Launching
, 3 min read
A website launch checklist for small businesses
Twenty four checks to run before you put a new site live, written so you can hold whoever built it to the same standard we hold ourselves to.
Launch day is the worst possible time to find out that the contact form goes nowhere. Run this list before the site is public, not after. It takes about an hour, and you can do most of it yourself on a phone.
This is the same list we work through on every build, so if you hired someone else you can hand it to them without editing it.
Before anything else: ownership
- The domain is registered in your business name, with your email as the contact.
- You have the login for the domain registrar, and you have used it once.
- You have the login for the hosting, or you know exactly who does.
- You own the Google account the site's analytics and Search Console sit on.
If you can only fix one thing on this page, fix the domain. Everything else can be rebuilt in a week.
Does it work
- Every link in the menu goes where it says, including the logo.
- The contact form sends, and the email arrives in an inbox someone reads.
- You get a reply from the form yourself, so you know what a customer sees.
- The phone number is a tappable link on a phone.
- The WhatsApp button opens a chat with a message already written.
- The address opens the right place in Maps.
Does it look right where people will see it
- Open every page on your own phone, not just on a laptop at a narrow window.
- Nothing overflows sideways, and no text is cut off.
- Buttons are big enough to hit with a thumb.
- Images are the right way up and not stretched.
- It is readable in bright daylight, outdoors, which is where half of it gets read.
Can Google find it
- Every page has its own title and description, not the same one repeated.
- The site is not blocked in robots.txt. This is the single most common launch mistake, because staging sites are blocked on purpose and someone forgets to unblock them.
- A sitemap exists and is submitted in Google Search Console.
- Your Google Business profile points at the new address.
- Every image has alt text that describes it in plain words.
Is it fast enough
- Run PageSpeed Insights on your home page and on one inner page.
- Check the mobile score, not the desktop one.
- No image is larger than it needs to be. A 4 MB photo of your shopfront is the usual culprit.
- The page shows something useful within about two and a half seconds on mobile data.
The details people notice
- Read every page out loud once. Typos hide from your eyes and not from your mouth.
- Prices and opening hours match reality, including the festival closures.
- The year in the footer is this year.
- There is a favicon, so the tab does not show a blank page icon.
- Sharing the link on WhatsApp shows a proper title and image rather than a bare URL.
The week after
Launch is not the end of the checklist. Search Console will tell you within a few days whether your pages were indexed, and it will name any page it could not read. Check it once a week for the first month. If enquiries are not arriving, send yourself a test through the form again before assuming nobody is interested.
Every site we build goes live having passed all of this, and we walk you through the list on a call rather than emailing it and hoping.