Website Launch Checklist: 18 Checks Before the Link

In short: the difference between a normal launch and a painful one is not the budget — it’s a checklist. Half of all “the site launched but something’s broken” stories come from the same 18 forgotten items: a form that sends nowhere, analytics that never got connected, the old placeholder text, a sitemap nobody submitted. This is the list we run before every project handover. Print it, tick it, launch calmly.

Block 1. Technical base (an hour)

Block 2. Conversion elements — the most lost block

Block 3. Content and trust (one attentive hour)

Block 4. Mobile and speed (30 minutes)

What to do right after launch (don’t stop at the list)

• Days 1–3: watch Search Console — how the crawl goes, are there errors; submit key pages manually for indexing.
• Week 1: run your own enquiry, call your own number, look at the site through a client’s eyes. Small fixes are cheapest exactly now.
• Days 14–90: the post-launch plan — 90 days from launch to first leads. The launch isn’t the finish line; it’s the start of measuring.

What DEXA does at handover

Every project ships with exactly this process: forms with double-verified delivery (email + CRM + manager’s phone), redirect map for all URL variants, a mobile pass on a real device, PageSpeed report, and a 2-week post-launch monitoring window included. The client gets not just a link, but a working mechanism — web development.

Bottom line

Launch bugs are cheap to prevent and expensive to live with. 2-3 hours with this list, a real phone, a test enquiry from every form — and the first impression your site makes is calm and professional, not “call again, we didn’t get your message”. That’s the whole secret to a boring launch day. Boring is the success story.

Launch a site with a checked handover process → — we run this checklist for every project and monitor the first weeks. Read next: a 90-day post-launch plan and how to write a brief that saves money.