# Website Launch Checklist: What to Check Before Going Live Source: https://dijitulwebdesign.co.uk/guides/website-checklist-before-launch/ Updated: 2026-10-18 > Before a website goes live, test every form and phone link, check it on real phones, confirm page titles and redirects from old URLs, remove any noindex tag, and add the legal pages and tracking. dijitul runs these launch checks on every website we build, from £250 + VAT, so nothing is missed on go-live day. ## Key facts - Send a test enquiry through every form and confirm it arrives - Remove staging noindex tags and check robots.txt is not blocking Google - Set 301 redirects from every old URL that had traffic or links - Test on real phones, not just a resized desktop browser - Aim for Core Web Vitals in the good range: LCP 2.5s, INP 200ms, CLS 0.1 (web.dev) - Show business name, address, email and VAT number as UK law requires ## Forms, phone numbers and calls to action - Submit every form with real test data and check the email arrives, goes to the right inbox and is not in spam. - Check the auto-reply, if there is one, reads well and has the right contact details. - Tap every phone number on a phone. It should open the dialler using a tel: link. - Check email links, booking buttons and payment buttons go where they should. - If you sell online, place a real order and refund it. Then check where enquiries go once they arrive. If the form copies into a CRM or a booking system, confirm the record appears there with the right fields. Make sure someone owns the inbox and knows to reply quickly, because the first week after launch is when broken routing is most costly. ## Mobile, browsers and accessibility - Test on at least one iPhone and one Android phone, in portrait and landscape. - Text should be readable without zooming and buttons easy to tap. WCAG 2.2 sets a minimum target size of 24 by 24 CSS pixels (W3C, success criterion 2.5.8). - Open the menu, every accordion and every pop-up on a phone. - Check the latest Chrome, Safari, Edge and Firefox. - Tab through the page with a keyboard: you should always see where focus is. - Every meaningful image needs alt text, and every form field a visible label. More in website accessibility and WCAG explained. ## Speed Run key pages through Google's PageSpeed Insights. Google's web.dev guidance sets good Core Web Vitals as Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint within 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of visits. Before launch, check images are compressed and served in modern formats such as WebP or AVIF, have width and height set, and that below-the-fold images lazy-load. See Core Web Vitals explained. Test speed on a mobile connection as well as office broadband, because that is how most local customers will first see the site. ## SEO and Google - **Remove noindex.** Staging sites are usually set to noindex. Forgetting to remove it is one of the most common reasons a new site never appears on Google. - Check robots.txt does not contain *Disallow: /*. - Every page has a unique title and meta description, and one H1. - Set 301 redirects from old URLs to their new equivalents. List old URLs from Search Console or a crawl before you switch. - Submit an XML sitemap in Google Search Console and inspect the home page. - Add schema markup such as LocalBusiness or Organization, and test it with Google's Rich Results Test. - Update the website link on your Google Business Profile. If your site still does not show up, read why is my website not on Google? Finally, check every page's content one last time: placeholder text, test products, dummy prices and "lorem ipsum" have a habit of surviving until launch. Search the site for words like test, sample and lorem before you switch the domain over. ## Legal, security and tracking - Business name, geographic address, email and VAT number are easy to find (E-Commerce Regulations 2002). Limited companies add registered number, registered office and place of registration. - Privacy notice linked from the footer and forms. - Cookie banner works: non-essential cookies must not be set before consent, and refusing must be as easy as accepting (ICO guidance on storage and access technologies). - HTTPS works on every page, and http and www versions redirect to one address. - Analytics and conversion tracking record a test enquiry. - Backups are running and you have logins for the domain, hosting and site. See cookie banner rules and what a website must show by law. ## When to call us Every website we build goes through these checks before launch, and we handle the DNS switch and redirects. If you are launching a site someone else built and want a second pair of eyes, we can check it at £45 an hour + VAT. Get in touch or call 01623 650333. ## FAQs ### What is the most common mistake when launching a website? Leaving the staging noindex setting switched on, which tells Google not to index the site. Close behind are missing redirects from old page addresses, which lose rankings, and contact forms that send to an inbox nobody checks. ### Do I need 301 redirects for a new website? If you are replacing an existing site, yes. Any old URL that had visits, rankings or links should permanently redirect to its closest new page. Without redirects, visitors and Google hit error pages and the old page's ranking value is lost. ### How do I test my website on mobile? Use real phones, ideally one iPhone and one Android. Check text size, menus, forms, tap targets and phone links. Browser developer tools that resize the window are useful during the build but do not catch every touch and Safari quirk. ### Should I launch on a Friday? Best avoided. If something goes wrong, you want people available to fix it. Launching early in the week gives time to watch forms, tracking and Search Console and to fix anything quickly. ### Can you check a website someone else built? Yes. We can run through these launch checks on any website and give you a written list of fixes. Checks and small fixes are charged at £45 an hour + VAT, and we agree an estimate of hours first. ## Prices and contact Prices (from, + VAT): Starter £250 (Up to 5 pages, Custom design, not a template, Mobile-first build, Contact form and click-to-call, Google Business Profile set up, Basic SEO foundations, Analytics and Search Console); Business £500 (Up to 15 pages, A page per service, written to rank, Copywriting included, Full schema markup, Local SEO groundwork, Speed optimised to pass Core Web Vitals, Conversion tracking configured, Training session and recorded walkthrough); Ecommerce £750 (Shopify or WooCommerce, Product and category structure built to rank, Payments and delivery rules configured, Click-and-collect and local delivery, Accounts or EPOS integration, Google Merchant Centre feed, Abandoned cart recovery, Staff training on order management); changes £45 an hour. All prices are "from" and exclude VAT. Every project gets a fixed quote before work starts. Domain registration, stock photography, premium plugins or apps and hosting are listed in the quote, never added later. You own the website and the domain. Aftercare: Hosting from £1 a day + VAT (https://dijihost.co.uk/); Website care plans from £25 a month + VAT (https://dijitulsupport.co.uk/). Contact: https://dijitulwebdesign.co.uk/contact/ · 01623 650333 · info@dijitul.uk