A new website can look perfect in the review meeting and still be slow on phones, invisible to Google and unable to tell you where a single enquiry came from. Most of these problems are invisible to a business owner, and expensive to fix after launch.
This website launch checklist covers the eight things to check before you approve a new site, whether it was built in-house, by an agency or by us.
1. Speed on a real phone
Most visitors arrive on a mobile phone, often on a patchy connection. Test the site with Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool and look at the mobile result first.
Google measures page experience with three Core Web Vitals:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how quickly the main content appears. Aim for 2.5 seconds or less.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP): how quickly the page responds when someone taps or clicks. Aim for 200 milliseconds or less.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): how much the page jumps around while loading. Aim for 0.1 or less.
If the mobile score is poor, ask why before launch. Large images, heavy sliders, too many plugins and slow hosting are the usual causes.
2. Mobile layout and tap targets
Open every main page on your own phone. Check that text is readable without zooming, buttons are easy to tap, menus open and close properly, and nothing spills off the side of the screen. Then try filling in the contact form with your thumb.
3. SEO basics on every page
You don't need to be an SEO expert to check the basics:
- Each page has its own clear title and description.
- Each page has one main heading that says what the page is about.
- Images have short descriptions (alt text).
- The site has an XML sitemap and a robots.txt file, and isn't accidentally blocking search engines.
- Old page addresses redirect to the new ones, so you don't lose existing rankings.
For sites that need to rank in competitive searches, and appear in AI-generated answers, our tech-first SEO service goes much deeper.
4. Forms that actually deliver
Submit every form yourself and check that the enquiry arrives, in the right inbox, and not in spam. Ask what happens if email fails: are enquiries also saved somewhere? A form that silently loses leads is the most expensive bug a business website can have.
5. Analytics and conversion tracking
Before launch, confirm that analytics is installed and that key actions are tracked as conversions: form submissions, phone and WhatsApp clicks, and purchases if you sell online. Check that the cookie consent banner works, too.
If you run ads, make sure the numbers in your ad platforms and analytics roughly agree. Our article on why GA4 numbers don't match your ads explains why they often don't, and how to fix it.
6. You own the domain, hosting and code
Make sure the domain is registered in your company's name, with your email as the contact. Ask for admin access to the hosting, analytics and any other accounts, and confirm you own the code and design. If the relationship with your developer ends, you should be able to move without starting again.
7. Security and backups
Ask three questions: Is the site on HTTPS everywhere? Are the software and plugins up to date? Where are the backups, how often are they taken, and when was a restore last tested? If nobody can answer the last one, the backups may not work when you need them.
8. A proper handover
At launch, you should receive a short handover document: where the site is hosted, how to update content, who to call when something breaks, what's covered by any maintenance plan, and how much renewals cost. Keep it with your other business records.
After launch
A launch is the start, not the end. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console, set up your Google Business Profile so local customers can find you, and review speed and enquiries after the first month.
Want a second opinion?
Our website development team builds fast, search-friendly sites with tracking set up properly from day one. If you already have a site, or one about to launch, a free IT health check includes a review of speed, SEO basics and tracking.