Website Launch Checklist: 25 Checks Before Your New Site Goes Live

By the Oski Marketing team · Updated 5 October 2026 · 6 min read

Before a new website goes live, test every form and phone link on a real phone, set up redirects from old page addresses, remove anything that blocks Google, connect Search Console and submit a sitemap, check cookies and the privacy notice, show your company details, and run a speed test. The 25 checks below take about half a day.

Why does a launch checklist matter?

Most of the damage from a website launch comes from small, invisible mistakes, not the design. A contact form that emails a developer's test inbox, a forgotten "hide from search engines" setting, or old pages that now show "page not found" can quietly cost enquiries for weeks before anyone notices. Run these checks before launch, then again a week after.

Print this list, or copy it into a spreadsheet with a column for "checked by" and "date". This is a general guide, not legal advice.

Enquiries and contact (checks 1 to 6)

These come first because they are where the money is.

1. Every contact form submitted from a phone and a computer, and the emails arrive in the right inbox, not spam.
2. The customer gets a confirmation message on screen, and ideally by email, saying what happens next.
3. Every phone number is a tap-to-call link and dials the right number.
4. WhatsApp, email and booking links open the right app and the right account.
5. Form entries are stored somewhere safe as a backup, in case an email goes astray.
6. Spam protection works without blocking real people. Submit the form with a normal name and message to check.

Search engines and redirects (checks 7 to 13)

These protect the search traffic your old site earned.

7. The "discourage search engines" or noindex setting is off. Google's site move guide specifically warns about leftover noindex tags and robots.txt blocks from development.
8. robots.txt doesn't block the whole site. Open yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt and check it doesn't say Disallow: / for all crawlers.
9. Every old page address redirects to its new equivalent with a permanent (301 or 308) server-side redirect. Google says to keep redirects "for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year".
10. Redirects point to real pages, not to the homepage for everything and not to pages that don't exist.
11. Google Search Console is set up for the new site, and the account is in your business's name.
12. A sitemap is submitted in Search Console's Sitemaps report. Google's sitemap guide says this lets you see when Google read it and any errors. You can also list it in robots.txt.
13. Each page has its own title and description, written for people: service, place, and a reason to click.

Here is how check 9 looks in practice. A plumber in Harrow moves from an old site where boiler repair lived at /services.php?id=4 to a new site with /boiler-repair-harrow/. Without a redirect, everyone who bookmarked the old page, and every link from a supplier or directory, hits a dead end. With a list mapping each old address to its new one, nothing is lost.

Mobile and speed (checks 14 to 17)

Many local customers will first see your site on a phone, and Google indexes the phone version.

14. Every page checked on a real phone, not only a resized browser window. Google's mobile-first indexing page says the mobile site should contain the same content as the desktop one.
15. Nothing overlaps or runs off the screen, and buttons are easy to tap with a thumb.
16. Speed tested with PageSpeed Insights on mobile. Google's Core Web Vitals page sets the "good" targets: Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1.
17. Images are compressed and sized for the web, not uploaded straight from a phone camera.

Legal, privacy and cookies (checks 18 to 21)

These are the checks most often skipped on small sites.

18. Company details are shown. GOV.UK says a limited company's website must show its registered number, registered office address, where it is registered, and that it is a limited company.
19. A privacy notice is linked from the footer and from every form. The ICO's small business guide covers what it needs: your contact details, the data you collect, why, people's rights and how to complain.
20. Cookies and tracking match the rules. List what the site actually loads. The ICO's guidance on exceptions allows some analytics for statistical purposes without consent if you explain it clearly and offer an easy way to object, but anything for online advertising, such as ad pixels, needs consent first.
21. Claims on the site are true. Accreditations, years trading and reviews should all be current and checkable.

Ownership and tracking (checks 22 to 25)

The last checks make sure you control what you've paid for and can see what it does.

22. The domain is registered to your business, with your email as the contact and auto-renew on.
23. You have your own admin logins to the website, hosting, Search Console and analytics, not just your developer.
24. Analytics records enquiries, such as form submissions and phone link taps, not only page views.
25. Structured data tested with Google's Rich Results Test, and your business name, phone and hours match your Google Business Profile exactly.

What to check in the first week after launch?

Launch day is not the finish line. In the first week:

For what should be on the site in the first place, see what a small business website needs. Our guides to schema markup and the Google Business Profile checklist cover the next steps after launch.

What to do this week

1. If a new site is on the way, ask your developer for a list of every old page address and where it will redirect.
2. Check whether you have your own logins to the domain, hosting and Search Console.
3. Submit the contact form on your current site from your phone and see what arrives.
4. Open your robots.txt file and check it isn't blocking everything.
5. Make a list of every tracking tool on the site, so you know which ones need consent.

Oski Marketing's website builds include analytics, contact form and hosting set-up, and the site, domain and logins stay in the client's name.