The website launch checklist: 50 things to check before you go live

Launch day should feel like flipping a switch, not defusing a bomb. Yet we often get calls a week after a new site went live: the contact form was emailing an old address, Google could not index the site, or the booking button did nothing on iPhones. Every one of those problems would have been caught by a proper website launch checklist.

This is the one we use. It covers 50 checks in eight groups: content, functionality, SEO, performance, tracking, legal and privacy (including Canadian rules like PIPA, PIPEDA and CASL), accessibility, and security and backups. After the tables, we lay out an hour-by-hour launch-day plan and what to watch in the first week. Print it, share it with your developer, and tick it off.

How to use this website launch checklist

Each table has a priority column. Must items can cost you leads, rankings or legal trouble if missed. Should items are best practice and worth doing before launch if time allows. Most items take minutes. A few, like writing a privacy policy, take longer and should be started weeks ahead.

Work through the list on the staging site first, then repeat the starred launch-day items on the live site. Things that worked on staging can break when the domain changes, which is exactly why launch day needs its own pass.

Content and functionality checks (1 to 15)

Content is where customers judge you, and functionality is where they act. Typos make a business look careless. A broken form makes it look closed.

Read every page on a phone, not just a laptop. Most of your visitors will see the mobile version first, and layouts that look fine on a 27-inch monitor can break on a small screen. Click every button. Fill in every form with real-looking details and confirm the email arrives where it should, with the right reply-to address.

A practical tip: send a test form submission from a phone on mobile data, not your office Wi-Fi. A roofer in Okotoks does not fill in your form on fibre internet. They do it from a driveway.

SEO checks (16 to 23)

A new site with great content can still be invisible if a few technical details are missed. These checks make sure Google can find, crawl and understand the site from day one. If you are replacing an existing site, the redirect step is critical; our guide on redesigning without losing SEO covers it in depth.

Your XML sitemap should list every page you want indexed. Google notes that a single sitemap is limited to 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed, which no small business site will hit, and that submitting one is a hint rather than a guarantee. Submit it anyway, through Search Console, so you can monitor errors.

Performance checks (24 to 29)

Speed is part of the first impression. Test key pages with PageSpeed Insights on mobile, not just desktop, and look at Core Web Vitals. If the terms are new to you, our post on Core Web Vitals for business owners explains them in plain language.

The biggest wins are almost always images and third-party scripts. A homepage hero photo straight off a camera can weigh more than the rest of the page combined. Chat widgets, review carousels and tracking pixels each add weight, so only keep the ones you actually use.

Good hosting makes the rest of this list easier. If you are not sure what you are on, our hosting service page explains what we recommend for small business sites.

Tracking checks (30 to 34)

You cannot improve what you do not measure. Set up tracking before launch so the first day of data is clean.

Make sure you are on Google Analytics 4. Google's own help centre confirms that standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing data on July 1, 2023, so any older tracking code from a previous site is collecting nothing. Set up key events (GA4's name for conversions) for the actions that matter: form submissions, phone link clicks, booking completions.

Legal and privacy checks (35 to 40)

This is the section most launch checklists skip, and the one that can cost the most. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice, but here is what every Calgary business owner should know.

Privacy: PIPA and PIPEDA

Alberta has its own private-sector privacy law, the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada notes that Alberta's law has been deemed substantially similar to PIPEDA, so organizations covered by it are generally exempt from PIPEDA for activity within Alberta. But PIPEDA still applies when personal information crosses provincial or national borders in commercial activity, which is common when your form tool or email platform stores data outside Alberta.

The Government of Alberta says organizations must develop policies and practices that protect personal information and make them available in writing on request. A clear privacy policy on your website is the practical way to do that. It should explain what you collect (form details, analytics data, cookies), why, where it is stored, how long you keep it and who to contact with questions.

Alberta's law also has teeth if something goes wrong. Under section 34.1 of PIPA, organizations must notify the Commissioner without unreasonable delay when a breach creates a real risk of significant harm. That is one more reason to collect only what you need through your forms.

