Before any website goes live — ours or anyone else's — these are the basics worth checking. Most launch problems trace back to one of these fourteen items being skipped.
- Looks and works properly on phones, tablets and desktops — not just the screen it was designed on
- Your business name, address, phone number and hours are correct and consistent everywhere they appear (this consistency matters for local SEO, not just accuracy)
- WhatsApp button and phone number work with one tap on mobile
- Contact and quote forms are actually tested end-to-end, and land in the right inbox — not a spam folder nobody checks
- A privacy policy is in place, with clear consent wording on every form (see our POPIA guide for what this actually requires)
- Page titles, meta descriptions and headings are set for every page, not just the homepage
- Google Business Profile is claimed, complete, and linked to your website
- Sitemap is submitted to Google Search Console
- SSL (the padlock) is active and every page loads over https — not a mix of http and https
- Images are compressed, and pages load quickly on mobile data, not just fibre
- Analytics is installed, so you can actually see what's working after launch
- Social sharing image and favicon are set — check how a shared link actually previews on WhatsApp
- If you're redesigning an existing site, old URLs redirect to the new ones — broken links from Google search results lose you traffic silently
- A friend or customer has tested it on a different phone to yours — your own device hides problems you won't otherwise catch
This is general guidance, not legal advice. Have your privacy policy reviewed by a legal professional if your website handles personal information.
Why this list matters more than it looks
None of these fourteen items are individually dramatic. But a launch that skips three or four of them quietly costs a business real enquiries — a broken form nobody notices for a month, a missing Search Console submission that delays indexing by weeks, a site that's slow on mobile data in exactly the markets it's trying to reach. Running through this list takes under an hour and catches almost everything that commonly goes wrong.