A website launch checklist is a quality assurance list of checks and tests completed before and after a new website goes live to make sure the launch runs smoothly and every key element works as intended.
For small to mid-market businesses, eCommerce brands or enterprise teams investing in professional digital agency support, that process helps protect search visibility, user experience, performance, security and conversions from day one.
Below, we’ll walk through the universal checklist that our Brisbane web design team use at White Peak Digital for all new website development projects.
Our website launch checklist covers pre-launch and post-launch checks across content, design and development, SEO, social media, accessibility, responsiveness, functionality, site speed, security, quality assurance, go-live planning and ongoing monitoring.
Website Pre-Launch Checklist
Before launching a new website, it’s essential to have a solid plan and strategy in place.
Identify your unique selling proposition to differentiate your website from competitors.
Clearly outline your website’s goals and objectives, whether it’s increasing traffic, generating leads or boosting sales.
A comprehensive website launch checklist can help ensure that all aspects of your website are well executed and aligned with your business goals.
This includes everything from content creation and design to technical setup and SEO.
1. Website Content
Your website content is the foundation of your online presence, making it crucial to ensure every element is polished, professional and error free.
Here’s a detailed checklist to help you deliver exceptional website content that meets user expectations and aligns with your brand:
Remove Placeholder Text
One of the most common oversights in website content is leaving placeholder text like “Lorem Ipsum.”
Replace all dummy text with engaging and relevant content that is tailored to your target audience.
Placeholder text detracts from credibility and can leave visitors questioning your professionalism.
Proofreading
Carefully review all written content for grammar, spelling and punctuation errors.
Mistakes can undermine your credibility and cause visitors to lose trust in your services.
Proofread multiple times or better yet, have a fresh pair of eyes review it to catch anything you may have missed.
Ensure All Hyperlinks Work
Check that every link on your website, whether it is internal or external, works as intended.
Broken links can frustrate users and harm your website’s SEO performance.
Tip: If you’re worried about harming your website SEO, our technical SEO migration services can help.
Run link checks regularly, especially before launching or updating your existing site again.
Verify Contact Information
Double check all contact details on your contact page, including phone numbers, email addresses, physical locations, and test all contact forms to ensure they function properly.
Incorrect information could result in lost leads and missed opportunities.
Optimise Media Content
Ensure all video and audio files play correctly and are formatted for quick loading.
Use appropriate file sizes and formats for seamless playback on both desktop and mobile devices.
Proof & Link PDF Files
For any PDF documents linked on your website, ensure they are fully proofed, properly formatted and correctly linked.
Broken or poorly formatted PDFs can leave users with a negative impression.
Customised 404 Page
A customised 404 error page helps retain visitors who land on a broken or nonexistent link.
Include helpful navigation links or a search engine bar to guide users back to the site pages or content they’re looking for.
Implement a Favicon
Your favicon, commonly the small logo appearing in the browser tab, is a small yet crucial branding element.
Ensure it is properly uploaded and displays correctly on all web browsers used.
Confirm Licensing for Assets
For every image, font and plugin used on your website, ensure you have the appropriate licenses on file.
This not only protects your business legally but also upholds professional standards.
Test Across Devices & Browsers
Lastly, review your website’s layout, content and functionality across various devices to ensure a consistent user experience.
Running real-world responsive design tests across desktop, tablet and mobile devices guarantees your pages adapt properly to any screen.
2. Design & Development
A well-designed and developed website relies on consistent design elements that build user trust and make navigation effortless from the start.
Ensure your website is visually appealing with a clean, modern layout that accurately reflects your brand identity
Built on a professional content management system, your site’s navigation should be intuitive, allowing users to find information quickly and easily without friction.
Optimise your website for search engines by incorporating SEO best practices into the design and development process.
This includes using appropriate keywords, optimising images and ensuring fast loading times.
A well optimised website not only improves user experience but also enhances your search engine rankings, driving more organic traffic to your entire site too.
3. SEO & Analytics
For search engine optimisation and Google Analytics purposes, it’s important that your website covers the following points prior to launching, with keyword research informing your pre-launch SEO planning.
- All page titles use clear meta tags, are descriptive and fewer than 70 characters, and help search engines understand page content
- Page meta descriptions use descriptive keywords, are fewer than 160 characters, and help search engines understand page content
- H1 tags used for page titles with only one per page
- XML sitemap has been generated and added to root folder of website
- Robots.txt is generated and added to root folder of website
- Structured data is implemented to support rich results
- Old website URLs are 301 redirected to new URLs
- Website can be accessed by search engines (remove noindex and nofollow)
- Google Analytics (or relevant tracking software) is installed
These search engine optimisation tactics help improve your site’s visibility in Google and AI search results, and stronger search rankings can lift website traffic and conversions.
4. Social Media
Your social media accounts are a great way to boost your website’s visibility and improve your credibility.
It is important to have your social media accounts linked to your website, so that users can easily find all of your platforms.
Email campaigns can also announce your launch and help engage website visitors.
It is vital that your company’s social media account is linked to the correct URL of your website. This ensures that your accounts are integrated across all of your web pages.
5. Website Accessibility
Ensuring that your website’s content is up to accessibility standards is essential when launching a new site.
Check for the following in your website’s content:
- WCAG compliance (including colour contrast checks against WCAG 2.2)
- Images use appropriate ALT text
- Semantic headings and structure used
- ARIA Landmark Roles specified
- Links are clearly recognisable and have focus state
- Alternatives provided for users with JavaScript disabled
- Associated label for all form controls
6. Browser & Device Compatibility
Ensuring website compatibility across browsers and devices helps deliver a mobile-friendly website for mobile users and guarantees a seamless user experience for all visitors.
