The website launch checklist we use

A website can look finished and still be broken in ways nobody notices for weeks. The contact form sends to an inbox that doesn’t exist. The new site is hidden from Google because a single box was left ticked. Every old page someone bookmarked now lands on an error.

None of these show up in a design review. They show up when the phone goes quiet.

This is the checklist we run when a site goes live. The three checks that matter most are the “discourage search engines” box in WordPress, a real form submission from a phone, and 301 redirects from every old URL. The full list is split into three stages, because some jobs have to happen before go-live, some on the day, and some in the week after. Copy it, adapt it, and tick it off properly rather than from memory.

Stage 1: before launch day

Content and pages

• Every page has real content. Search the site for “lorem”, “placeholder”, “TBC” and “test”.
• Phone number, email and address are correct everywhere they appear: header, footer, contact page, and any schema or Google Business Profile link.
• Phone numbers are clickable on mobile (they should open the dialler, not do nothing).
• Every image has sensible alt text, and no image is a 5 MB photo straight off a camera.
• Legal pages exist where needed: privacy policy at minimum, plus terms for online stores.
• The footer copyright year is current, or set to update automatically.

The 404 page

• A custom 404 page exists, uses your branding, and offers a way forward: a search box, links to your main services and a phone number.

Nobody plans to send visitors to a dead end, but old links, typos and mistyped URLs all end there. A bare “Page not found” on a white screen makes the business look closed.

Favicon and sharing images

• Favicon (the little icon in the browser tab) is set, and looks clear at tiny sizes. A full logo shrunk to 16 pixels is usually mush, so use a simplified mark.
• A default social sharing image is set, so links posted on Facebook or in a text message show your branding rather than a random cropped photo.
• Page titles and meta descriptions are written for every main page, not left as “Home | My Site”.

Redirect map

• If this replaces an existing site, every old URL that had traffic or links is mapped to its closest new page.

This one matters more than everything else on the list for SEO. If you skip it, Google sees your old pages disappear and your rankings go with them. We’ve written the full process in 301 redirects: keep your Google rankings when you rebuild.

Forms, tested end to end

• Every form submits successfully.
• The notification email arrives in the right inbox. Check it, don’t assume.
• It doesn’t land in spam. If it does, the site’s email sending needs fixing (usually SMTP set up through a proper sending service, plus correct SPF and DKIM records for the domain).
• The customer gets an autoreply if one is set up, and it reads well.
• Reply-to is set so that hitting “reply” goes to the customer, not to the website.
• Spam protection is on (reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare Turnstile, or a honeypot field).
• The thank-you message or thank-you page appears, and tells people what happens next and when.

“End to end” means from a phone, on mobile data, as a stranger would. We’ve seen forms that work perfectly from the office and fail for everyone else.

Stage 2: launch day

Go live

• Take a full backup of the finished site before the switch, and confirm it’s stored off the server.
• Point the domain (or update DNS) and confirm the new site loads on both www and non-www versions, and that one redirects to the other.
• SSL certificate is active, the padlock shows, and http:// addresses redirect to https://.
• Check for mixed content warnings (images or scripts still loading over http). These can break the padlock on specific pages.

Switch indexing on

• In WordPress, go to Settings > Reading and make sure “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is unticked.

Development sites should be hidden from Google. Live sites should not. This single checkbox has kept more new websites out of search results than any algorithm update. If your SEO plugin (Yoast SEO or Rank Math) has its own noindex settings, check those too.

Sitemap and Search Console

• An XML sitemap exists (your SEO plugin usually creates it at /sitemap_index.xml) and lists only pages you want found.
• The site is verified in Google Search Console, and the sitemap is submitted.
• The site is also added to Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing is small but not nothing, and it feeds some AI tools.
• If you changed domain name entirely, use the Change of Address tool in Search Console.

Analytics and tracking

• Google Analytics 4 is installed once (not twice, which doubles every number).
• Form submissions and phone clicks are tracked as key events, so you can see enquiries, not just visits.
• Any Google Ads or Meta pixel tracking is moved over from the old site.
• Open the site yourself and confirm your visit appears in the GA4 Realtime report.

Redirects live

• The redirect map from Stage 1 is loaded.
• Spot-check the ten most important old URLs by typing them into a browser. Each should land on the right new page in one hop.

Stage 3: the week after

Speed check

• Run the homepage and one or two key service pages through PageSpeed Insights. Look at the mobile results first.
• Caching is switched on and images are compressed.

Don’t chase a perfect score. Chase a site that loads quickly on a phone with two bars of reception in a Lismore car park.

Monitoring

• Automated daily backups are running and stored off-site. Check the first one completed.
• Uptime monitoring is set up, with alerts going to someone who’ll act on them. (Both are part of our hosting and care plans.)
• Search Console has no new errors after a few days, and pages are starting to show as indexed.
• The 404 log (the Redirection plugin keeps one) is checked for old URLs you missed. Add redirects for any that show up repeatedly.

Handover

• The client has administrator logins to the site, hosting, domain and analytics.
• They know how to make basic edits safely. We give every client training plus a written guide, along the lines of editing your Elementor site without breaking it.
• Everyone knows who to call if something breaks, and what’s covered in the support period.

What usually gets missed

If you only have time for three checks, make them these: the indexing checkbox, a real form submission from a phone, and the redirects. They’re the three that cost enquiries when they go wrong, and they’re the three that are invisible when you look at the site.

Every site we build through our web design service goes through this list, including Analytics, Search Console and Bing setup, with 30 days of support afterwards. Launched recently and not sure it passed? Do those three checks first. For the rest of the list, get in touch to have it run over your site.