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Web Design10 min readJan 24, 2026Hostingli Team
The Pre-Launch Website Checklist We Use on Every Client Project
Forty-three checks across SEO, performance, accessibility, analytics and content — the exact checklist our team runs before any site goes live.
A bad launch costs weeks of trust. We've shipped over a hundred sites and this is the checklist nothing goes live without.
SEO foundations
- Unique title and meta description on every page.
- Open Graph and Twitter card images set.
- XML sitemap submitted to Google Search Console.
- Robots.txt allows crawling of production.
- 301 redirects mapped from the old site.
Performance
- Lighthouse score 90+ on mobile.
- All images compressed and lazy-loaded.
- Fonts preloaded with font-display: swap.
- Critical CSS inlined.
Accessibility
- Colour contrast meets WCAG AA.
- All images have meaningful alt text.
- Forms keyboard-navigable and labelled.
- Skip-to-content link present.
Analytics & tracking
- GA4 firing on all key events.
- Meta and Google Ads pixels installed.
- Conversion goals defined and tested.
- Cookie consent banner live and compliant.
Run every line, sign it off in writing, and only then push the DNS. Future-you will thank past-you.