Website launch checklist: 30 checks before and after you go live

Key terms explained (22)

SEO

Search engine optimisation: the work that helps your pages show up in Google’s regular search results.

CRM

Customer relationship management software: one place that stores your contacts, conversations, appointments and deals. GoHighLevel and HubSpot are examples.

URL

A web address, such as remarcatapang.com/playbooks/.

UTM

Short tags added to the end of a link (for example ?utm_source=facebook) so your analytics can tell which campaign, email or post a visitor came from.

Core Web Vitals

Google’s three measures of how a page feels to use: how fast it loads (LCP), how quickly it responds (INP) and how stable the layout is (CLS).

LCP

Largest Contentful Paint: how long the main content of a page takes to appear. Good is 2.5 seconds or less.

INP

Interaction to Next Paint: how quickly a page reacts when someone taps or clicks. Good is 200 milliseconds or less.

CLS

Cumulative Layout Shift: how much the page jumps around while it loads. Good is 0.1 or less.

WCAG

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: the international standard for making websites usable by people with disabilities. Level AA is the middle level most laws require.

AODA

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, Ontario’s accessibility law.

PIPEDA

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, Canada’s federal privacy law for businesses.

XML sitemap

A file that lists the pages on your site so search engines can find them. Plugins such as Yoast SEO create it automatically.

robots.txt

A small file at the root of your site that tells search engine and AI crawlers which pages they may visit.

Indexing

When a search engine stores a page so it can show it in results. A page that isn’t indexed can’t rank.

Canonical tag

A line of code that tells search engines which address is the main version of a page, so copies don’t compete with it.

Structured data (schema)

Code that labels the information on a page, such as your business name, hours or an article’s author, so search engines understand it.

H1 and H2

Heading levels. The H1 is the main title of a page; H2s are the section headings under it.

Alt text

A short description of an image, read aloud by screen readers and used by search engines.

Search Console

Google’s free tool that shows how your site appears in search, which queries bring visitors and any indexing problems.

Redirect (301)

A redirect sends visitors and search engines from an old address to a new one. A 301 tells them the move is permanent.

Plugin

An add-on that gives a WordPress site extra features, such as SEO settings or forms.

Sends

On Instagram, the number of times people shared your post with someone by direct message.

Why use a launch checklist?

A website launch is the moment small mistakes become public: a contact form that sends to an old inbox, a page blocked from Google, tracking that records nothing, a photo that takes eight seconds to load on a phone. Each one is easy to fix before launch and expensive to discover a month later.

I used this list when I moved this site from a temporary hosting address to remarcatapang.com, and I’ve used versions of it for client launches since 2020. It’s written for small business sites on WordPress, but the checks apply to any platform.

Part 1: Content and forms

1. Read every page on a phone. Typos, placeholder text (“Lorem ipsum”), old prices and wrong phone numbers are the most common launch errors.
2. Click every link and button. Menus, footer links, calls to action. Fix anything that goes to a missing page.
3. Submit every form. Check the message arrives in the right inbox and the CRM (customer relationship management software), and that the person gets a confirmation. Then do it again on mobile data.
4. Check phone numbers and emails are tappable. Tap-to-call and tap-to-email on mobile.
5. Add alt text to every image. Describe what’s in the picture. It helps screen readers and image search.
6. Add a favicon and a link-preview image. So the site looks right in browser tabs and when shared on social media or WhatsApp.

Part 2: SEO and indexing

7. Make sure search engines are allowed in. In WordPress, untick “Discourage search engines” under Settings, then Reading. Check yourdomain.com/robots.txt doesn’t say Disallow: /.
8. Give every page a unique title and meta description. Google’s SEO Starter Guide says a good title is unique to the page, clear and concise, and a good meta description is short, unique and covers the most relevant points.
9. Use one H1 per page that says what the page is about.
10. Check canonical tags point to the page’s own final address on your real domain.
11. Create an XML sitemap. Yoast SEO and similar plugins generate one automatically.
12. Add structured data for your business type. Test it in the Rich Results Test.
13. Use clean URLs. /water-heater-repair/, not /?p=123.
14. Link pages to each other. Every important page should be reachable within a few clicks of the home page.

