Post-Launch SEO Checklist
Launching a site feels good, for about five minutes. Then the silence hits.
No traffic. No rankings. Just a shiny new website floating in Google's vast, indifferent ocean.
Here’s the thing most teams get wrong: they treat SEO as a pre-launch checklist item, something you “set and forget” like a favicon. But post-launch is where the real SEO work begins. That’s when Google starts indexing, users start clicking, and every oversight becomes a visibility problem.
This checklist isn’t a motivational pep talk or a generic “best practices” list. It’s a field manual for the days and weeks after your site goes live. The things you actually need to do to make sure your content shows up, your pages get indexed, and your rankings don’t tank.
Just practical, often-overlooked steps that separate the sites that quietly grow traffic from the ones that vanish into the void.
Verify Your Site with Google Search Console
Let’s start with the most basic and most often skipped step: making sure Google knows your site exists and has permission to crawl it.
If Google Search Console isn’t set up, you’re not doing SEO. You’re hoping for the best.
Set It Up, the Right Way
Head over to Google Search Console and add your site as a Domain property. This gives you full visibility across all URL variations — www, non-www, http, https, and subdomains. Use DNS verification if possible. Yes, it takes five more minutes. Do it anyway.
Once verified, submit your sitemap. You’ll find the option under Indexing → Sitemaps. Paste in your sitemap URL (usually something like https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml) and hit submit.
If your sitemap is bloated with redirects, 404s, or test pages, fix that first. A clean sitemap = faster, better crawling.
Check the Coverage Report
This is where Google tells you what it’s doing with your pages and where things are going sideways.
Go to Indexing → Pages. You’ll see:
- Indexed pages: These are live in Google’s search index.
- Not indexed: Usually the problem area. Click into this tab to see why.
Look out for:
- Pages marked
noindex(often a leftover from staging) - URLs blocked by
robots.txt - Soft 404s or redirect errors
- Canonical tags pointing to other domains or test environments
One wrong setting here can quietly unlist half your site.
Pick One Canonical URL and Stick to It
Decide whether your site will use www or not. And always use https. Then make sure everything — sitemaps, internal links, redirects, canonical tags — is consistent.
Why it matters: Google treats https://www.yoursite.com and http://yoursite.com as separate entities. If you don’t control that, link equity gets split and indexing gets messy.
Bonus Sanity Check
Pop this into Google:
site: yourdomain.com
This shows what pages Google currently has in its index.
If the number looks suspiciously low, your site may be partially indexed. If it’s way too high, Google might be picking up duplicates, parameterized URLs, or test environments you forgot to block.
Google Search Console is the source of truth for what Google sees (and doesn’t) on your site. Set it up properly, clean up your sitemap, and fix whatever coverage issues pop up. Otherwise, you’re invisible and not in a cool stealth-mode kind of way. Just... not showing up.
Crawl the Live Site (Not Your Staging Copy)
You tested the site before launch. Congrats. Now forget all of that and crawl the live version.
Why? Because once the site goes public, things break, redirects misfire, dev tags get left behind, and “temporary” fixes become permanent SEO sabotage.
You need to run a fresh crawl on the production site. Not from memory. Not from your CMS dashboard. A real crawl, using actual crawl software.
Use a Proper Crawler
Tools like Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or Ahrefs Site Audit are your best friends here. They simulate how search engines navigate your site, giving you a report of what’s working and what’s wrecked.
What You’re Looking For:
| Problem | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Broken internal links (404s) | Dead ends waste crawl budget and kill user experience. |
| Redirect chains | Slow down crawling and dilute link equity. |
| Orphan pages | Pages with no internal links are invisible to crawlers. |
| No-index tags | These quietly prevent indexing. Often forgotten post-launch. |
| Canonical tag issues | Pointing to wrong URLs or back to staging domains. |
Tip: Don’t just crawl the homepage. Set the crawler to follow links site-wide. And make sure it respects your robots.txt settings, unless you’re testing what’s blocked.
Spot the Post-Launch Junk
This is also the time to find:
- Leftover staging URLs (e.g.,
/test-page,/old-version,/dev-home) - URLs with UTM or tracking parameters clogging up the index
- HTML meta tags left in “draft mode” (
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">)
You don’t want Google indexing garbage. And you definitely don’t want your team sending links to broken pages two weeks into launch.
Sanity Checklist
Before you move on, make sure your crawl report doesn’t show:
- More than one redirect per URL
- Pages with status codes 4xx or 5xx
- Pages tagged no-index that shouldn’t be
- Duplicate title tags and meta descriptions
Fix the obvious stuff first. Prioritize by crawl depth: the deeper the page, the lower the priority, unless it’s your pricing page somehow buried five clicks deep.
Confirm Indexation of Key Pages
Your site is live. You submitted the sitemap. But is Google actually indexing the pages that matter?
