Website Launch Checklist

Pre-Launch Planning 0/5

• Define site goals and the one action you want each visitor to take.
• Pick a primary audience and write a one-sentence description of them.
• List your top three competitors and what their sites do well.
• Decide your launch date and work backward from it.
• Confirm the budget covers post-launch maintenance, not just the build.

Content Preparation 0/8

• Write your homepage hook, body, and CTA before any design work begins.
• Draft an "About" page that talks about the customer, not just you.
• Photograph your real team, products, and workspace. No stock photos for trust signals.
• Collect five real reviews with first names and last initials.
• Write a service or product page for every distinct offering.
• Prepare a contact page with phone, email, address, and a form.
• Draft a privacy policy and a terms of service page.
• Proofread every page out loud before launch.

Domain & Hosting 0/5

• Register your domain with auto-renew turned on.
• Confirm your hosting plan can handle launch-day traffic spikes.
• Set up a professional email on your domain, not gmail.com.
• Configure DNS records: A, CNAME, MX, and TXT for SPF, DKIM, DMARC.
• Document who has registrar access and where the password is stored.

Security 0/7

• Install a valid SSL certificate. Confirm https loads cleanly with a green padlock.
• Force HTTP to HTTPS via 301 redirect site-wide.
• Set HSTS, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, and Referrer-Policy headers.
• Hide directory listings and server version banners from public view.
• Enable automated daily backups with at least 30 days of retention.
• Test a full backup restore. "We have backups" only counts after one works.
• Run the site through Mozilla Observatory and address any A or B grade gaps.

Performance 0/7

• Aim for a 100 PageSpeed Insights score on mobile.
• Convert hero and large images to AVIF or WebP with appropriate fallbacks.
• Compress every image. A 2MB upload should leave the build under 200KB.
• Preload your hero image and your primary web font.
• Lazy-load every below-the-fold image with loading="lazy".
• Defer all non-critical JavaScript with defer or async.
• Inline critical CSS so first paint does not wait on a stylesheet round-trip.

SEO 0/10

• Write a unique title tag for every page (under 60 characters).
• Write a meta description for every page (under 155 characters).
• Use exactly one H1 per page that matches the page intent.
• Add Open Graph and Twitter Card tags so links unfurl cleanly.
• Generate an XML sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console.
• Add a robots.txt that points to your sitemap.
• Add JSON-LD structured data: LocalBusiness, Service, or Product as relevant.
• Set canonical tags on every page to prevent duplicate-content drift.
• Add alt text to every meaningful image. Decorative images get alt="".
• Verify your site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Browser Testing 0/5

• Test in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge on desktop.
• Test in Safari on iOS and Chrome on Android.
• Test the contact form on each browser. Confirm email actually delivers.
• Test in dark mode if your browser supports it.
• Test with browser zoom at 200%. No content should disappear.

Mobile Responsive 0/5

• Test on a real phone, not just the browser's responsive view.
• Confirm tap targets are at least 44 by 44 pixels.
• Confirm phone numbers are tap-to-call links on mobile.
• Confirm email addresses open the mail app on mobile.
• Confirm no horizontal scrolling on the smallest device you test.

Functionality 0/6

• Click every link on the site. Fix every 404.
• Submit every form and confirm the email lands in the inbox you set up.
• Test forms with invalid input. Errors should be clear and accessible.
• Confirm spam protection: honeypot field, reCAPTCHA, or rate-limit.
• Test any e-commerce flow with a real card and a refund.
• Test 404 page handling. Visitors should see a helpful message, not a stack trace.

Analytics 0/6

• Install Google Analytics 4 and confirm a real visit lands in Real-Time.
• Set up Google Search Console and confirm the sitemap is being crawled.
• Set up event tracking for form submits, phone clicks, and CTA clicks.
• Add Microsoft Clarity or a privacy-friendly heatmap if you want session replays.
• Document where each analytics tool's login lives.
• Set a 30-day reminder to review your first batch of real data.

Compliance 0/5

• Add a cookie consent banner if you use cookies for analytics or ads.
• Publish a privacy policy that names the tools you actually use.
• Publish terms of service if your site sells anything or accepts user content.
• Run a WCAG 2.2 AA audit. Address every contrast and keyboard issue.
• Add an accessible "Skip to main content" link as the first focusable element.

Launch Day 0/8

• Switch DNS to the live server in the morning, not the evening.
• Confirm the site loads from your phone on cellular, not just office wifi.
• Confirm forms still deliver email after the DNS switch.
• Resubmit the sitemap to Search Console.
• Test the most important user flow end to end one final time.
• Update social media profiles to point to the new site.
• Email past customers and prospects with a launch-day note.
• Take a screenshot of the homepage. It is your "before" reference.

Post-Launch 0/7

• Check Search Console for crawl errors at 24 hours.
• Check analytics at 48 hours. The first numbers will be wrong; that is fine.
• Run PageSpeed Insights again. Live conditions can differ from staging.
• Run a broken-link sweep. Catch what testing missed.
• Read every form submission for the first week. Tighten copy where confusion shows up.
• Set a calendar reminder to update content every 90 days.
• Add the site to your uptime monitor service.

Marketing 0/6

• Update Google Business Profile with the new URL and a fresh photo.
• Ask three customers for a Google review the week of launch.
• Post a launch announcement on every platform you actually use.
• Add the new URL to your email signature.
• Order new business cards if the URL changed.
• Write a launch blog post that walks through what changed and why.

• 01

  Never miss a critical step

  Ninety tasks across the fourteen places sites quietly break. If something is here, we have seen it bite a launch.

• 02

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• 03

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