Website design
A Website Launch Checklist for Service Businesses
A site launch is a change to how customers find you and get in touch. Give someone on the team ownership of the checklist, then verify the website as a first-time visitor would use it.
Confirm what every page is for
Create a simple map with one row for each page. Give it a purpose, a primary question to answer and a next step. A service page should explain what the customer gets, what makes a project a fit and how to reach you. An About page can add the person or team behind the work and concrete evidence where available.
Check public details before launch. Verify spelling, service names, booking links, coverage areas and contact information. Use testimonials or project results with permission and keep enough context for visitors to interpret them.
Test the path from a phone
Start from the homepage, choose a service and complete a test inquiry. Repeat on a small phone, with a keyboard and on a slower connection. Try invalid values and a service error so you can see whether the form explains what happened and preserves the message for a retry.
- Confirm that the recipient gets the inquiry and can reply to the right address.
- Check phone, map and messaging links, plus any embedded booking tools.
- Review image crop, text contrast, heading order and focus visibility.
Plan existing URLs and technical SEO
For a redesign, list existing URLs before changing the site. Keep useful URLs when possible. If a page moves, point the old URL to its closest replacement with a permanent redirect. Each published page should have an accurate title, a short description and a canonical URL.
Check that the public sitemap lists the canonical URLs, the site links to key pages through regular HTML links, and staging restrictions such as noindex are removed from public pages. Open robots.txt and the sitemap in the browser and confirm they are actual text and XML files.
Verify the live site and keep a rollback
Make a copy of the previous deploy before replacing it. After launch, open the live homepage, a service page, the contact form and a missing URL. Confirm the missing URL returns 404. Review the live sitemap in Search Console, then check indexing and contact delivery during the first few weeks.