Website launch checklist: 15 SEO checks before you go live

A new website is one of the few moments when you can lose years of search visibility in a single afternoon. Most launch problems are simple, avoidable mistakes. Work through this checklist before, during and after go-live.

Before launch

1. Map every old URL to a new one

List every page on your current site, especially pages that get traffic or have links from other websites, and decide where each one should point on the new site. Anything that changes address needs a permanent (301) redirect to the closest matching page. Sending everything to the homepage throws away the value those pages had built up.

2. Keep the staging site out of Google

Your test site should be password-protected or blocked from indexing so it does not compete with the live site. Make a note of exactly how it is blocked, because that setting must be reversed at launch.

3. Write proper titles and meta descriptions

Every page needs a unique title that says what the page is about, and a description that gives people a reason to click. Check that template defaults such as “Home” or “Page” have not slipped through.

4. Check headings and structure

One main heading (H1) per page, with clear subheadings below it. Headings should describe the content, not just look good.

5. Link your pages together

Each service page should be reachable from your navigation and linked from related pages. Pages with no internal links pointing to them are hard for both visitors and search engines to find.

6. Optimise images

Compress images, use modern formats such as WebP, set width and height so the layout does not jump while loading, and add descriptive alt text to images that carry meaning.

7. Test speed and Core Web Vitals

Google’s Core Web Vitals measure loading (Largest Contentful Paint, good at 2.5 seconds or less), responsiveness (Interaction to Next Paint, good at 200 milliseconds or less) and visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift, good at 0.1 or less). Interaction to Next Paint replaced First Input Delay in 2024, so older speed checklists may be out of date. Test on a mid-range phone, not just your office computer.

8. Test on real phones

Check menus, buttons, forms and tables on small screens. Make sure nothing scrolls sideways and buttons are big enough to tap.

9. Test every form and phone link

Submit every form and confirm the enquiry arrives where it should. Tap every phone number on a mobile. A beautiful site that loses enquiries is worse than the old one.

10. Add structured data

Organisation or LocalBusiness schema, breadcrumbs and, where relevant, product or service markup help search engines understand your content. Validate it before launch.

On launch day

11. Remove the indexing block

This is the most common launch mistake we see. In WordPress, check that “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” under Settings, Reading is unticked, and that no page carries a stray noindex tag. Check your robots.txt file is not blocking the whole site.

12. Switch on the redirects and test them

Test a sample of old URLs, including your most visited pages, and confirm each one reaches the right new page in a single step.

13. Submit your XML sitemap

Submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console and use URL Inspection on your most important pages to ask Google to recrawl them.

14. Confirm analytics is recording

Check Google Analytics is receiving visits and that your enquiry tracking fires when a form is submitted. Missing data from launch week is impossible to recover later.

After launch

15. Watch the first four weeks closely

• Check Search Console for new crawl errors, 404 pages and pages excluded from the index.
• Compare rankings and organic traffic for your key pages against the weeks before launch.
• Look for old URLs still receiving visits that you missed in the redirect map.
• Most importantly, compare enquiries. That is the number that tells you whether the new site is working.

Some movement in rankings straight after a launch is normal. A sharp, sustained drop usually points to redirects, indexing or missing content, and the sooner it is caught the easier it is to fix.

Planning a new website?

Our web design projects build this checklist in from the first wireframe, and our SEO team handles the redirect map and launch checks. If you are about to relaunch, get in touch for a free site audit before you go live.