Ah, there’s nothing quite like the day you launch a new website. All the weeks and months you’ve spent planning, coordinating, organizing, designing and developing are finally finished and it’s time to unveil your website—your work, even if it’s for a client—to the world.
A launch day should be full of celebration and excitement and the feeling of accomplishment, right? Unfortunately, launch day can also be frantic and hectic —what if you missed something?
Having a Launch Checklist is Important
Think about it—pilots and Astronauts use a checklist for every flight. In fact, surgical complications drop 36% when checklists are used for the procedure.
So why don’t we use checklists as web developers? Good question.
When we use checklists, we are more productive with less stress.
Making a launch checklist allows us to offload the job of remembering a ton of tiny details (all those mental “notes”) and free up mental “RAM.” With the help of a checklist, you can be confident you haven’t missed anything important. Most of all, it’s a way to make sure your clients have a great experience on launch day. And it’s all because you thought of everything.
Check out The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande.
Creating Your Own Launch Checklist
Remember, it should still be your checklist.
- A checklist should make your work easier. Don’t let the list get in the way.
- Customize your checklist to match your workflow.
- Group clusters of similar items together to speed up the process.
Remember, Every Checklist is a Work in Progress
- You’re not going to get it right the first time.
- Checklists are rarely finished. Tweak your list every time you use it.
How to Create Your First Launch Checklist
The next time you launch a site, write down each step you take along the way. Break your list into Pre-Launch, Launch, and Post-Launch sections. Group similar items under each section to save time clicking back and forth. You want to complete the list in order, so make sure the sequence works.
Elements of a Launch Checklist
We’ve done some of the work for you and compiled this launch checklist. Just remember you can add, remove or change any of the items, depending on your workflow or client offerings.
Pre-Launch Checklist
Website Content
- Remove all Ipsum text
- Proofread site copy for grammar and spelling errors
- Company contact details are correct throughout site
- Images are correct and formatted properly
- Video/Audio items are correct and formatted properly
- PDF files are properly linked and proofread
- All links are working correctly
- 404 page is created or customized
- Old web site URLs are 301 redirected to new URLs
- Be sure all required licenses for images, fonts, plugins, etc. are on file
Website Design
- Site previewed in Chrome
- Site previewed in Firefox
- Site previewed in Internet Explorer
- Site previewed in Safari
- Site previewed in any legacy browsers requested by client
- Responsive design tested at phone size
- Responsive design tested at tablet size
- Images are optimized on pages
- Favicon is working
- Company logo is linked to home page
Website Functionality
- All forms are submitting data correctly
- All forms are emailing to correct address
- All forms display correct message or redirection on submit
- Form autoresponders are working correctly
- All external links open in a new tab
- Social sharing icons are working
- Load time is 3 seconds or less
- Social media posting working correctly
SEO
- All pages and posts have a unique title, fewer than 70 characters
- All pages and posts have unique meta descriptions, fewer than 156 characters
- Pages and posts have fewer than 10 keywords that appear in page copy
Launch Checklist
For New Sites
- Set up new domain in cPanel
- Set up new database and user in cPanel
- Record new domain and database information into tracking software
- Restore BackupBuddy file in correct web space onto new domain name
- Change DNS on domain to my nameservers
- View site to check for display issues
- Check for broken links on links and redirections
For Existing Sites
- Set up new domain in cPanel
- Set up new database and user in cPanel
- Record new domain and database information into tracking software
- Zip and Download existing web site (or create BackupBuddy Backup)
- Upload BackupBuddy and ImportBuddy files to web space for domain
- Delete existing web site files
- Restore BackupBuddy file in correct web space onto new domain name
- Change DNS on domain to my nameservers
- View site to check for display issues
- Check for broken links on links and redirections
Post-launch Checklist
Note: These checklist items will have to happen after the website is live, but not necessarily after the website has officially launched.
Plugins
- Relicense plugins and themes for new domain name
- Activate site caching
- Check for URL problems on Sliders
- Check for Missing CPT Icons
- Check Advanced Access Manager Settings
SEO
- Turn on Site Visibility in Settings > Reading
- Build first sitemap and ping search engines
- Connect Google Analytics
- Add Google Analytics Tracking ID to Builder Settings
- Activate Google Analytics Dashboard for WP and add Tracking ID
- Connect Google Webmaster Tools
- Connect Bing Webmaster Tools
Management
- Update Admin Password and save in password management, such as LastPass
- Activate and Connect Sync
- Setup BackupBuddy Remote Destination
- Setup BackupBuddy Schedule
- Create first Backup and Send to Remote Destination – Verify it Sent
- Clean Up Server: Delete Old Dev Site, Subdomain, Database and User
- Change Site Settings in Coda: Change Remote Directory, Open style.css and functions.php
- Add Site to your own portfolio (don’t neglect your own freelance website!)
