked:

• Is the payment button clickable?

• Does PayPal/Stripe redirect correctly?

• Can I return to the website after payment?

• Will I receive a payment success email?

• Can the backend accurately record orders/payments?

What foreign trade websites fear most is:

The customer can make the payment → but you don't receive it.

This is a top-level accident!

5. Mobile adaptation (must be 100% checked)

Over 60% of global foreign trade visitors come from mobile devices ; your mobile experience determines your inquiry rate.

At least check:

✔ Is the homepage banner cropped?

✔ Is the font too small?

✔ Is the image distorted?

✔ Can the product list be scrolled?

✔ Can the form be entered correctly?

✔ Can the menu (hamburger button) expand properly?

It is recommended to use two types of equipment for inspection:

• iPhone

• Android (Huawei/Samsung)

6. Browser compatibility (must be tested on both Chrome and Firefox)

Many beginners only look at Chrome.

However, overseas users also have:

• Firefox

• Edge

• Safari (especially on iPhone)

It must be ensured that:

✔ The layout is not chaotic

✔ No flickering font

✔ JS animations do not throw errors

✔ The form does not expire.

7. Multilingual version check (if you have a multilingual website)

The places where "basic mistakes" are most likely to occur:

• Jump from English page to Chinese page

• Menu items are not translated

• Product page jumping around erratically

• Image inconsistency

• The link was misdirected to a page in a different language.

• URL naming is inconsistent (e.g., /zh/product/ is incorrectly placed on an English website).

Inspection method:

Manually check each page + open each language version separately in the browser's incognito mode.

8. Is the content complete? (A small detail that beginners often overlook)

Page by page must be checked:

• Is the title complete?

• Are any fields missing from the product parameters?

• Are the product images poorly formatted?

• Does the blog retain sample content? (A common, basic mistake!)

• Are there any errors in the company information (email, phone number, address)?

• Is the footer complete?

9. SEO Meta Information (Are Title, Description, and H1 fields complete?)

Many beginners believe that "you will get a ranking as soon as you go online".

In fact:

• Title (omitted)

• H1 missing

• Description (blank)

• URL non-standard

• Misuse of tags

• Image without alt text
  ...

These are all basic errors that lead to "inevitable failure after launch".

Quick way to check:

• Use SEO Minions

• Using Screaming Frog

• Use Google Search Console URL Inspection (after deployment)

10. Loading speed test (overseas customers will close it if it takes more than 3 seconds to load).

It is recommended to use at least three tools for testing:

• PageSpeed ​​Insights (Google Official)

• GTmetrix

• Pingdom (can test nodes worldwide)

Pay close attention to:

• Does the first screen take more than 3 seconds to load?

• Is the image compressed?

• Should CDN be used?

• Enable caching?

• Should JS/CSS be merged and minified?

II. 10 Common Mistakes Made by Foreign Trade Beginners (Must Read!)

The following are real pitfalls encountered by beginners:

① Images on the product details page are not displayed/distorted

② No response after submitting the form, and no email received.

③ The contact number was not updated and is still in domestic number format.

④ The mobile menu cannot be opened (most common!)

⑤ The product page redirects to the Chinese/incorrect language version.

⑥ The payment button is not clickable, or the user is unable to return to the website after making a payment.

⑦ The blog or product example content was not deleted.

⑧ The page loads too slowly, or even opens with a blank screen.

9. Navigation menu has empty items/incorrect items/jumps to the old page

⑩ Sitemap or Robots file not configured (basic SEO error)

Each of these problems will directly lead to:

❌ Decrease in inquiries

❌ User churn

❌ Overseas clients feel unprofessional

❌ Google indexing slowed down

3. If you don't want to check each item one by one—beginners are better off using AB-Ke Smart Website Builder.

If you are a complete beginner and don't understand these technical aspects, you can actually rely on...

AB Customer Smart Website Builder 's "Automatic Website Launch Pre-launch Detection" function .

AB Customer Service automatically performs a comprehensive check across 9 dimensions before the website goes live:

✔ SEO Friendliness Test

Keyword density, Title/H1, meta description, URL normalization, and other scores are all analyzed automatically.

✔ Google detection (extremely crucial)

• Access detection

• SEO testing

• sitemap submission for testing

• Content compliance testing

• Only applications meeting all requirements of 90+ are recommended for deployment.

✔ Performance Testing

Automatically compress images, detect loading time, and optimize the first screen.

✔ Mobile compatibility testing

Simulate display on different devices to avoid the banner being cut off.

✔ Safety Inspection

Basic security reviews including SSL, security vulnerabilities, and cross-site scripting attacks.

✔ Content integrity check

Check for omissions, broken links, missing images, and incorrect links.

✔ Multilingual consistency check

Check if the language page redirection is correct and if any content is missing.

✔ Visual consistency detection

Are the fonts, buttons, and layouts consistent across all pages?

In other words, beginners don't need to understand technology at all; the system will tell you:

What needs to be changed?

What are the non-compliant items?

Which parts absolutely need to be fixed?

When will it be officially launched?

The launch no longer relies on "visual inspection," and there's no need to worry about errors affecting customer experience.

IV. Summary: Before launching a foreign trade website, beginners must remember one sentence.

A website is not considered online just because it can be accessed.

A thorough inspection is necessary to demonstrate "professionalism" to overseas clients.

By verifying each item on today's checklist, you can avoid 90% of basic mistakes.

Here's a summary of the 10 key items that must be checked:

1. Link redirect

2. Image display

3. Form submission

4. Payment process

5. Mobile adaptation

6. Browser compatibility

7. Multilingual

8. Content completeness

9. SEO Metadata

10. Loading speed

This is a "pre-launch quality inspection" that any foreign trade website must pass.

Even if you're a complete beginner, you can still benefit from the automatic detection function of ABK Smart Website Builder .

Let the system automatically check the quality of your website, so you can go online with peace of mind, get indexed quickly, and speed up the conversion of inquiries.