Pre-Launch Checklist
Before launching a website, it’s essential to perform a thorough quality review to confirm that everything is working as intended. A polished, accurate, and fully functional site builds credibility and provides users with a seamless experience. This module walks you through a step-by-step checklist to verify links, formatting, layout, mobile responsiveness, SEO, and accessibility.
Learning objectives
- Conduct a comprehensive pre-launch review to confirm all links, layouts, and visual elements function as expected across devices
- Evaluate content quality and accuracy by checking spelling, formatting, factual details, and overall consistency
- Optimize site readiness through final SEO, accessibility, and approval checks to ensure a polished, user-friendly experience before going live
Pre-launch website content and functionality quality checklist
Before a website goes live, ensure the site is functioning as expected before sharing the link. This includes checking all links for accuracy, ensuring mobile responsiveness, and confirming there are no spelling, formatting, or visual layout issues. It's crucial to perform a thorough quality check to ensure that the content is polished, accurate, and aligns with your goals.
- Check links for accuracy
- Click through all the links on the site to ensure they lead to the correct pages.
- Verify that no links are broken or lead to a 404 error page.
- Confirm that any email or external links work as intended.
- Review mobile responsiveness
- Test the site on mobile devices to ensure the layout and content are displayed correctly.
- Look for issues with formatting, images, and text that may not align properly on smaller screens.
- Spelling and formatting
- Review all text content for spelling, grammar, and formatting errors.
- Pay attention to headlines, body text, captions, and any call-to-action buttons for consistency and accuracy.
- Fact-check all information, such as dates, statistics, facts, and figures, to verify accuracy.
- SEO optimization and accessibility review
- Ensure each page has well-written, optimized meta descriptions, image alt text, and appropriate heading structures (H1, H2, etc.).
- Confirm layout
- Verify that all images load correctly and are displayed as expected without distortion or misalignment.
- Check that all content types and inner pages are set to Approved.
Best practices
- Open every page and click every link to make sure they go to the right place
- View the site on your phone and computer to check that everything looks good and is easy to read
- Read the text out loud to help catch typos, awkward phrasing, or missing words
- Look for consistency in fonts, colors, and spacing so the site feels polished
- Make sure images load clearly and aren’t stretched, pixelated, or misplaced
- Check that buttons and menus work and lead users where they should go
- Confirm important info is accurate; dates, names, and statistics especially
- Have someone else review it; a fresh set of eyes often catches what you miss
Additional resources
By following these steps, you can confidently launch a polished, accurate, and fully functional website that provides a seamless experience for every user.