A technical SEO checklist for launching a new website

A new website should be an improvement. Yet a launch or redesign is one of the most common moments for a business to lose search traffic, usually because of technical details that nobody checked. This checklist covers the essentials. It applies whether the site runs on WordPress, Next.js or anything else.

Before launch

Indexing controls

• Remove staging blocks. Development sites are often set to noindex or blocked in robots.txt. Make sure those settings do not carry over to the live site. This single mistake can remove a site from search results.
• Keep staging sites out of the index. The reverse also matters: protect preview and staging environments with a password or a noindex directive so they do not compete with the real site.

URLs and redirects

• List every old URL that matters. Export URLs from your old sitemap, Google Search Console and analytics, especially pages that receive traffic or links.
• Map old URLs to new ones. Every important old URL should permanently redirect (HTTP 301 or 308) to the most relevant new page, not all to the homepage.
• Avoid redirect chains. Each old URL should go straight to its final destination.

Canonical URLs

Each page should declare one canonical URL, and it should use the final production domain. Watch for canonical tags that still point to a staging domain, which is a frequent and costly mistake.

Titles, descriptions and headings

• Every page needs a unique title and meta description that describe what the page is about.
• Each page should have one clear main heading (h1), with sub-headings in a logical order.
• Do not let templates produce dozens of pages titled "Home" or "Untitled".

Sitemap and robots.txt

• Generate an XML sitemap that lists the pages you want indexed and nothing else: no redirects, no noindex pages and no error pages.
• Reference the sitemap in robots.txt.
• Read robots.txt carefully. One misplaced line can block an entire site.

Structured data

Add Schema.org markup that accurately reflects each page, for example Organization on the homepage, Article on blog posts and BreadcrumbList where breadcrumbs appear. Validate it with Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator. Only mark up content that is visible on the page.

Performance

Test key pages on a mid-range phone and a throttled connection, not just on a fast office laptop:

• Serve images at the right size and in modern formats such as WebP or AVIF.
• Load fonts efficiently and avoid layout shifts while they load.
• Remove scripts you do not need, especially third-party widgets.
• Check Core Web Vitals in PageSpeed Insights, which shows real user data where enough is available.

Accessibility basics

Accessibility and SEO overlap: descriptive link text, meaningful image alternative text, a logical heading order and sufficient colour contrast help both people and machines understand your pages.

On launch day

1. Confirm the live site is not blocked from indexing.
2. Test a sample of old URLs to make sure the redirects work.
3. Submit the XML sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
4. Check that analytics is recording visits.
5. Use URL inspection in Search Console to request indexing for the most important pages.

In the weeks after launch

• Watch the Pages report in Search Console for unexpected errors or excluded pages.
• Look for 404 errors and add redirects where an old URL still receives visits.
• Compare traffic and impressions with the period before launch. Some fluctuation is normal while search engines reprocess the site, but a sharp, sustained drop needs investigating.

Need a second pair of eyes?

Our technical SEO service includes pre-launch audits and migration plans. We fix issues at the source and report on what changed, without promising rankings no one can guarantee.