The technical SEO checklist we run before every website launch

A launch is the easiest moment to get technical SEO right. Fixing it later means redirects, lost rankings and awkward conversations.

Crawling and indexing

• A clean robots.txt that does not block the live site
• An XML sitemap submitted in Google Search Console
• Canonical tags on every page, pointing to the preferred URL
• No staging domains left indexable

Speed and Core Web Vitals

• Images in modern formats, correctly sized and lazy-loaded
• Fonts preloaded and limited to the weights you use
• Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds on mobile

Structure and metadata

• One clear h1 per page and a logical heading order
• Unique titles and meta descriptions written for people, not just keywords
• Structured data for the organisation, breadcrumbs and articles

Migrations

If you are replacing an old site, map every old URL to its new home with a 301 redirect. This single step protects most of the rankings you already have.

Launch day is not the finish line. Watch Search Console for the first four weeks.

Want a second pair of eyes before you go live? Get in touch.