For a local business, add the profile and service-page checks from my local SEO checklist.

Part 3: Speed and mobile

15. Run PageSpeed Insights on the home page and your main service page, on mobile. Google’s Core Web Vitals thresholds for “good” are LCP (Largest Contentful Paint, how fast the main content loads) of 2.5 seconds or less, INP (Interaction to Next Paint, how fast the page responds) of 200 milliseconds or less and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift, how much the layout jumps) of 0.1 or less.
16. Compress images and serve them at the size they’re shown. A 4,000-pixel photo in a 400-pixel box is the usual cause of a slow page.
17. Turn on caching with your host or a cache plugin.
18. Check the layout at three widths: phone, tablet and desktop. Nothing should scroll sideways.
19. Remove plugins you don’t use. Every plugin adds code and risk.

The first screen deserves the most attention. I cover what belongs there in landing page best practices.

Part 4: Tracking

20. Install Google Analytics 4 and confirm it records your own test visit in the Realtime report. Google’s setup guide walks through it.
21. Track your key actions as events: form submissions, calls and bookings, not just page views.
22. Load each tracking tag once. If you use Google Tag Manager and a plugin such as Site Kit, make sure they don’t both send the same data, or every visit counts twice.
23. Verify the site in Google Search Console on the final domain.
24. Tag your campaign links with UTM parameters, so social, email and ads show up separately. My marketing report playbook includes the setup.

Part 5: Legal and accessibility

25. Publish a privacy policy. If you collect names, emails or phone numbers, say what you collect, why, and who to contact. Canada’s privacy commissioner explains the openness principle under PIPEDA (Canada’s federal privacy law): your practices must be clear, easy to understand and readily available.
26. Check accessibility basics: readable text contrast, alt text, keyboard navigation and form labels. In Ontario, the AODA requires businesses and non-profits with 50 or more employees to meet WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.0 Level AA on public websites.
27. Add the pages people look for: contact details, terms if you sell online, and a disclaimer if you give advice.

Part 6: Launch day and the first week

28. If you’re replacing an old site or address, redirect every old URL. Google’s site move guide recommends server-side permanent redirects (301 or 308) straight to the matching new page, kept for at least a year, and a Change of Address in Search Console when the domain changes.
29. Submit your sitemap in Search Console’s Sitemaps report and request indexing for the home page and two or three key pages.
30. Re-check after seven days: search site:yourdomain.com to see what’s indexed, test the forms again, look for 404 errors in Search Console, and compare the first week of analytics with what you expected.

What usually goes wrong at launch?

Tools for the job

Plans and pricing change. Check each tool's site for current details.

Frequently asked questions

Related playbooks

• Local SEO checklist for service businesses: The 30 checks that move a service business up in Google Maps and local results: profile, website, reviews, listings and tracking, in the order to do them.
• Landing page best practices: 5 things to put above the fold: The five elements that do most of the work before anyone scrolls, the speed targets to hit, and how to test a page for free in one afternoon.
• SEO vs AEO vs GEO: how to get found on Google and cited by AI search: What each term means, how AI search engines choose the sources they cite, the tools you need, and a 30-day checklist for a small business site.

Browse every playbook on websites and landing pages, or see all marketing playbooks.

Sources

1. Web Vitalsweb.dev (Google)
2. SEO Starter GuideGoogle Search Central
3. Site moves with URL changesGoogle Search Central
4. Sitemaps reportSearch Console Help
5. Set up Analytics for a website and/or appAnalytics Help
6. How to make websites accessibleGovernment of Ontario
7. PIPEDA fair information principle 8: OpennessOffice of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada