Website launch checklist: before, during and after

Short answer

A website launch checklist makes sure nothing that matters breaks on go-live: content is complete and accurate, every enquiry route works and is tracked, search engines can index the site, redirects are in place, pages are fast on mobile, legal pages are live and security is set. Check before, during and for 30 days after launch.

• Test every form, phone link and WhatsApp button, on a phone.
• Remove staging noindex and robots.txt blocks at launch.
• Confirm 301 redirects for every old URL.
• Check GA4 key events and Search Console are working.
• Monitor enquiries and indexing daily for the first week.

What is a website launch checklist?

A website launch checklist is a structured list of checks carried out before, during and after a website goes live, to confirm that content, functionality, tracking, search visibility, performance, security and legal requirements are all in place.

Launches are where small mistakes become expensive. A form that fails on launch day, or a leftover noindex tag, can cost weeks of enquiries before anyone notices.

Assign each check to a named person and record when it was done. A checklist that everyone assumes someone else has completed is how the obvious things get missed. The person who answers enquiries should always be the one who confirms test messages have arrived.

What should you check before launch?

Work through these on the staging site, ideally with someone who did not build it.

• Content: spelling, prices, phone numbers, addresses and team details correct.
• Links: no broken internal links or placeholder text.
• Forms: every form submits, arrives, and shows a confirmation.
• Mobile: every key page tested on a real phone.
• Speed: key pages checked in PageSpeed Insights.
• Accessibility: W3C Easy Checks passed on key pages.
• SEO: unique titles and descriptions, one H1 per page, structured data tested.
• Redirects: map complete and tested for an existing site.

• Website migration SEO checklist
• Website accessibility for UK businesses

What should you check on launch day?

Launch early in the week, during working hours, with the people who can fix things available.

• Point the domain, confirm HTTPS works on every version of the address.
• Remove noindex tags and robots.txt blocks from staging.
• Test a sample of old URLs for correct redirects.
• Submit the XML sitemap in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
• Confirm GA4 is recording visits and key events.
• Send a test enquiry through every route.
• Check the cookie banner blocks non-essential tags until consent.

• Google Search Console for small businesses
• Cookie banners and UK law

What should you check after launch?

The first 30 days show whether the launch worked. Check Search Console daily for the first week for indexing errors and not found pages, then weekly. Compare enquiries with the previous month and investigate any drop immediately.

Update your Google Business Profile, social profiles and email signatures with any new URLs. Ask a few customers to try the site and tell you what confused them.

• Track every website enquiry to its source

What about legal and security checks?

Before launch, confirm company details are in the footer, the privacy notice reflects the new site's forms and tools, and the cookie banner works. Remove test accounts, set strong passwords with two-factor authentication for admin users, and confirm backups are running on the live server.

These are easy to skip in the rush of launch and harder to fix once customers are using the site.

• Legal requirements for a UK business website
• Website security for small businesses

When should you delay a launch?

Delay if enquiry routes are untested, redirects are incomplete for a site with existing traffic, or legal pages are missing. A launch a week late costs little. A launch that breaks enquiries or loses rankings can cost months.

The trade-off is momentum. If the new site is better in every other way, fix the blockers and launch rather than waiting for perfection. Minor content improvements can follow.

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern after launches we are asked to rescue: the new site looks excellent, but enquiries dropped to almost nothing after go-live because the form's email notifications were still pointed at the staging environment.

A test enquiry through every route on launch day, received by the people who answer enquiries, would have caught it within minutes.

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Launch checklist summary

Before, during and after.

• Before: content, links, forms, mobile, speed, accessibility, SEO, redirects.
• Launch day: HTTPS, remove staging blocks, test redirects, submit sitemap.
• Launch day: confirm tracking and test every enquiry route.
• Launch day: confirm cookie consent and legal pages.
• After: daily Search Console checks for a week.
• After: compare enquiries with last month.
• After: update profiles and links elsewhere.

Next step

If you are close to launching a new website, we will run the pre-launch checks with you in 30 minutes and flag anything that should block go-live.