SEO Launch Checklist: What to Check Before Your Website Goes Live
Many websites lose months of search traffic because of small technical mistakes at launch. A practical SEO checklist covering indexing, structure, speed, languages and redirects.
Search engines judge a website from the first day it is live. A blocked page, a missing redirect or a slow template can hold back rankings for months. The good news: most launch problems are easy to prevent with a simple checklist.
01Indexing and crawling
- robots.txt does not block important pages (remove any staging "Disallow: /")
- No leftover noindex tags from the development version
- An XML sitemap lists all important pages and is submitted to Google Search Console and Bing
- Every page returns the correct status code: 200 for live pages, 404 for missing ones
- Both the www and non-www versions, and http, redirect to one main https address
02Structure and content
- Every page has a unique title and meta description
- One clear H1 per page, followed by logical H2 and H3 headings
- Meaningful images have descriptive alt text
- Internal links connect related pages, for example from articles to services
- No placeholder or test content is published
Good structure starts long before launch, in the information architecture and design. That is why technical SEO is built into every website we develop rather than added later.
03Speed and Core Web Vitals
- Largest Contentful Paint. The main content should appear quickly, especially on mobile.
- Interaction to Next Paint. The page should respond fast to taps and clicks.
- Cumulative Layout Shift. Elements should not jump around while loading.
Typical quick wins are properly sized images in modern formats, fewer heavy scripts and animations that pause when they are off-screen. Test with PageSpeed Insights on mobile, not only on desktop.
04Multilingual websites
Language settings to check
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| hreflang tags | Tell search engines which page is for which language or region |
| x-default | Defines the fallback page for other languages |
| Localised titles and descriptions | Each language version has its own metadata |
| Language-specific URLs | Clear paths such as /ru/ or /lv/ for each version |
| Translated content | No untranslated sections on localised pages |
05Moving from an old website
- Make a list of all old URLs that receive traffic or links
- Set up 301 redirects from every old URL to the closest new page
- Keep important content and keywords that already rank
- Update links in Google Business Profile, social media and directories
- Watch Search Console for errors in the first weeks after launch
06After launch
SEO doesn't end on launch day. Regular content, internal links and fixes based on Search Console data keep a website growing. Online stores need extra care for product pages and filters — something we plan in every online store project. If you want a professional review, see our technical SEO service.
Launch day is not the finish line for SEO. It's the starting line.
Launching or relaunching a website? Ask us for a pre-launch SEO check and we'll make sure nothing holds your rankings back.