This helps avoid potential issues that could impact usability, accessibility, overall site performance and user satisfaction.
Use the following list for your website compatibility testing:
- Site previewed in Chrome (Windows & Mac)
- Site previewed in Microsoft Edge (Windows)
- Site previewed in Safari (Mac)
- Site previewed in Firefox (Windows & Mac)
- Site previewed in any legacy or alternate browsers required
- Responsive design and functionality tested on smartphones (iOS & Android)
- Responsive design and functionality tested on tablets (iOS & Android)
- Design and functionality tested on large resolution monitors (4k or ultra-wide)
7. Website Functionality
Testing website functionality involves making sure that all features, links, integrations and forms work as intended for users, including link testing alongside forms and other key functions.
A fully functional site minimises errors, enhances user trust and supports a smooth user experience across the entire website while helping achieve business goals effectively.
It is important to review the following prior to launching your website:
- Forms have been tested and processed correctly
- Required form fields have been tested
- Form input validation (character limits, etc.)
- Forms send to the correct recipients
- Forms have confirmation URL or event tracking for submission tracking
- Forms process correctly with JavaScript disabled
- Website search and search results function correctly
8. Site Speed Optimisation
Optimising page speed improves user experience and faster loading increases user satisfaction and engagement.
A fast loading website also positively impacts search engine rankings, helping to attract more organic traffic.
A good benchmark is for your website to load in under two seconds. Before launching your website, you should review the below:
- Images have been optimised with compression for file size and type
- CSS is minified and optionally combined
- JavaScript is minified and optionally combined
- GZIP compression is enabled
- Only necessary fonts, weights and character sets are loaded
- Incorporate CDN delivery and caching strategies as required
Tip: Run a Google PageSpeed Test and optimise accordingly to pass Core Web Vitals.
9. Website Security
Prioritising website security protects sensitive user data and builds trust with your audience.
Make sure that all of the following elements are implemented before launching your website:
- Secure areas are locked and not accessible by search engines
- Default CMS login URL is changed
- Default CMS username is changed
- SSL certificate ready on live hosting
10. Testing & Quality Assurance
Thorough testing and quality assurance are essential for ensuring your website is error-free, functional and that all the pages have been checked.
Begin by testing your website for broken links, ensuring that all internal and external links are working correctly.
Check for slow loading times and optimise any elements that may be causing delays.
Evaluate the website’s navigation to ensure it is intuitive and user friendly. Test all forms, buttons and interactive elements to confirm they are functioning as intended.
Conduct cross browser and cross device testing to ensure your website performs well on different platforms and devices.
11. Launch & Deployment
A well executed launch and deployment plan is essential for ensuring that your website is launched successfully and meets your online goals.
Start by completing your final pre-launch checklist, setting a launch date and creating a timeline to ensure all tasks are completed on time.
You will also need to confirm a custom domain name and a reliable website hosting service are ready for go-live. If you are using an existing domain, schedule DNS changes as part of deployment.
Coordinate with your team to ensure everyone is aware of their responsibilities and deadlines.
A smooth and successful website launch sets the foundation for achieving your online goals and driving business growth.
Website Post-Launch Checklist
After launching your website, having a comprehensive post-launch checklist is crucial to ensure that your website performs optimally and is ready to deliver the best possible experience to its users.
This post-launch website checklist covers key aspects that should be addressed to ensure your site’s visibility, security, functionality and analytics are working as intended.
1. Ensure Site is Visible
One of the first steps after launching a website is ensuring it’s visible to search engines.
Start by submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console. This helps search engines understand the structure of your website, allowing them to crawl and index your pages more efficiently.
A well submitted sitemap improves your chances of appearing in relevant search results and attracting organic traffic.
2. Verify Web Fonts Integration
Fonts are a critical design element that directly impacts your site’s visual appeal and readability.
Double check that your web fonts are properly integrated and displaying correctly on the live site.
Inconsistencies in font rendering can create a disjointed experience for visitors and harm your brand.
3. Confirm 301 Redirects
301 redirects are crucial when transitioning from an old website to a new one.
These redirects ensure that users and search engines are directed to the correct pages on your new site.
Verify that all 301 redirects are working properly to avoid broken links and preserve the SEO value of your old URLs.
4. Generate & Upload a New Sitemap
After your website has been launched, it’s important to generate a fresh sitemap.xml file to reflect the current structure of your site.
This file acts as a blueprint for search engines, helping them efficiently crawl your pages.
Once generated, upload the sitemap to the root directory of your website and resubmit it to Google Search Console.
5. Set Up Google Analytics
Lastly, integrate an analytics tool into your website to monitor its performance from day one.
Google Analytics provides valuable insights into your website’s traffic, visitor behavior, user engagement, traffic sources and conversion rates.
This data allows you to make informed decisions about future improvements, ongoing website management and broader marketing strategies.
Verify that the tracking code is correctly implemented and test it to ensure it’s capturing data accurately.
Additional Tips for a Successful Launch
While the above checklist focuses on technical and performance aspects, consider these additional tips to enhance your post launch process:
- Monitor Site Speed: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to test your site’s loading time and make optimisations as needed.
- Test Responsiveness: Ensure your website looks and performs well on various devices and screen sizes after launch.
- Review Metadata: Double-check that all pages have appropriate meta titles and descriptions to optimise for search engine visibility.
- Publish Fresh Content: Regularly publish a blog post or other fresh content to keep your site up to date and support SEO.
- Set Up Backups: Implement a regular backup schedule to protect your website from potential data loss.
By diligently following this post-launch checklist, you can address potential issues early, improve user experience and maximise your website’s performance.
A successful launch is just the beginning of your website’s journey, ongoing monitoring and updates will keep it performing at its best.
