Websites and launch
Website launch checklist for a business
A polished home page does not tell you whether a website is ready to receive customers. Use this checklist before launch and when accepting a developer’s work.
Start with one visitor task
Write down who will visit and what they should accomplish: send an enquiry, book a slot or find a specific service. A repair customer needs to understand the problem you solve, your service area and how to describe their issue. Give every important page a clear next step. Prepare a page inventory, genuine contact details, project examples and service descriptions before choosing the design.
Review content and navigation on a phone
Open the menu, read headings and test phone and email links. Check a narrow mobile screen and a desktop. Fixed navigation must not obscure content; tables must not push the whole page sideways. Controls should work with a keyboard too. Give informative images meaningful alternative text and leave decorative images with empty alt text. Resizing a browser is useful, but also check an actual phone.
Test the complete enquiry journey
Send a clearly labelled test enquiry with the recipient’s agreement. Check delivery, reply address, selected options and confirmation. Missing required fields and invalid email addresses should produce clear feedback. A mail server failure must not produce a false success message. Provide an alternative contact method. Agree who responds to real enquiries and how quickly.
Check URLs and SEO foundations
Give each service page a specific title, description and main heading. Check HTTPS, canonical URLs, sitemap and accidental noindex settings left over from staging. Map important old URLs to their matching replacements using permanent redirects. Content pages need ordinary internal links. Review each language independently, including contact details and language switching.
Check performance and ongoing maintenance
An HTML audit helps identify technical omissions; PageSpeed Insights provides a separate view of loading performance under lab conditions. Test the home page and a service page. Resize oversized images and question unnecessary plugins. Enable backups and test a restoration in staging. A message saying backups are running does not demonstrate that recovery works.
Accept work through verifiable scenarios
Handover should cover domain and hosting control, administrator access, licence ownership, updates and a short editing guide. One acceptance scenario: a mobile visitor opens a service, submits the form and receives confirmation while the responsible person receives every field. Report defects with the URL and reproduction steps. After launch, review enquiries and broken links as well as visitor counts.
Quick checklist
- Content and contact details reviewed
- Mobile navigation and enquiry journey tested
- Indexing settings and old URLs checked
- Backups, access and responsibilities agreed
Apply this to your needs
Apply this to your project.
Send your website URL or describe your needs. We can establish the problem and an appropriate scope first.