Launch readiness & Core Web Vitals checklist
Technical and content checks before go-live: crawlability, performance, forms, monitoring, and a sane first-week ops plan.
Content & information architecture
- Every key template has one clear H1 that matches search intent
- Primary navigation labels match real page titles (no mystery labels)
- Primary conversion path is obvious on home, service, and contact paths
- Custom 404 exists and links back to useful destinations
Crawl, index, and metadata
- robots.txt allows important paths and points to the XML sitemap
- Sitemap lists live URLs only (hubs, posts, case studies as applicable)
- Canonical tags and titles/descriptions are unique on money pages
- JSON-LD matches visible content (Organization, WebSite, article types as needed)
- Staging / preview hosts are noindex; production is indexable
Core Web Vitals & media
- LCP candidate is optimized (compressed hero, correct dimensions, priority where needed)
- Images and embeds reserve space (width/height or aspect-ratio) to limit CLS
- Heavy scripts are deferred or trimmed; third-party tags are reviewed
- Marketing images ship as modern formats (WebP/AVIF) at sensible sizes
- Lab check (PageSpeed/Lighthouse) run on key templates; Search Console field data watched after launch
Forms, security, and ops
- Lead forms submit successfully end-to-end (including mobile) Verify CRM/email delivery, not only the thank-you UI.
- HTTPS everywhere; mixed-content warnings cleared
- No secrets in client bundles; env vars differ for preview vs production
- Database/content backup or PITR path is enabled and tested
- Uptime or synthetic checks cover homepage + critical form/API routes
- Team knows how to roll back the last production deploy