Website Checklist: 19 Steps to Get You Launched and Running

Launching a website without a checklist is how small details fall through the cracks. A form that doesn’t send. A mobile layout that breaks at 375px. A sitemap that never got submitted. None of those are expensive to fix before launch — and all of them are expensive to discover after a customer finds them first.

This checklist breaks the work into three phases: what to do before you flip the switch, what to verify on launch day, and what to monitor in the weeks after.

Prelaunch Website Checklist

These are the decisions and configurations that need to be in place before you do anything else. Getting them wrong doesn’t break the site — it just means more work to fix later.

1. Choose a CMS and configure analytics

Before a single page goes live, decide how content will be managed and how traffic will be measured. Those two decisions affect the structure of everything else. For most small business sites, a file-based CMS paired with a lightweight analytics tool (like Plausible or Fathom) is enough. Set up the analytics property, add the tracking snippet, and verify it’s receiving data before launch — not after.

2. Review all metadata

Every page needs a unique title tag and meta description. Check them by opening each page in a browser and reading the title bar and the source. Common failure points: pages that inherited a template title and never got updated, or descriptions longer than 160 characters that get cut off in search results.

3. Tease the launch to generate early interest

If you have an existing customer list, email, or social presence, announce the launch before it happens. A simple “going live on [date]” post gives people a reason to check back and gives you a warm audience on day one instead of launching into silence.

4. Develop a basic SEO strategy

Know which pages you want to rank before the site goes live. That means choosing one primary keyword per page, making sure that keyword appears in the page title, the first heading, and naturally in the body copy.

5. Verify all forms before launch

Every form on the site — contact, quote request, newsletter signup — should send a real test submission before launch. Check that the notification lands in the right inbox, that the confirmation message makes sense, and that the reply-to address is correct.

6. Check all images are optimized

Large images are the most common cause of slow pages. Every image should be compressed, sized appropriately for its container, and served in a modern format (WebP where possible). A page that loads in under two seconds on a mid-range phone is the target.

At-Launch Website Checklist

Launch day is when things that looked fine in staging show up differently in production.

7. Run a full site audit

Open every page. Not a crawl tool — actually open them in a browser and look. Broken layouts, missing images, and copy errors are faster to catch visually than programmatically. Do this on desktop and on an actual phone.

8. Generate and submit an XML sitemap

Most frameworks generate a sitemap automatically. Verify the sitemap exists at /sitemap.xml, confirm it includes all the pages you want indexed, then submit it to Google Search Console.

9. Check third-party integrations

Anything that connects to an external service — booking tools, chat widgets, payment processors, review feeds — needs to be tested in production with real credentials. Staging environments often use sandbox credentials that stop working when you go live.

10. Create an off-site backup

Once the site is live, make a backup that isn’t stored on the same server. A zip of the build output stored in cloud storage takes ten minutes and means a server incident isn’t also a data loss incident.

11. Check for legal compliance

At minimum: if you’re collecting email addresses or running analytics, you need a privacy policy. This doesn’t need to be written by a lawyer — there are template generators that cover the basics. Don’t launch without one.

12. Verify redirects from the old site

If this site is replacing an existing one, every page that existed before needs to either exist at the same URL or have a 301 redirect pointing to the equivalent new page. Missing redirects mean broken links in existing bookmarks and emails.

13. Check your robots.txt file

Open /robots.txt in a browser. It should exist and it should not be blocking the pages you want indexed. Sites built in staging often have Disallow: / that makes it to production unchanged.

14. Test responsiveness on real devices

Every breakpoint needs testing on a real screen. The three tests that catch the most issues: iPhone at 375px, Android at 360px, and tablet at 768px.

15. Review accessibility basics

Run the page through WAVE or Axe (both free). Automated tools catch about 30% of real accessibility issues — color contrast failures, missing alt text, and unlabeled form fields. Fix everything flagged before launch.

16. Final copy, link, and branding review

Read every page out loud. Click every link. Check that the logo, colors, and fonts are consistent. This is the last pass before real customers see the site.

Post-Launch Website Checklist

The site is live. The work isn’t done.

17. Test the user experience with fresh eyes

Ask someone who wasn’t involved in building the site to try to complete the primary action — request a quote, book an appointment, find contact information. Watch them do it without coaching.

18. Secure the site

Check that HTTPS is enforced across every page. If the site uses a CMS with user accounts, verify that all passwords are strong, unused accounts are removed, and software updates are applied.

19. Announce the launch

Send an email to your existing list on launch day. Post on the platforms where your customers are active. Update your Google Business Profile with the new URL if it changed.

Map out a maintenance plan

A website that nobody checks degrades. Software falls behind, forms break, prices change, staff turns over. Decide before you need to: who checks the site monthly, what they check, and what the process is for making updates.

Website Checklist FAQ

What are the most important things to do before launching a new website?

Verify every form sends to a working inbox, check that all images are compressed, confirm metadata is set on every page, and make sure you have analytics configured and tracking before the first visitor arrives.

How do I test a website before launching?

Test in a staging environment that mirrors production as closely as possible. The most reliable test is a real phone on a real mobile connection — not browser emulation.

How should I structure my website?

Start from the customer’s question, not the company’s org chart. Homepage → services → about → contact path on every page. Add pages as the need becomes real, not as insurance against future needs.