The Website Launch Checklist: What to Check Before You Go Live

A website can be beautifully built and still fail on day one — not because of the design, but because nobody checked the basics: a form that delivers nowhere, an old phone number, a page that breaks on phones. Launch-day problems are almost never design problems. They are checking problems.

The good news is that checking is the cheapest part of the whole project. Everything on this list can be done by a non-technical owner with a phone, a friend and a little patience — and all of it is far easier to fix before launch than after customers have seen the problem.

Work through it in order: each section catches a different kind of first-day failure, and none require you to understand how the site was built — only to use it as a customer will.

1. Content: read it like a stranger

Your team has read these pages so often that nobody really sees them anymore. Read them once more, slowly, as a customer who knows nothing.

• Proofread every page. Spelling mistakes are small things, but a visitor reads them as carelessness — and carelessness is exactly what a new customer is screening for.
• Check every fact about the business. Phone numbers, email addresses, opening hours, addresses — details carried over from an old site or early draft have a way of surviving into launch.
• Hunt down placeholder text. Lorem ipsum, "coming soon", dummy names — anything written to be replaced later must actually be replaced.
• Read only the headings. A visitor who skims nothing but the headlines should still come away knowing what you offer and who it is for.

2. Links and forms: click everything

A website is a machine made of links, and a machine is only tested by running it. Never assume a button works because it looks right.

• Click every link and button on every page. Navigation, footer, social icons, downloads — each should land where its label promises, not on an error.
• Submit every form for real. Then check that the message actually arrived in the right inbox. A form that shows a cheerful confirmation but delivers nothing is worse than no form at all.
• Check the thank-you state. After submitting, the visitor should see a clear confirmation and know what happens next — not a blank page or an error.
• Tap the phone number and the email address. On a phone, the number should start a call and the email link should open a message already addressed to you.

3. Mobile and browsers: check it on a real phone

Most visitors will meet your website on a phone — probably not the model you own. Previews help, but nothing replaces holding the real thing.

• Open every page on an actual phone and scroll slowly. Look for text that overflows its box, buttons that sit too close together, menus that open awkwardly and images that cover content.
• Do the key tasks one-handed. Find your contact details, read a full page, send the form — the things a customer in a hurry will try to do.
• Try a second browser. If everyone in the business uses the same one, ask someone who uses a different one to open the site. Small differences show up quickly.

4. Speed basics: keep it light

You do not need laboratory measurements to catch the obvious problems. A page that feels heavy on an ordinary connection is heavy, and the causes are usually visible.

• Look at your image sizes. Photos straight from a phone or camera are often far larger than a web page needs. Resize and compress images before they go on the page — not after someone complains.
• Notice anything that stalls while you test. A gallery, a video or a background effect that holds the page up is a candidate for trimming, replacing or loading later.
• Test away from the office Wi-Fi. Load the site on mobile data, somewhere with an ordinary signal. That is the connection many of your customers will judge you on.

5. Being found: titles, descriptions and measurement

A launched site that search engines cannot properly read — and that you cannot measure — leaves you flying blind from day one.

• Give every page its own title and description. The title is the clearest signal a page sends; it should say plainly what the page is and who it is for. Duplicates and leftover defaults waste it.
• Make sure the site is allowed to be found. A "discourage search engines" setting left switched on from development is a classic silent launch failure — check it is off.
• Make sure a sitemap exists and is submitted. A sitemap lists your pages for search engines, so they can find everything you published instead of guessing.
• Set up basic analytics before launch day. You cannot improve what you never measured — and the visits from your first announcement are the ones you will most want to see.

6. Access and ownership: everything in your name

This is the section people skip, and the one that causes the worst problems later — usually when something breaks and the only person with the password is unreachable.

• The domain is registered to the business. Not to a former employee, not inside a freelancer's personal account — it belongs in the business's name, with renewal under the business's control.
• Hosting and the site itself sit in accounts the business owns. Giving a developer access is normal and sensible — but access is not the same as ownership.
• Every login is handed over and stored properly. A launch is not complete until the owner can get into the domain, the hosting, the site and the analytics without asking anyone.
• Keep a simple list of what renews. Domain, hosting, anything paid — so nothing quietly expires and takes the website down with it.

7. Launch soft, fix fast

Going live does not have to mean announcing to the whole world at once. The calmest launches are deliberately quiet at first.

• Share it with a few people before you announce it. Staff, a trusted customer, a friend who will be honest. Ask them to do real things — find a price, send an inquiry — and to tell you exactly where they got stuck.
• Watch inquiries closely in the first days. Every early message is a lead and a test result at the same time. If people cannot complete the form, you want to know immediately, not eventually.
• Fix small things the moment you spot them. A wrong digit in a phone number found on day one is an anecdote. Found months later, it is business you lost without ever hearing about it.
• Announce once the basics have survived real use. Then make the launch post, send the email, put the address on the door — pointing everyone at a site you have already watched work.

Go live, then keep going

If you are still at the planning stage, our guide to what a business website actually needs will help you decide what belongs on the site before any of these checks apply. And if you want the bigger picture — how the website fits together with brand, social, video and the rest — start with how a small business grows online.

Launch carefully, then keep improving. The businesses that do well online are rarely the ones that launched perfectly; they are the ones that kept checking after everyone else stopped looking.

Read next: How to Brief a Studio: What to Share So You Get What You Want →