Launch day goes wrong in predictable ways: a site left set to noindex, broken forms, missing redirects, slow pages and tracking that never fires. This checklist groups 30 checks into five areas so you can work through them in order and sign each off.
Content (6)
- Every page proofread, with names, phone numbers and addresses verified.
- No placeholder text, lorem ipsum or sample images left.
- Every claim, price and offer is accurate and can be supported (Australian Consumer Law applies to what you publish).
- Images have meaningful alt text where they convey information.
- Legal pages present: privacy policy, terms, and any required business details.
- Calls to action are clear on every key page (see what makes a modern business website convert).
Functionality (6)
- Submit every form and confirm the enquiry reaches the right inbox.
- Check automated replies and spam filtering.
- Click every navigation item and footer link.
- Test on a phone, a tablet and at least two browsers.
- Test the checkout, booking or quote flow end to end, if you have one.
- Check a custom 404 page exists and helps people recover.
Search visibility (8)
- Remove any staging “noindex” and check the live page source. Google explains that noindex is set through a meta tag or an X-Robots-Tag header, and that a page blocked in robots.txt can never have its noindex rule seen.
- Confirm robots.txt does not block the whole site.
- Every page has a unique title and meta description.
- One H1 per page and a sensible heading order.
- Canonical URLs are correct.
- An XML sitemap exists and is submitted in Search Console.
- If replacing an old site, every old URL has a 301 redirect to its closest new page (see redesigning without losing SEO value).
- Search Console and Analytics are verified on the live domain.
Performance and accessibility (6)
- Run PageSpeed Insights on key templates.
- Compare against Core Web Vitals targets: web.dev lists good values as LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less and CLS of 0.1 or less, assessed at the 75th percentile of real visits (web.dev). New sites lack field data at first, so recheck after launch (see Core Web Vitals for business).
- Compress and correctly size images.
- Keyboard navigation works and focus is visible.
- Text contrast is adequate, and autoplaying motion can be paused: WCAG expects a pause, stop or hide mechanism for moving content that starts automatically and lasts more than five seconds (W3C).
- HTTPS works on all pages, with no mixed-content warnings.
Operations and tracking (4)
- Key events and conversions fire once, and only on success.
- Backups, uptime monitoring and an owner for updates are in place.
- Domain, DNS and email records (SPF, DKIM) are verified, with renewal dates noted.
- A rollback plan and a launch-week monitoring plan exist.
After going live
Within the first days, inspect your homepage with the URL Inspection tool, watch for crawl errors and test enquiries daily. Allow time for Google to recrawl; changes are not instant.
Limitations
No checklist covers every site. Add items for your platform, regulatory context and integrations.
Where Radiance Impact fits
Radiance Impact’s Technology division builds and redesigns business websites and provides maintenance and care. To have a launch reviewed, contact us.
Sources
- Block Search indexing with noindex, Google Search Central
- Web Vitals, web.dev (Google)
- Understanding Success Criterion 2.2.2: Pause, Stop, Hide, W3C
