Launch day is when small oversights become public. The expensive ones are almost always the boring ones — a staging noindex left switched on, a contact form that goes nowhere, an SSL certificate nobody configured.
Work through this in order. It takes about two hours.
Technical
1. HTTPS is working
Every page loads over https://. No mixed-content warnings in the browser console.
2. One canonical domain
Pick www or non-www and 301-redirect the other. Also redirect http:// to https://. Four indexable versions of every URL splits your ranking signals four ways.
3. noindex is removed
The single most common launch mistake. Check the page source for noindex, and in WordPress check Settings → Reading.
4. robots.txt allows crawling
Visit /robots.txt. Confirm it does not say Disallow: /.
5. XML sitemap exists and is accurate
At /sitemap.xml, containing only live, indexable pages. No staging URLs.
6. 404 page exists and is useful
Custom, on-brand, with navigation back into the site. Test it with a made-up URL.
7. Redirects from the old site are mapped
If this is a redesign, every old URL needs a 301 to its new equivalent. Skipping this is the most reliable way to lose rankings you already had.
8. Forms actually deliver
Submit every form. Check the inbox — and the spam folder. Confirm the success message appears and any autoresponder fires.
9. Site works on real devices
Not just a resized browser window. Test on an actual phone, in both Safari and Chrome.
10. Cross-browser check
Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge. Safari is the one that surprises people.
Performance
11. Core Web Vitals pass on mobile
LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1. Test with PageSpeed Insights on the mobile tab. See the Core Web Vitals guide.
12. Images are optimised
Resized to display dimensions, compressed, served as WebP where possible, with explicit width and height attributes.
13. Caching and compression are on
Gzip or Brotli enabled, browser caching headers set, page caching active.
14. The hero image is not lazy-loaded
Lazy-loading your largest above-the-fold image directly damages LCP. Common and easily missed.
SEO
15. Every page has a unique title tag
Under 60 characters, descriptive, with the primary query near the front. No duplicates.
16. Every page has a meta description
Under 158 characters, written to earn a click rather than to describe the page.
17. One H1 per page
Describing what the page is about. Heading levels nest properly.
18. Canonical tags are correct
Each page points to itself. Watch for pages canonicalising to the staging domain.
19. Structured data is in place and valid
Organization and WebSite at minimum. Service, Article, Product, FAQ and Breadcrumb where relevant. Validate with Google's Rich Results Test.
20. Images have alt text
Describing the image. Decorative images get an empty alt="".
21. Open Graph and Twitter Card tags
Paste a URL into Slack or a social platform and confirm the preview looks right.
Content, legal and analytics
22. Proofread everything
Including page titles, button labels, form field labels and error messages. Read the 404 page too. Placeholder text has a way of surviving into production.
23. Legal pages are present
Privacy policy, terms, cookie notice where required. If you are in or serving the EU or UK, a compliant cookie consent mechanism is not optional.
24. Analytics and Search Console are live
Analytics installed and recording. Search Console verified, sitemap submitted. Conversion goals configured for form submissions.
Do steps 1–5 first and 24 last. If you only had time for six of these, do 3, 7, 8, 11, 15 and 24 — those cover the mistakes that cost real money.
The week after launch
- Day 1: request indexing for the homepage and main service pages in Search Console.
- Day 2: check analytics is recording. Confirm at least one form submission arrived.
- Day 3: review Search Console coverage for crawl errors.
- Day 7: check for 404s from old URLs you missed, and add redirects.
- Day 14: record a baseline of impressions and average position so you have something to measure against.
- Day 30: first proper review — indexed pages, Core Web Vitals field data, any errors.
Set up maintenance before you need it
Decide now, not after something breaks:
- Automated backups, stored somewhere other than the server itself.
- A schedule for CMS, theme and plugin updates.
- Uptime monitoring.
- SSL certificate auto-renewal confirmed.
- Someone who is actually responsible for all of the above.
Every build we deliver goes through this list — see web development services.