The website launch SEO checklist

Before launch: establish the preferred URLs.

Choose a single primary HTTPS hostname. Define whether routes use trailing slashes and apply that choice consistently to internal links, canonical tags, and the sitemap. If you are replacing an existing site, map valuable old URLs to the closest relevant destinations instead of redirecting every page to the homepage.

Check what search engines receive.

• Important pages return a successful status and include meaningful text in the rendered document.
• Public pages do not carry an accidental noindex directive.
• Robots rules allow the content you intend search engines to crawl.
• Canonical tags identify the correct page, not a staging domain or unrelated route.
• Unknown URLs produce a useful 404 response instead of pretending to be the homepage.

Check what people experience.

Test a small phone screen, keyboard navigation, visible focus, headings, labels, and readable text. Confirm that images have appropriate dimensions to reduce layout movement. Inspect the actual contact flow, not only the button’s appearance. If third-party chat or booking is used, make that destination clear.

Use structured data precisely.

Describe the organization, pages, articles, and services that actually exist. Markup should agree with visible content. Do not add fabricated ratings or a local address simply to qualify for a search feature. Validation can identify syntax problems, but it cannot make an inaccurate claim appropriate.

After launch: observe and verify.

Submit the sitemap in the correct Search Console property and inspect representative URLs. Watch for crawling and indexing problems, then compare the production pages with what you intended to publish. Performance checks should consider real-user data where available as well as controlled tests.

A sitemap helps discovery; it is not a command to index every URL. Search engines decide whether and when to index content. Read Google’s sitemap guidance and structured data documentation.