A surprising number of post-launch SEO failures come down to this: the site is technically up, but key pages, like product, pricing, or blog posts, aren’t in Google’s index. And if they’re not indexed, they don’t exist. Not to users. Not to search engines.
Step 1: Spot-Check with “site:” Search
In Google, type:
site:yourdomain.com
This gives you a rough list of indexed pages. If it shows 5 results and your sitemap has 85 URLs, you’ve got a problem. If it shows 3,000 pages and your site only has 120, you also have a problem.
You’re looking for a healthy range, one that matches your expectations, not surprises you with duplicates, test pages, or ghost content.
Step 2: Use the URL Inspection Tool
Now, go into Google Search Console and use the URL Inspection Tool. Paste in your most important URLs one by one.
You’ll see something like this:
| Field | What to Check |
|---|---|
| Indexing Status | Should say: URL is on Google. Anything else needs investigation. |
| Coverage Type | Should be: Submitted and indexed. If it says Discovered - not indexed, Google saw it but didn’t bother indexing it, often a quality issue. |
| Canonical URL | Make sure it matches what you intended, not a staging URL or alternate version. |
Check your:
- Homepage
- Product/service pages
- Pricing
- Blog overview and key articles
- Contact page
If any of these aren’t indexed, you’re likely looking at a no-index, robots.txt block, weak internal linking, or just low content quality.
Step 3: Prioritize What Google Should Index
Not everything needs to be indexed. Thank-you pages, admin logins, and tracking URLs? Block them. But if a page is:
- Crawlable
- Public
- Offers value or targets a search intent
…then it should be indexed. If it’s not, figure out why — fast.
What Indexation Problems Often Mean
| Symptom | Likely Cause |
|---|---|
| Page says “Crawled - not indexed” | Low content quality or duplicate |
| Page says “Blocked by robots.txt” | Your robots file is too aggressive |
| Page says “Excluded by ‘no-index’” | Someone left a no-index tag from dev |
| Google indexed a weird version of the page | Bad canonical setup or duplicate paths |
Before you move on: check that your money pages are indexed and appearing as expected. Not just homepage, pages that generate traffic, leads, and conversions.
Audit Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
A week after launch, search your company name on Google. What shows up?
If it’s something like:
Home – YourSite
Just another WordPress site
…you’ve got work to do.
Titles and Meta Descriptions Aren’t Optional
Search engines don’t just scrape your content and guess what your page is about (well, they can, but you really don’t want to leave that to chance). Your title tag is the headline in search results. Your meta description is the pitch.
Get them wrong, and:
- Your rankings suffer.
- Your click-through rate tanks.
- You look unprofessional, especially when “Home” or “Welcome to our website” shows up in search.
Fix the Obvious Stuff First
Start by checking the most visible pages:
- Homepage
- Product or service pages
- Pricing
- Blog articles
- Contact/about pages
Ask yourself:
- Is the title tag unique?
- Does it contain a relevant keyword without sounding like a robot?
- Is the meta description compelling, or just boilerplate?
Here’s a quick before-and-after for context:
| Page | Bad | Better |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage | Home – YourSite | Affordable CRM Software for Small Teams – YourSite |
| Blog | Blog – YourSite | Insights on Scaling Early-Stage SaaS – YourSite Blog |
| Contact | Contact – YourSite | Talk to Sales or Support – Contact YourSite Today |
Keep titles under ~60 characters, meta descriptions under ~155. If Google rewrites them, it’s usually a hint yours weren’t good enough.
Use Tools to Speed Things Up
- Screaming Frog: Crawl your site and export all title/meta data in a spreadsheet.
- SEOJuice: Quickly audit your live title tags and meta descriptions, flag duplicates, and surface under-optimized pages in one place. Built for lean teams that don’t want to wade through export files.
- Ahrefs / SEMrush / Sitebulb: Catch duplicates, missing tags, or overstuffed keyword nonsense.
- Google Search Console → Performance Report: See which pages get impressions but no clicks, often a sign your titles/descriptions aren’t pulling their weight.
Avoid These Common Mistakes
- Duplicate titles across pages (especially blogs)
- Generic meta descriptions (“Welcome to our website” doesn’t sell anything)
- Keyword-stuffed spam (Google will rewrite it—and tank your CTR)
- Titles that cut off mid-sentence because no one checked character limits
Clean Up Redirects
New site? New URLs. And that means redirects. Lots of them.
Most teams set them up fast and dirty just to launch. Then forget about them. That’s how you end up with redirect chains, loops, or dead ends, killing crawl efficiency and link equity.
What to Do
- 301 any old URLs that changed names or structure
- Remove internal links that rely on redirects, link directly to the final destination
- Kill redirect chains (e.g., A → B → C) and flatten them (A → C)
Check This Stuff:
| Problem | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Redirect chains | Waste crawl budget, slow page load, dilute authority |
| Redirect loops | Google can’t follow them. Users see error pages. |
| Redirects to 404s | Sends both crawlers and users into a black hole |
Check Site Speed and Core Web Vitals
Google doesn’t just rank based on content. If your site loads like it’s stuck in 2009, you’re out.
