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Website launch checklist

A website launch checklist for agencies and freelancers who launch sites for clients. 105 checks in three stages: before launch, launch day and the first 30 days. Each one says why it’s there or how to check it.

Jump to the checklist
  • Free · no login
  • 105 checks in 13 groups
  • Works with any developer
  • Prints to a clean PDF

How to use it.

Use it on any build, with any team. To see how we check our own, read our quality standards in the Trust Center.

  1. 1Run it on staging first. Groups A to J are the 10 pre-launch groups. Fix what they find before a date is promised.
  2. 2Run group K on the day. In order, with the people who can fix things available.
  3. 3Keep going for 30 days. Groups L and M close the launch: monitoring, then handover.

Site: ______________________   Launch date: __________   Checked by: ________________   Signed off by: ________________

A launch is one stage of a project. These cover the stages on either side of it.

0 of 105 checked

Groups

Before launch

Content

What visitors read first, and the first thing a client notices when it’s wrong.

Before launch

Design QA at breakpoints

The build compared with the approved design, at every width people will see it.

  4. WCAG 2.2: reflow

Before launch

Forms and functionality

Everything a visitor can do, done once by a person before a visitor tries it.

Before launch

Tracking and consent

If measurement starts a week late, that week of data is gone for good.

  1. Google Analytics: DebugView

  7. Search Console: add a website property

Before launch

SEO basics

The settings that decide whether search engines can find, read and list the site.

  1. Google: title links

  2. Google: snippets and meta descriptions

  4. Google: block indexing with noindex

  5. Google: introduction to robots.txt

  6. Google: how to specify a canonical URL

  7. Google: build and submit a sitemap

  8. Google: redirects and Google Search

  10. Google: HTTP status codes and soft 404s

  11. Google: introduction to structured data

  12. The Open Graph protocol

Before launch

Performance

Speed is cheapest to fix before launch, while nothing depends on the page yet.

  2. web.dev: Core Web Vitals

  3. MDN: responsive images

  4. web.dev: optimise Cumulative Layout Shift

  5. MDN: lazy loading

Before launch

Accessibility basics

A first pass that finds the common barriers. A full audit goes a lot further.

  1. WCAG 2.2: keyboard

  2. WCAG 2.2: focus visible

  3. WCAG 2.2: contrast (minimum)

  4. WCAG 2.2: non-text content

  5. WCAG 2.2: labels or instructions

  6. WCAG 2.2: info and relationships

  8. WCAG 2.2: animation from interactions

  9. W3C: easy checks, a first review of accessibility

Before launch

Security

Close what was left open to make the build easier.

  3. WordPress: hardening WordPress

  7. MDN: Strict-Transport-Security

Before launch

DNS, SSL and email

The part of a launch that can take the client’s email down with it.

  5. MDN: mixed content

  7. Google: email sender guidelines

Before launch

Backups and rollback

The way back, agreed while everyone is calm.

Launch day

Launch day

A short list, run in order, with the people who can fix things at their desks.

  9. Search Console: URL Inspection tool

After launch

The first 30 days

A live site finds what staging didn’t. Find it before the client does.

  5. web.dev: Core Web Vitals

After launch

Handover

The site is finished when the client can run it without you.

Sign-off before the switch

Three last checks before anyone touches DNS.

Website launch checklist · studiopartner.co/resources/website-launch-checklist

Want the launch handled for you?

We build and launch websites for agencies and for freelancers who resell, under their name. This is what our own standards say about checking and launching a build.

  • Quality standards
  • Someone who didn’t build it checks the build against your design before you see it.
  • We test every build at 6 breakpoints on real devices, in the 4 main browsers.
  • You get the staging link only after our internal QA has passed.
  • We fix defects free, always. A change is quoted first, and we never start it without your written OK.
  • SEO-safe launch checklist
  • Every old URL is mapped to a new one before we build.
  • Staging is never indexable.
  • You (or your SEO lead) sign off the checklist before anyone touches DNS.
  • We crawl the live site on day 1, 7 and 30, and fix anything we built that doesn’t work, under the 30-day warranty.
  • The aim is to keep what the site already has. Nobody controls search rankings, so we never promise rankings or traffic.

Official sources linked in the checklist

Launch checklist questions.

What agencies ask before a client site goes live.

All resources Website redesign checklist

It’s a list of checks to run before, during and after a website goes live. It covers the things that are easy to miss because the site looks fine without them: forms that send nowhere, a noindex rule left on from staging, missing redirects, tracking that never started, and email that breaks when DNS changes.

Content, design at every screen width, forms and other functions, tracking and consent, SEO settings, speed, accessibility, security, DNS and SSL, and backups. Groups A to J of this checklist cover them in that order. Run them on staging, so the fixes are made before a launch date is promised.

Most of them, yes. A five-page site still has forms, titles, a noindex setting, DNS and a backup. Skip the items that don’t apply, such as checkout tests on a site that sells nothing, or redirects on a site that replaces nothing.

The ones you can’t see by looking at the page. A noindex rule or a blocking robots.txt carried over from staging. A form that shows a success message and sends the entry nowhere. Analytics installed twice, or not at all. DNS changes that remove the client’s email records. Each has its own item in the checklist.

Only if it replaces an existing site and any URL changes. Then every old URL needs a permanent, server-side redirect to its closest new page. Google advises keeping those redirects for as long as possible, and generally for at least one year. The website redesign checklist covers the redirect map step by step.

Someone who didn’t build it checks the build against your design before you see it. We test every build at 6 breakpoints on real devices, in the 4 main browsers. You get the staging link only after our internal QA has passed. The full policy is in the Trust Center, under Quality standards.

Yes. Share the page, or use the print button: it gives a clean black and white copy you can save as a PDF, with a line for the project, the date and who checked it.

Yes, though only in this browser. The ticks are kept on your device and never reach us, and the reset button clears them. There’s no login and no email form.

Send us the design. We’ll build it, check it and launch it under your agency’s name.

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