Launch day rarely goes wrong because of design. It goes wrong because a staging site stayed hidden from Google, a contact form silently stopped sending, or three hundred old URLs started returning 404. A website launch checklist prevents exactly that kind of quiet damage. So here is the one we run before every go-live, grouped into five passes.
Pass one of the website launch checklist: content and links
First, read every page aloud. Typos hide beautifully in a browser. Then check that each page has one clear next step, because a pretty page with no call to action converts nobody — the point we made in why a beautiful website is not enough. Next, click every link, including the footer and the PDFs. Also confirm the phone number dials, the address matches your Google profile, and no placeholder text survives anywhere.
Pass two: the SEO items people forget
- Remove the block on indexing. Staging sites carry a noindex tag or a robots rule; delete it deliberately, then verify in the page source. Google’s robots.txt guide explains what each directive does.
- Map old URLs to new ones. A redesign without 301 redirects throws away years of rankings.
- Submit the sitemap in Search Console, then request indexing for the homepage.
- Check titles and meta descriptions on your top twenty pages, not just the homepage.
- Confirm canonical tags and, for bilingual sites, hreflang.
- Add structured data where it applies — see schema markup explained.
Pass three: technical and transactional
Now the plumbing. Confirm the SSL certificate covers both www and non-www, and that http traffic redirects once, not twice. Then submit every form and check the email actually arrives — from the live server, not your laptop. In addition, test the checkout with a real card if you sell online. After that, view a deliberately broken URL to see your 404 page, and make sure it offers navigation instead of a dead end. Finally, take a backup you can restore, and know where it lives.
Pass four: speed, mobile and accessibility
Open the site on an ordinary phone over mobile data, not office Wi-Fi. Because that is how most visitors will meet you. Then compress the oversized hero image you forgot about, and check the layout does not jump while loading. Meanwhile, tab through the menu and the forms with the keyboard alone. Our guides to Core Web Vitals and website accessibility cover both areas in depth.
Pass five: measurement and paperwork
Install analytics before launch, so day one is measurable. Wire your consent banner to block tracking until the visitor chooses. Then publish the privacy policy, cookie policy and terms, with a real company name and VAT number. Also set up uptime monitoring, because you should hear about downtime from a robot rather than a customer.
One last habit: keep the checklist open for a week after launch. Check Search Console for crawl errors on day two, read the analytics on day three, and ask two customers to try the contact form. A website launch checklist is not bureaucracy — it is the difference between a launch and a slow leak. If you would rather have someone run it with you, our team does exactly this before every project ships.
