Checklist for a Successful Website Launch

Launching a website is an exciting milestone, but it’s crucial to ensure everything is in place for a smooth and successful launch. Here’s a comprehensive checklist to help you cover all essential aspects of your website launch.

1. Content Checklist: Content is the backbone of your website. It engages users, conveys your message, and drives conversions. Ensuring content quality and correctness is paramount.
   • Check for Incorrect Punctuation: Pay particular attention to apostrophes, quotation marks, and hyphens/dashes.
   • Remove Test Content: Ensure no placeholder or test content remains on the site.
   • Semantic Markup: Ensure content is marked up correctly (e.g., headings with <h1>, <h2>, etc.).
   • Keyword Usage: Check for appropriate use of target keywords in the content.
2. Technical Checklist: Technical optimization improves your website’s performance, security, and user experience.
   • Remove Unused CSS and JS: Clean up any unnecessary CSS and JavaScript files.
   • External Links: Ensure external links have rel="noopener" <a href="http://example.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Some other site</a>
   • Form Validations: Validate all forms to prevent errors and ensure usability.
   • XML Sitemap and robots.txt: Create and upload an XML sitemap and a robots.txt file.
   • Image Optimization: Use .webp format for all images to improve loading times.
   • 404 Page: Ensure a custom 404 page is set up for incorrect routes.
   • Minify/Compress Files: Minify and compress JavaScript, HTML, and CSS files.
   • Server-Based Logging: Configure server-based logging and measurement tools (e.g., database/web server logging).
   • CSS Optimization: Optimize your CSS by using short image paths and leveraging the cascading nature of CSS.
3. SEO Checklist: Good SEO practices improve your website’s visibility and ranking on search engines, driving more traffic to your site.
   • Meta Tags: Ensure each page (static and dynamic) has a title, description, and meta keywords.
   • Alt Tags: All images should have descriptive "Alt" tags.
   • Indexing: Ensure the website is allowed for indexing by search engines.
   • Social Media Meta Tags: Include meta tags for social media sharing.
   • Favicon: Ensure a favicon is present.
   • PWA Meta Tags: Include meta tags for Progressive Web Apps.
4. Functional Checklist: Ensuring your website functions correctly across various devices and browsers is critical for providing a seamless user experience.
   • UI Components: Check the rendering and state changes of UI components in response to user actions.
   • Browser Compatibility: Test the website on multiple browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari) using BrowserStack.
   • Mobile Compatibility: Test on various mobile devices and screen sizes using BrowserStack’s mobile device emulators and/or your own devices.
   • Performance Testing: Run the website through Google PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse. Address the suggested points and aim for scores above 90.
   • HTTPS / SSL: Ensure HTTPS and SSL are correctly set up.
   • Webmaster Tools: Link Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity to your Webmaster Tools.
   • Links and URLs: Verify internal and external links, check for broken links, and validate URL structures.
   • API Calls: Test functions that make API calls to ensure they handle responses correctly.

Feel free to share any additional tips or points in the comments section.

Best of luck with your next website launch!