Things to do before launching your website

The things to do before launching a website are checks that catch mistakes before your visitors find them. Go through your website once the way a visitor would. Read your pages, try your links, send yourself a message through your forms and look at the website on your phone. Then check what visitors don't see straight away, such as page titles, a secure address, a privacy notice and a backup of the finished website.

If you're still planning your website, our website launch checklist starts earlier, from choosing a domain to creating a website with a website builder.

• Proofread your pages
• Look over your images
• Give each page a clear call to action
• Keep colours and fonts consistent
• Make your menu easy to follow
• Test your links
• Send a test message through your forms
• Try your site on a phone and a tablet
• Measure how fast your pages load
• Give your pages their own titles and descriptions
• Let search engines index your site
• Add a favicon
• Link your social media profiles
• Make sure your site opens with https://
• Add a privacy notice
• Take a backup before you go live

Build and manage your website without coding or design experience. You decide what gets created and published.

Check your content before launching your website

Start with what visitors read and see on each page: the words, the images, the calls to action and the look of the site.

Proofread your pages

Read each page slowly, out loud if it helps, or ask someone who hasn't seen the site to read it for you. Check names, prices, your phone number and your email address with extra care. Look out for placeholder text a template left behind, such as sample headings or dummy Latin text.

Look over your images

Check that your images show up on the page and aren't far larger than the space they fill. If an image carries information, give it alt text, a short description of what it shows. People who use a screen reader can then hear that description read aloud or get it in Braille. A purely decorative image gets empty alt text, so screen readers can ignore it.

Give each page a clear call to action

A call to action is a button or link that asks the visitor to do one thing. That could be to book an appointment, call you or buy a product. Check that each page has one and test where it goes. Without one, visitors may not realise what you offer or where to go next.

Keep colours and fonts consistent

Use the same few colours and fonts throughout your website, with a set size for headings, subheadings and body text that stays the same on every page. Text should also stand out clearly against its background.

Test how your website works

A page can read well and still let visitors down when they use it. Next, try out everything they can click, fill in or open.

Make your menu easy to follow

Visitors should reach your main pages straight from the menu. On a site with many pages, it's worth adding a search bar for visitors who can't find what they're looking for in the menu. Ask someone who doesn't know the website to find your prices or your contact page, and watch where they hesitate. If they get stuck, change the menu labels or their order. Our guide to the navigation menu shows what usually belongs in it.

Test your links

Try out your links, buttons and menu items, including the ones in the footer. Each should open the page it promises, and links to other websites should still work. A link that ends on an error page tells visitors the website isn't finished.

Send a test message through your forms

Fill in each contact, booking or newsletter form yourself and send it. Check that the message arrives in your inbox and that the visitor sees a confirmation after sending. A form that sends nowhere loses enquiries without you ever finding out.

Try your site on a phone and a tablet

Open the website on your own phone and, if you can, on a tablet and in a second browser. You're checking that it works as a responsive website, one whose layout adjusts to the screen it's viewed on. Make sure text is readable without zooming, images fit the screen and buttons are big enough to hit with a thumb. Check each page this way, not only the home page.

Measure how fast your pages load

Run your home page and your busiest page through PageSpeed Insights, Google's tool for page speed. It reports how the page performs on mobile and on desktop, and suggests what to improve. Start with large images. Resize each one to the width it's shown at, then upload the smaller version in its place.

Get ready for search engines and social media

A few settings shape how your website appears in search results and browser tabs, and your social links decide where visitors go next.

Give your pages their own titles and descriptions

Google asks for a descriptive, concise title on every page and advises against vague titles such as "Home". The meta description is a short summary of the page. Google sometimes shows it in the search result when it describes the page better than the page's own text. Write a title and a description that fit the page they belong to. The title is separate from the heading visitors see on the page.

Let search engines index your site

A noindex rule in a page's code keeps search engines that support it, such as Google, from indexing it. If you hid your site from search engines while you built it, find that option in your website builder or content management system and switch it off now. After launch, check that no page you want people to find still carries the rule. Once you've added your site to Google Search Console, enter the page's address in its URL Inspection tool. It shows whether the page disallows indexing and, if it does, the reason. Then see our guide on how to get your website on Google.

Add a favicon

A favicon is the small icon that stands for your website in the browser tab and in bookmarks. Google can show it next to your website in its search results. Google asks for a square favicon of at least 8 by 8 pixels. Choose one that visually represents your brand, such as a simple version of your logo or its first letter. Upload it where your website builder or content management system lets you set a site icon.

Link your social media profiles

If you have social media pages, add their icons to the header or footer. Check that each one opens your own profile, not the platform's home page. Don't link profiles you no longer update.

Check security, privacy and backups

Visitors trust a site that keeps their data safe, and a backup keeps your own work safe after launch.

Make sure your site opens with https://

An SSL certificate encrypts the connection between your website and its visitors, so nobody in between can read or change what they send. Browsers show an icon next to the address that tells visitors whether the connection is secure. Type your address with and without www and check that both open the site with https:// and no "Not secure" warning.

Every one of our hosting plans includes an SSL certificate. It's issued and activated when your domain uses our name servers, which tell the internet where your domain leads. From the moment your domain starts using our name servers, it can take up to 24 hours for SSL to work. Even then, visitors can still open your site over http:// until you set up a redirect to https://. Our help guide on how to always send visitors to HTTPS shows how.

Add a privacy notice

If a form on your site collects names, email addresses or other personal data, UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 apply. The data then has to be used fairly, lawfully and transparently. Your privacy notice, usually a privacy policy page, tells visitors what you collect and why. Link it next to your forms and in the footer. Termly, an add-on you can get with us, scans your site for cookies and generates a privacy policy, a cookie policy and a cookie banner. With Termly, you don't have to write the policy from scratch.

Take a backup before you go live

Once you've checked everything, make sure a backup of the finished website exists, so you can go back to this version if something breaks after launch. On our hosting plans, we make a daily website backup of your content automatically. We keep each daily backup for up to 14 days, so if you want to keep the launch version for longer, also download a copy of your website files and database. Restoring a backup yourself comes with the Professional plan and up. On Starter you can see your backups, but you need to upgrade to restore one.

What to do once your website is live

After you publish, keep looking after your website and its content. Our checklist of what to do after your website is published picks up from here.

These checks work the same whichever tool you build with. If you haven't chosen one yet, you can create your website with our AI website builder and run through this list before you press publish.