Email consent: CASL

If your site has a newsletter signup or a "send me offers" checkbox, Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation applies. The CRTC is clear that express consent must be an opt-in, not a pre-checked box, and that silence or inaction is not consent. Every commercial email must identify the sender and include an unsubscribe that is processed within 10 business days. Penalties reach up to $1 million per violation for individuals and up to $10 million for businesses.

Accessibility checks (41 to 45)

Accessible sites are easier for everyone to use, including people on a phone in bright sunlight or using voice control. Most sites still fall short: the WebAIM Million 2026 found detectable WCAG failures on 95.9% of home pages, with low contrast text on 83.9% and missing image alt text on 53.1%.

The good news is that the most common failures are also the easiest to fix before launch.

Security and backup checks (46 to 50)

A new site is not automatically a safe site. On WordPress especially, plugins are the main risk. Patchstack's 2026 report found 11,334 new WordPress vulnerabilities in 2025, 91% of them in plugins. Launch with as few plugins as possible, all updated, and a plan for who keeps them updated afterwards.

Launch day: an hour-by-hour plan

Pick a quiet weekday morning. Avoid Fridays, long weekends and your busiest season. A landscaper should not launch in May, and a Beltline restaurant should not launch the week before Stampede. Make sure you and your developer are both free for the rest of the day.

1. One week before: Finish the checklist on staging. Freeze content changes. Lower your domain's DNS TTL if you are moving hosts, so the switch propagates faster.
2. Launch morning, hour 0: Take a full backup of the old site and the new one. Point the domain, or push the new site live.
3. Hour 1: Repeat the Must items for SEO (16, 17, 20), forms (9 to 12) and HTTPS (46) on the live domain.
4. Hour 2: Submit the sitemap in Search Console. Confirm GA4 is recording your own test visit in real time.
5. End of day: Test from a phone on mobile data. Ask two people outside the business to try to contact you through the site.
6. Next morning: Re-check the noindex setting, form delivery and analytics. Take a fresh backup.
7. Days 2 to 7: Check Search Console for crawl errors and 404s every day. Fix redirects for any old URLs you missed.

Frequently asked questions

01What should I check before launching a website?

At minimum: proofread content, test every form and phone link on a real phone, remove any staging noindex settings, set up redirects from old URLs, connect Google Analytics 4 and Search Console, publish a privacy policy, run a speed and accessibility check, and take a full backup.

02What is the most common website launch mistake?

Leaving the site blocked from search engines. Staging sites are often set to noindex or blocked in robots.txt, and that setting sometimes goes live with the new site. Check it on launch day and again the next morning.

03Do I need a privacy policy on my Calgary business website?

If your site collects personal information through forms, booking tools, newsletters or analytics, you should have one. Alberta's PIPA requires organizations to have policies on how they handle personal information and make them available on request, and PIPEDA can apply when information crosses provincial borders.

04Do I need consent to email people who sign up on my website?

Yes. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation requires consent for commercial electronic messages. Express consent must be an active opt-in, not a pre-checked box, and every message needs sender identification and a working unsubscribe.

05What day is best to launch a website?

Pick a quiet weekday morning when you and your developer are both available for the rest of the day. Avoid Fridays, holidays and your busiest season so you have time to fix anything that comes up.

06What should I do in the first week after launch?

Check Search Console for crawl errors and indexing, confirm analytics and form submissions are recording, watch for 404 errors from old URLs, and test the site again on a few phones. Fix issues while they are small.

Launching soon? Let us check it first

A second set of eyes catches what the people who built the site no longer see, and after launch, ongoing website maintenance keeps the same checks running. If you are planning a new build, every web design project we deliver runs through this checklist before launch. Or book a free 15-minute call and we will walk through your launch plan with you, starting with the items that matter most: indexing, speed, forms, tracking and security basics.