Core Web Vitals are Google’s shorthand for:
Does your site load fast, stay stable, and respond quickly, especially on mobile?
What to Test
Use these tools:
- PageSpeed Insights
- WebPageTest.org
- Chrome → DevTools → Lighthouse tab
Look at these three metrics:
| Metric | What It Measures | Target |
|---|---|---|
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | How fast the main content loads | < 2.5s |
| FID (First Input Delay) | Time before users can interact | < 100ms |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | Visual stability on load | < 0.1 |
Quick Wins
- Compress and resize images
- Defer non-critical JavaScript
- Enable lazy loading
- Use a fast, reliable host (your $3/month plan isn’t cutting it)
- Cache everything you can
⚠️ Don’t obsess over getting a 100/100 score. Focus on what affects real users, especially mobile ones.
If your site feels slow to you, it’s a disaster for users on a mid-range Android in a café with bad Wi-Fi. Fix that before worrying about backlinks.
Review Structured Data (Schema)
Structured data helps Google understand what your pages are, not just what they say.
You’re adding it so Google doesn’t misinterpret your pricing page as a blog post, or your author bio as product content.
What to Add (Bare Minimum)
- Organization schema (site-wide): Name, logo, social profiles
- Breadcrumb schema: Helps Google display clean navigation in search results
- Product, Article, or FAQ schema: Depending on content type
Stick to what's relevant. Don't add every schema type just because a plugin lets you.
Tools to Test
- Google Rich Results Test
- Schema Markup Validator
Run your top pages through them. Check for:
- Errors (these break eligibility for enhanced search features)
- Warnings (not always critical, but worth reviewing)
- Irrelevant or excessive markup (yes, Google notices)
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Why It Hurts |
|---|---|
| Adding schema that doesn’t match visible content | Considered spammy—Google may ignore all of it |
| Marking everything as “FAQ” | Won’t help if there are no actual questions and answers |
| Copy-pasting JSON-LD without editing | Results in mismatched data and invalid markup |
Structured data won’t make bad content rank, but it will make good content clearer and sometimes better-looking in search.
Revisit Internal Linking and Navigation
Your site is live. Great. Now check if users (and crawlers) can actually find your content without a map and compass.
Internal links shape how Google discovers, ranks, and values your pages. They also shape how users navigate, if the path is broken, so is your funnel.
What to Fix
- Orphan pages: Pages with no internal links are invisible to crawlers unless manually submitted.
- Buried pages: If it takes 4+ clicks to reach something important, it's too deep.
- Inconsistent anchor text: “Click here” doesn’t help. Use descriptive text, like “view our pricing” or “see SEO features.”
- Footer spam: Linking to every page from every page? It’s a mess. Simplify.
Where to Focus
- Link from high-traffic to low-visibility pages (e.g. your homepage to your newest blog post)
- Add links between related blog posts. Use contextual links, not just “related posts” widgets
- Ensure your main nav reflects priority pages, not just what fits nicely in a menu bar
Pro Tip
Run a crawl (Screaming Frog, SEOJuice) and sort by “Inlinks.” If key pages have 0–2 internal links, they’re probably not ranking, and won’t.
Don’t rely on sitemaps alone. Internal links are how Google knows what you think matters. Make it obvious.
Re-Test All CTAs, Forms, and Conversion Events
SEO drives traffic. But if your calls-to-action, forms, or tracking don’t work, you’re just increasing bounce rate.
Post-launch, things break: scripts fail, forms stop submitting, GA tags get stripped during a last-minute push. And you won’t know until conversions flatline.
What to Check (Manually)
- All CTAs: Click every button. Every. Single. One. Especially on mobile.
- Contact and lead forms: Do they submit? Do they send confirmations? Do they log entries anywhere?
- Thank-you pages: Do they exist? Are they indexable? (Hint: they shouldn't be.)
- Chat widgets: If you use one, test it. Some load fine on staging but break on production.
- Newsletter signups: Are they actually syncing to your email list?
Tracking? Or Guessing?
Make sure your analytics are firing correctly:
- GA4 events: Are key actions tracked (e.g. form_submit, contact_click, purchase)?
- Google Tag Manager: Preview and debug before assuming anything’s recording
- Heatmaps (if used): Confirm the scripts are loading — Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity, etc.
Bonus Sanity Check
If your CRM or email marketing tool shows zero signups or no events post-launch, that’s not a coincidence. That’s something broken.
Don’t just track visits, track outcomes. Otherwise, your SEO report might look great while your pipeline quietly dies.
Monitor Performance & Rankings Weekly (Not Obsessively)
Traffic goes live. