Pre-Launch · Free Checklist
Website Launch Checklist
Review SEO, redirects, sitemaps, robots.txt, metadata, links, and technical setup before going live. Every item links to a free WTC tool that can check or generate it for you.
How to use this checklist: Work through each section before launch. Green means essential, gold means strongly recommended. Use the tool links to generate or validate each item directly in your browser.
SEO & Metadata
Every page should have complete, accurate metadata before it goes live.
Page Titles & Meta
Each page needs a unique, descriptive title tag and meta description.
- ✓ Title tag present and under 60 characters
- ✓ Meta description unique per page, 120–160 chars
- ✓ No duplicate titles across pages
- → Keywords appear naturally in title
Canonical & OG Tags
Prevent duplicate content issues and control how pages appear when shared.
- ✓ Canonical URL set on every page
- ✓ og:title, og:description, og:image present
- ✓ og:url matches canonical
- → Twitter Card meta included
Structured Data
JSON-LD markup helps search engines understand your content type.
- → WebPage or Article schema on key pages
- → Organization schema on homepage
- → BreadcrumbList on interior pages
- → No schema errors in validator
Technical Files
These files control how crawlers and browsers interact with your site.
robots.txt
Tell search engines what to crawl and what to skip.
- ✓ robots.txt present at domain root
- ✓ Sitemap URL declared inside robots.txt
- ✓ No accidental disallow of key pages
- → Admin and staging paths blocked
XML Sitemap
A clean sitemap helps search engines discover and prioritize your pages.
- ✓ sitemap.xml present and valid
- ✓ Only indexable pages included
- ✓ Submitted to Google Search Console
- → Priority and changefreq set sensibly
Redirects
Set up 301s for any changed or removed URLs before launch.
- ✓ Old URLs 301 redirect to new equivalents
- ✓ No redirect chains (A→B→C)
- ✓ www/non-www consistent and redirected
- ✓ HTTP redirects to HTTPS
Content & Links
Broken links and poor HTML hurt both users and crawlers.
Link Audit
Every broken link is a dead end for users and a crawl waste for search engines.
- ✓ No broken internal links (404s)
- ✓ No broken external links on key pages
- → All anchor text descriptive and relevant
- → Navigation links tested on mobile
HTML Quality
Clean, valid HTML reduces rendering issues and crawl errors.
- ✓ One H1 per page
- ✓ Heading hierarchy logical (H1 → H2 → H3)
- → No unclosed or malformed tags
- → Forms have proper labels
Images
Images need alt text for accessibility and SEO, and should be web-optimized.
- ✓ All images have descriptive alt attributes
- ✓ Images compressed for fast load
- → Width and height attributes set
- → OG image present and correct size
Final Checks
Run these before flipping the switch.
Page Testing
Validate that key pages load and render correctly across devices.
- ✓ All key pages load without errors
- ✓ Mobile layout looks correct
- ✓ No console errors on load
- → Core Web Vitals passing in PageSpeed
Navigation
Every user path should work — menus, breadcrumbs, and footer links.
- ✓ Main navigation correct on all pages
- ✓ Footer links accurate
- → Breadcrumbs match URL structure
- → 404 page exists and is helpful
Analytics & Search Console
Make sure you can measure traffic and catch crawl issues from day one.
- ✓ Google Analytics or equivalent installed
- ✓ Google Search Console verified
- ✓ Sitemap submitted to Search Console
- → Robots indexing confirmed (not noindex)
Legend:
✓ Essential — should be done before every launch.
→ Recommended — do it if you have time; skip at your own risk.