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Smart Web Crafting
Process · 5 August 2026 · 6 min read

The checklist we run before
any website goes live

After 90+ launches, we've learned that launch day problems are almost always checkable problems. This is the actual list we run through before a client's site goes live — steal it.

By the Smart Web Crafting studio 6 min read
The Pre-Launch Checklist We Run on Every Website — article cover

The boring stuff that breaks launches

DNS and SSL first — is the domain pointed, is the certificate valid, does the www version redirect properly? Then the invisible killers: test every form end to end (a contact form that silently fails is worse than no form), click every phone number and email on a real phone, check the favicon and the page titles that show in Google results.

Content checks

Read every page once on a phone. Lorem ipsum left in a footer column happens more often than anyone admits — we've caught it on our own staging sites. Check the hours, the address, the prices. Check that placeholder photos got replaced. Have someone outside the project click through once; they find things you stopped seeing weeks ago.

A launch checklist isn't paranoia — it's the difference between going live and going live twice.

SEO essentials

Every page needs a title and meta description that a human would click. Redirects from the old site loaded and tested — this is where redesigns live or die. Analytics installed and firing. Submit the sitemap to Search Console on day one, not month three.

The legal bits

Privacy policy, terms, cookie notice if needed. Not glamorous, but for Australian businesses collecting any personal data — including a humble contact form — a privacy policy isn't optional.

After you flip the switch

Launch isn't the finish — it's the start of watching. We monitor new sites closely for the first week: forms, errors, real user behaviour. Whatever your launch day looks like, plan to be around for it. And keep the receipts: logins, backups, DNS access, all in one place you'll still find in two years.

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Want us to handle the checklist?

Every site we ship goes through this list — that's part of what a studio build buys you.

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