How we use checklists and QA to launch websites without surprises

Hook

Launching a website should be a moment of relief — not a firefight. The difference between a smooth go-live and a crisis is rarely luck; it’s a checklist and a repeatable QA process that catches problems before customers do.

Why checklists and QA matter

A modern website is dozens of moving parts: content, assets, integrations, SEO, security, and performance. Miss one step and you risk broken pages, lost conversions, or worse — downtime. Checklists reduce cognitive load and provide a single source of truth for everyone involved: developers, designers, and stakeholders.

Quality assurance (QA) is the act of validating that the checklist items actually work under real conditions. Combine both and you convert guesswork into predictable launches.

Common launch failures (what we’ve seen)

Even experienced teams trip up on a handful of recurring issues. Watch for these:

• Missing SSL or misconfigured DNS that causes browsers to block the site.
• Forms or payments that work in Chrome but fail in Safari.
• “noindex” left in place, making the new site invisible to search engines.
• Broken image URLs or missing alt text that hurt accessibility and SEO.
• Analytics or conversion tracking not firing, so you lose early launch data.

Catching these before go-live saves time and reputational cost.

What a practical pre-launch checklist should cover

Break your checklist into buckets so nothing is overlooked. At minimum include:

Content & design

• Proofread copy, check headings and microcopy.
• Verify images, sizes, srcset, and alt attributes.
• Test embedded media (video, iframes).

Functional testing

• Validate internal and external links.
• Exercise every form and notification flow.
• Confirm navigation and CTAs behave as expected.

Technical & deployment

• Confirm domain, DNS, and SSL/HTTPS.
• Implement 301 redirects for legacy URLs.
• Ensure backups and a rollback plan exist.

Performance & SEO

• Run Lighthouse and optimize Core Web Vitals.
• Verify mobile responsiveness across breakpoints.
• Add meta titles, descriptions, social tags; submit sitemap.xml.

Analytics & integrations

• Install Google Analytics and Tag Manager; verify events.
• Test payment gateways, CRMs, and email flows.

Security & accessibility

• Run basic security scans and enable a web application firewall.
• Check keyboard navigation and run an automated WCAG audit.

If you want a ready checklist to adapt, see our full version at https://prateeksha.com/blog/checklists-qa-website-launch-checklist or explore more resources at https://prateeksha.com/blog.

Our QA workflow (repeatable and simple)

We use a four-step QA loop that fits most teams:

1. Internal QA: Team reviews staging against the checklist, logs issues in Jira/Trello, and assigns owners.
2. Cross-browser/device testing: Use real devices or BrowserStack to validate Safari, Firefox, Edge, and mobile behaviors.
3. User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Stakeholders or beta users test critical flows and provide feedback.
4. Final pre-launch pass: Verify fixes, re-test critical paths, and sign off for deployment.

This loop means issues are found early and fixes are validated before they touch production.

Implementation tips for developers

• Automate what you can: add unit and integration tests for critical logic, and use Playwright or Cypress for end-to-end smoke tests.
• Integrate Lighthouse CI into your CI pipeline to fail builds on performance regressions.
• Use Sentry or a similar error tracker in staging and production to catch runtime exceptions early.
• Automate link checks and sitemap validation as part of your build.
• Maintain a deployable rollback (DB snapshot + previous build) and a short runbook for common recovery tasks.

Launch day and the first 48 hours

Monitor, monitor, monitor. Watch analytics, error tracking, server logs, and uptime alerts closely. Set up a dedicated Slack channel for the launch so fixes and decisions flow fast. If you see critical failures, trigger the rollback plan quickly — the goal is to minimize user impact, not to heroically patch in production while customers are converting.

Conclusion

A checklist without QA is a checklist. QA without structure is chaotic. Combine a clear, repeatable checklist with an iterative QA loop and your launches will be predictable, fast, and low-risk. For templates, examples, and a full checklist you can adapt, visit https://prateeksha.com and our blog at https://prateeksha.com/blog. If you want hands-on help, read our detailed checklist at https://prateeksha.com/blog/checklists-qa-website-launch-checklist or reach out to discuss your next launch.