Website Post Launch Checklist

First, the technical stuff…

Domain Emails

As soon as your website launches contact your email/domain registrar to ensure that all of your emails are set up correctly, if you are using an email client you should be able to import your emails now depending on your registrar’s go ahead. They should also have tools available to make sure your emails can be set up on your phone or tablet. Be aware with website launches that propagation can take between 24-48 hours (4 – 6 hours is the usual but may vary depending on your registrar, hosting provider, CMS, etc.) during which your email may be down.

Hosting and website backups

Make sure to have your hosting provider give you the IP address your website is hosted on, alternatively you can use a lookup service to secure this information, store it with your login information in case questions arise in the future. Also, ask them if they can send you a copy of of your site once it is propagated on their servers in case you experience a data breach or loss. Lastly, double check with them that their backups are running properly and securely and have them state to you explicitly that there is a plan in place for database updates down the road that nothing will affect your theme or design. If something happens during an update make sure there is a contingency plan in place for any issues to be fixed ASAP. This may cost you more up front but the long term money you can save will be worth it. Having a good hosting plan is like insurance for your website in the event of an unforeseen hack or design misstep as a backup can be restored almost instantaneously.

Second, the aesthetics and mechanics

• Double check the source code of your website to make sure that all URL’s are pointing to the correct canonical & that the SSL is rendering without error. Either your hosting provider or web developer (whomever has access to your site files) can run a find and replace to replace any dev server URL’s and/or force the correct canonical and SSL.

• Make sure any plugins you are running for security are in place and that a plan is in place to monitor those, and make sure you make a plan for updating plugins. If you are using a CMS and have full administrative access you can update those plugins yourself. If you have limited access to your website then ensure whomever is admin takes care to make the appropriate updates so your website is not vulnerable to any attacks.

User Experience

• Make sure that the website renders correctly on all browsers and devices, ensure that all content and images are aligned correctly, and if you are using AMP pages that they are all showing the appropriate content designated.

• Ensure that all of your code is validated correctly and that you aren’t receiving any javascript errors.

• Check that your favicon is in place.

• If you have any plugins set up to cache your website, now is the time to active those and double check your site load time. I recommend gtmatrix.com for this.

• Fill out/test every form on the website to make sure that contact requests are making it to the correct email inbox.

• Make sure appropriate thank you message or page displays after message is submitted. If you have conversion tracking set up for your thank you page, double check that information is being populated within Google Analytics.

• If applicable, check that all integrations that you may have set up with any third party payment processing tools, such as PayPal or Square, are working correctly.

SEO

• Double check that the meta tag “no index, no follow” has been removed from your website. If you are using a CMS such as WordPress double check that all backend settings that prevent your website from being checked are turned off.

• Test your robots.txt file to ensure that it is rendering correctly. If there is anything eluding to “disavow: /” then alert your hosting company to have that removed ASAP.

• Make sure that all external tracking scripts are running without error and collecting data, and test your schema markup to ensure that it does not have any errors.

• Look through your HTML and XML sitemaps. Your HTML sitemap should include all pages unless those pages are private and require a password, are specifically marked “no index” such as a thank you page, or are saved as a draft. Your XML sitemap should be dynamic and update automatically as you add or remove website pages and should have no empty folders.

• I recommend scanning your website for any broken links, and click on every external link to make sure that they open in a new tab. Additionally, all social media buttons should be linked to the correct account.

• Double check that all of the 301 redirects you so diligently set up before launch are working by doing a site index (open google and type “site:yourwebsiteurl.com”) and clicking through every link. Note: command + left click will open all URL pages in a new tab which will make this process much quicker.

• Make sure all optimization, meta tags, h1s have been brought over.

• In Google Analytics you’ll want to check in the admin section that your URL has the correct canonical variation & they URL has been updated to include the SSL. While you are there take a gander at the live view section to make sure that you are receiving traffic.

• Now that your site is live you can resubmit your sitemap to google via Google Search Console and submit a reindexing request.

• Double check Google Tag Manager for any unpublished changes you may have made prior to launch.

• If you are running Google Ads make sure that the URLs have been updated to reflect the correct canonical/SSL. Double check all Social Media pages for this as well.

• Check on any social media or rss feeds built into your website to make sure those are rendering correctly,

• All of your 404 redirect pages should be in place.

• Your company/personal logo should be linked to your website homepage.

• Run your site through screaming frog or another crawl once more to locate any possible inconsistencies that you may have missed from the previous crawl ran prior to launch. Small things like image alts are easy to overlook during the pre-live checklist.

Important law stuff

This post is not considered legal guidance in any way please speak to your legal counsel for further information as each business, industry, country and state has different operating laws on this matter.

• Ensure that everything on your terms/ privacy policy page is correct and that your cookie consent pop up is rendering correctly and easy for the client to agree to.

• Double check that your pages are ADA (WAI-ARIA) compliant.

• Make sure that your website is compliant with usage rights for purchased/borrowed code, images, fonts, and any additional content that you do not own.

• If you accept credit cards ensure that your website is PCI compliant.

Finally,

Set those fireworks off and promote promote promote!