Website Launch Checklist: 40 Things to Check Before You Go Live

Why Bother with a Checklist?

Because you will miss something. Everyone does. You've been staring at this site for weeks or months, and your brain has started filling in the gaps. A checklist forces you to actually look at each thing one more time with fresh eyes.

The worst feeling is launching a site and then getting a text from the client saying "why does the contact form go nowhere?" Let's avoid that.

Content Checks

• Read every single page out loud. You'll catch awkward sentences you skipped while skimming.
• Search for "Lorem ipsum" and any placeholder text. It's always hiding somewhere.
• Check that all phone numbers, emails, and addresses are correct.
• Make sure every link goes where it should. Click them. All of them.
• Check for duplicate content across pages.
• Verify that images have alt text (not just for SEO — for people using screen readers).
• Read the footer. Nobody ever proofreads the footer.
• Check the copyright year. If it says 2024, fix it.

Design Checks

• Open every page on your phone. Not just the homepage — every page.
• Check on an actual tablet if you can, not just the browser's responsive mode.
• Look for horizontal scrolling on mobile. It's almost never intentional.
• Make sure images aren't stretched or blurry.
• Check that fonts loaded correctly. If your custom font fails, does the fallback look okay?
• Verify spacing and alignment is consistent from page to page.
• Check dark mode if the site supports it.
• Resize the browser window slowly from wide to narrow. Watch for anything that breaks.

Functionality Checks

• Submit every form. Check that you actually receive the submission.
• Test the search if there is one. Does it return useful results?
• Click every navigation link on every page.
• Test any dropdowns, modals, accordions, tabs, or sliders.
• Check that external links open in a new tab (if that's what you want).
• Test any e-commerce functionality — add to cart, checkout, payment.
• Verify that third-party tools are connected: analytics, chat widgets, tracking pixels.
• Test the 404 page. Go to a URL that doesn't exist and see what happens.

SEO Checks

• Every page needs a unique title tag. Not "Home" — something with your keywords in it.
• Every page needs a meta description. Write these like you're selling a click.
• Check your heading structure. One H1 per page, H2s for sections, H3s for subsections.
• Make sure your sitemap.xml exists and is submitted to Google Search Console.
• Check robots.txt — make sure you're not accidentally blocking search engines.
• Set up Open Graph tags so the site looks good when shared on social media.
• Add canonical URLs to prevent duplicate content issues.
• Install Google Analytics or whatever tracking you're using.

Performance Checks

• Run the site through Google PageSpeed Insights. Aim for green scores.
• Compress your images. This is almost always the biggest performance win.
• Make sure CSS and JavaScript files are minified.
• Check that lazy loading is working for images below the fold.
• Test on a slow connection. Throttle your network in dev tools and see if it's usable.
• Check Core Web Vitals: LCP (how fast does the main content show up?), INP (how fast does it respond to clicks?), CLS (does stuff jump around while loading?).

Security Checks

• Confirm HTTPS is working on every page. No mixed content warnings.
• Make sure any admin areas aren't publicly accessible.

How to Actually Use This Checklist

Don't just read through it — go through the live site page by page and check each item. The easiest way is to open the site in a review tool and pin comments on anything that needs fixing. That way your developer gets a clear list with exact locations instead of a vague bullet list.