- Get client credit card and set up monthly service charge in payment gateway and accounting software.
Have anything to add? What have you learned?
What are your crucial launch checklist items? Feel free to share your advice and what you’ve learned.
Check out the Webinar: Create Your Own Launch Checklist by Nathan Ingram over at iThemes Training.
Download the Ebook
We’ve compiled all the essential checklist items for your next WordPress website launch into one handy ebook.
Download the Ebook
Each week, the team at iThemes team publishes new WordPress tutorials and resources, including the Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report. Since 2008, iThemes has been dedicated to helping you build, maintain, and secure WordPress sites for yourself or for clients. Our mission? Make People’s Lives Awesome.
THANK YOU for this! This is going to be very helpful. Ive been trying to get a workflow going and this is going to be an awesome starting point. Thanks!
Awesome, glad we could help!
This is a very comprehensive list. Thanks! One additional thing we do is generate a document for the customer listing every piece of information they could possibly need about their website: site login and password, hosting information, ftp information, login information for all the accounts we have created for them (social media, MailChimp, etc.) , a list of all plug-ins and themes installed as well as when any paid licenses expire and will need to be renewed, database information, etc. It’s helpful for us as well as for the customer to have all that information documented in one place.
Thanks for that addition, Lynne!
I also added a Client Debrief to the last set of steps. under “Update Admin Password and save in password management, such as LastPass” It helps so much!
Kristen … NICE.
Expect a (positive!) commentary pointed at this from The WordPress Helpers
JY
Cool! Thanks, Jeff.
This list is fantastic for those just starting out, particularly for small business owners.
I’d recommend business owners also look at ensuring their social media channels and marketing (traditional) are up to date and match their new website.
Consistency is important on a website to all levels of marketing.
Once your site is ready to launch, have a go at preparing some content. For the bloggers out there, be sure to have some planned out content as a new site launch can be time consuming and you may lose time to keep the blog flowing and your new repeat visitors wanting more from you.
Thanks again!
Going to share this with my Web Design students right now. If they are going to be successful, especially in WordPress, then they need to do this. Thank you.
Would also be nice to have a list of must have plugins. Such as BackupBuddy, one for sitemap, one for SEO, one for security, etc, etc. Like a list of the 10 “must install” plugins.
Thankyou Kristen,
I am glad to find essential checklist mentioned on your blog. I can say that i clearly missed around 6-7 major steps, one of them was “deleting existing website files” and “Check for URL problems on Sliders” . No other article had summarized tips in such an organized manner.
I am now hopeful for a good start after performing above necessary steps.
Great list – I’ve forwarded to our team to fill in any holes.
We also have an extra billing category – in case the client ordered anything extra ( specific stock photography or something like that) as well as we always save a backup of the site ( archived by client name).
We also make sure post-launch, that the ithemes Security plugin gets activated and setup ( with backup schedule pointed at our AWS hosting) and we ensure there are no administrator accounts using “admin” for a username.
Finally we schedule a 3 month follow-up to check in with our clients and make sure everything is working as they hoped and to check if there are other services we can help them with – now that they have a few months under their belt, with their new website.
How do you deal with clients who after 3 months still haven’t figured out how to maintain their WordPress website or do regular backups? Is this something you manage for them? What about clients who want the site “handed over” at a date – for them to maintain and manage themselves? Asking, because I’ve had clients in the past who wanted to take ownership of their site, but contacted me after a few months (despite having a handover and maintenance manual outlining everything in detail) because they weren’t sure about upgrading plugins or backing up the site.
Thanks in advance!
Gillian 🙂
As a post-launch item, I always recommend including a review of the 404 errors listed in Google Webmaster Tools a week or so after go-live. That will quickly surface any missed/broken redirects from old sites, page errors etc so they can be fixed before losing too much traffic/ranking.
Big omission from your checklist in my opinion. Check robots.txt, double-check robots.txt.
Two weeks after launch check robots.txt again! The worst feeling in the world of the web developer is realising that your live site still has the staging sites robots.txt file complete with Disallow: /
Great addition to the list.
You obviously put a lot of work into this…thank you…and it’s going to be very helpful next time I launch a site. I always think I can “just remember” everything…but that’s not a great strategy. I’ll use this on my next web site and I’ll suggest it to some other designers I know. Thanks again.
I am working With WeDigTech – Mobile App and Website Designing company in LA.
Hi Kristen,
Its a superb checklist for WordPress developers like me, Even it will gonna help newbies also.
Great writing style, I would love to hear more from you.
Thanks and keep sharing.