Website Launch Checklist: 30 Things Before Going Live

Launching without a systematic check tends to produce broken links, leftover placeholder text, forms that send nowhere and pages that search engines can’t index. A structured review catches these problems while they are still cheap to fix.

This checklist covers 30 items in five groups. Where an item depends on a Google, W3C or WordPress rule, that’s noted, and the rules were checked against their documentation in November 2026.

Content (Items 1-8)

1. Proofread every page. Read each page at least once for typos, errors and placeholder text (“Lorem ipsum”, “Your text here”). Have a second person review it if possible.
2. Verify all links work. Click every internal and external link. A crawler such as Screaming Frog’s free version, or a link-checker plugin on WordPress, will catch links you miss.
3. Check all images. Make sure no images are missing or broken, and that each is sized for where it appears and compressed. Oversized images are a common cause of slow pages.
4. Add alt text to images. Describe what each meaningful image shows in plain language. For purely decorative images, the W3C’s accessibility tutorials say to use an empty alt attribute (alt="") so screen readers skip them, and that “leaving out the alt attribute is also not an option.” Google also uses alt text to understand images.
5. Remove demo and default content. Delete sample posts, pages, comments and widgets from your theme or platform. On WordPress, that means the “Hello world!” post, its sample comment and the “Sample Page.”
6. Create a helpful 404 page. Replace the default error message with navigation links or a search box, so visitors who hit a dead end can find their way back.
7. Verify contact information. Phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses and business hours should be correct everywhere they appear. Send a test message through each contact form.
8. Add legal pages. If you collect personal data through forms, analytics, newsletters or ads, privacy laws in many places require you to explain what you collect and why, so publish a privacy policy. Add terms of service if you sell anything, and a cookie consent banner if you use non-essential cookies where the law requires consent. WordPress creates a draft privacy policy page and offers guidance under Settings > Privacy.

Design and User Experience (Items 9-16)

9. Test on mobile devices. View every key page on a real phone and tablet, not just a desktop browser’s responsive mode. Google indexes the mobile version of your content, so check that text is readable, buttons are easy to tap and nothing requires sideways scrolling.
10. Test across browsers. Check the site in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge, especially if you’ve added custom CSS.
11. Verify navigation. Click every menu item, including dropdowns on desktop and mobile, and make sure navigation is consistent across pages.
12. Check page speed. Run your main pages through Google PageSpeed Insights. Google’s “good” Core Web Vitals thresholds are Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1. See our Core Web Vitals guide.
13. Verify the favicon. The small icon in browser tabs should show your logo or brand mark. A missing favicon makes a site look unfinished.
14. Test forms and interactions. Submit every form. Check that confirmation messages appear, that submissions arrive, and that validation works (for example, rejecting an invalid email address or an empty required field).
15. Check typography. Make sure fonts load correctly, text is readable on small screens, line spacing is comfortable and body text isn’t stretched across very wide lines.
16. Verify visual consistency. Buttons, heading sizes, colors and spacing should match across pages.

SEO (Items 17-22)

17. Write a unique title for every page. Google says a good title is “unique to the page, clear and concise, and accurately describes the contents of the page.” There’s no fixed character limit; Google truncates title links to fit the device width, so put the important words first.
18. Write meta descriptions for key pages. Google recommends descriptions that are “short, unique to one particular page,” and include the page’s most relevant points. Google builds snippets mainly from page content and uses your description when it describes the page better.
19. Set up Google Search Console. Verify your site so you can monitor indexing and errors from day one. After launch, use the URL Inspection tool’s live test to check that your home page and key pages are indexable.
20. Set up analytics. If you want visitor statistics, install your analytics tool before launch so you capture your first visitors, and mention it in your privacy policy.
21. Check your XML sitemap. WordPress SEO plugins such as Rank Math and Yoast SEO generate one. Submitting it in Search Console is optional (Google says it “isn’t required”), but it lets you confirm that Google can read it.
22. Set a clean URL structure. On WordPress, go to Settings > Permalinks and choose “Post name” before you publish. Changing it later changes your URLs. For the wider picture, see our SEO for Beginners Guide.

Security (Items 23-26)

23. Verify HTTPS. Every page should load over https://. Visit the http:// version of your address and confirm it redirects to https://.
24. Set up automated backups. Schedule regular automatic backups before launch, and keep at least one copy off the server. If something breaks on day one, you need a restore point.
25. Update all software. On WordPress, update core, themes and plugins, and delete any you aren’t using. WordPress’s hardening guide stresses keeping plugins updated and removing unused ones.
26. Secure login credentials. Use long, unique passwords for every admin account, turn on two-factor authentication and avoid obvious usernames such as “admin.” Remove accounts for anyone who no longer needs access.

Technical (Items 27-30)

27. Test your email. Check that form notifications, order confirmations and other automated emails are delivered and don’t land in spam. If you send from your own domain, ask your host or email provider to help set up the recommended authentication records.
28. Configure caching. On WordPress, turn on your host’s server caching or a caching plugin, and confirm the site still works afterward. Hosted builders such as Wix and Squarespace manage the hosting setup for you.
29. Test print styles (if relevant). If visitors are likely to print pages such as recipes, checklists or guides, check that printed versions are clean and readable.
30. Remove the “coming soon” page and allow indexing. Turn off any coming-soon or maintenance-mode plugin. On WordPress, also go to Settings > Reading and make sure “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is unchecked; WordPress’s documentation explains that this box asks search engines not to index the site.

Post-Launch Actions (First 48 Hours)

After going live:

Visit the site from a device you didn’t use during development (for example, a phone on mobile data) to see what a first-time visitor sees
Ask a few people to browse the site and report anything confusing or broken
Run Search Console’s URL Inspection live test on your home page and main pages
Check the Page indexing report in Search Console over the following days and weeks
Re-run PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse on your live URLs. Google retired its separate Mobile-Friendly Test in December 2023
Watch your analytics for unexpected patterns, such as a page nobody reaches or broken referral links

For the full process this checklist completes, see How to Build a Website in 2026; for WordPress specifics, see How to Set Up WordPress.

Key Takeaways

Content checks (proofreading, link checking and form testing) catch the most visible launch-day problems
Test on real phones as well as desktops, since Google indexes the mobile version of your content
Write unique titles and descriptions; Google has no fixed character limits, but truncates long ones
Make sure nothing blocks indexing: coming-soon pages, WordPress’s “Discourage search engines” box or a misconfigured robots.txt
Have HTTPS, backups, updated software and strong passwords in place before launch

Sources

Google Search Central — SEO Starter Guide — accessed November 1, 2026
Google Search Central — Influencing your title links — accessed November 1, 2026
Google Search Central — Mobile-first indexing best practices — accessed November 1, 2026
web.dev — Web Vitals — accessed November 1, 2026
Search Console Help — URL Inspection tool — accessed November 1, 2026
Google Search Central Blog — The mobile-friendly testing tool (retired) — accessed November 1, 2026
W3C WAI — Decorative images tutorial — accessed November 1, 2026
WordPress.org Documentation — Settings Reading screen — accessed November 1, 2026
WordPress Developer Resources — Hardening WordPress — accessed November 1, 2026