Contents:
- How to Test Your Website Before Going Live
- Website Launch Checklist
– Can people actually contact you?
– Test every important page
– Check your website on mobile
– Check page speed
– Make sure Google can find your website
– Check your page titles and meta descriptions
– Test your redirects
– Check your analytics
– Check your images
– Review accessibility
– Check your SEO hasn’t disappeared
– Ask someone who hasn’t seen the website before - Launch Day Checklist
- Don’t Let Launch Day Undo Months of Work
How to Test Your Website Before Going Live
Launching a new website is exciting. It’s also one of the easiest times to accidentally lose search rankings, enquiries and sales.
After months of design, development and revisions, it’s tempting to finally hit that “Publish” button and move on. But many businesses discover too late that their shiny new website has broken forms, missing redirects, poor mobile usability or has even blocked search engines from indexing it.
The good news? Most launch issues are completely preventable.
Use this simple pre-launch checklist to make sure your website is ready before it goes live. Don’t think of this as a technical exercise. Think of it as checking that your new shop has working doors, working lights and a till that actually accepts payments before opening to customers.
Website Launch Checklist
Can people actually contact you?
This sounds obvious, but it is one of the most common launch issues.
Check every:
- Contact form
- Quote request form
- Newsletter signup
- Live chat
- Booking form
- Telephone link
- Email link
Submit a real enquiry and confirm it arrives in the correct inbox.
Don’t assume it works because it looks right.
Test every important page
Click through your website exactly as a customer would.
Check:
- Home
- About
- Services
- Products
- Pricing
- FAQs
- Contact
- Blog articles
Look for:
- Broken links
- Missing images
- Formatting issues
- Spelling mistakes
- Empty pages
If something feels unfinished, your visitors will notice too.
Check your website on mobile
Over 50% of UK website visitors are most likely to browse on mobile devices.
Ask yourself:
- Is the website responsive, does it auto adapt?
- Is everything readable on smaller screens?
- Are the buttons large enough?
- Does the navigation work?
- Can each form be completed easily?
- Does anything overlap or disappear?
Also test on tablets if they’re important to your audience.
Check page speed
A beautiful website is great but isn’t much use if it takes several seconds to load as this can put people off.
Slow websites can reduce:
- Conversions
- User satisfaction
- Search visibility
Test key pages using:
- Google PageSpeed Insights – https://pagespeed.web.dev/
- Lighthouse – https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/overview/
Focus on fixing the biggest issues before launch rather than chasing a perfect score.
Make sure Google can find your website
This is surprisingly common as development websites are often hidden from search engines while they’re being built and it’s so easy to forget to remove this restriction.
Before launch, check that:
- Robots.txt isn’t blocking the site
- Important pages aren’t marked “noindex”
- The XML sitemap exists
- The sitemap is submitted to Google Search Console
Otherwise your new website could launch without appearing in Google at all.
Check your page titles and meta descriptions
During a redesign, these often get forgotten. Every important page should have:
- A unique page title up to 70 characters (inc spaces)
- A unique meta description up to 150 characters (inc spaces)
- Clear and relevant page heading (H1)
Avoid dozens of pages all called “Home” or “Untitled Page.”
Test your redirects
If you’ve changed page URLs, then the old links need handling. You may choose to 404 these if there will never be a need for the page again, but if the page has simply had a new name and URL, the old one will need redirecting.
Without redirects you’ll create:
- 404 errors that should not exist.
- This can result in lost rankings
- Poor user experience
- Broken backlinks
Pay particular attention to your highest-performing pages.
Check your analytics
You can’t improve what you can’t measure.
Before launch confirm:
- Google Analytics 4 is installed
- Google Search Console is set up and connected
- Google Business is set up
- Conversion tracking works
- Cookie banner functions correctly
- Tag Manager (if used) is firing correctly
- Affiliate links have been updated.
Many businesses only realise tracking is broken weeks later.
Check your images
Large image files can slow down an otherwise fast website, and may also not load correctly.
Make sure images are:
- Compressed
- Correctly sized
- High quality
- Using descriptive filenames
- Given useful alt text
Alt text also improves accessibility and helps search engines understand your content.
Review accessibility
Accessibility isn’t just a compliance exercise, especially with modern WCAG 2.2 guidelines. It helps every visitor use your website more easily.
Check things like:
- Colour contrast
- Keyboard navigation
- Form labels
- Heading structure
- Link descriptions
- Image alt text
Making accessibility part of your launch is far easier than trying to retrofit it later.
Check your SEO hasn't disappeared
Website redesigns often remove valuable optimisation without anyone noticing.
Review:
- Meta content
- Onpage copy
- Page headings
- Internal links
- Structured data
- Canonical tags
- Image optimisation
A fresh design shouldn’t mean starting your SEO from scratch.
Ask someone who hasn't seen the website before
Your team knows where everything is; your customers don’t. Ask somebody unfamiliar with the site to:
- Find a service
- Complete a form
- Request a quote
- Find your contact details
You’ll often uncover issues your project team has become blind to.
Launch Day Checklist
Before making the website live, make one final pass:
- Contact forms working
- Analytics installed
- Google Search Console connected
- Robots.txt correct
- No “noindex” tags
- Redirects tested
- Mobile checked
- Images optimised
- Meta titles added
- Sitemap generated
- Broken links fixed
- Accessibility reviewed
- Cookie banner working
- SSL certificate active (HTTPS)
- Website backed up
Don't Let Launch Day Undo Months of Work
A new website should be an opportunity to improve performance, not reset it. The most successful launches aren’t necessarily the most visually impressive; they’re the ones that work flawlessly from day one.
Spending an extra hour working through this checklist can save weeks of fixing problems after launch, protect your existing search visibility and ensure visitors have a smooth experience from their very first click.
If SEO only entered the conversation towards the end of your website project, don’t panic. Many businesses find themselves in exactly the same position. A structured pre-launch review can identify the most common issues before they affect rankings, enquiries and customer confidence.
Need a Second Pair of Eyes?
Launching a website under pressure is stressful, especially when multiple people have been involved in the build.
At Page1st, we regularly carry out independent pre-launch SEO and quality assurance audits, checking everything from technical SEO and redirects to accessibility, analytics, performance and user experience. A final expert review before launch can help you go live with confidence—and avoid discovering costly problems after your customers do.
Contact & Onwards
Worried your content might not be ticking all the right boxes?
Or just interested in learning more? Our highly skilled SEO team can help.
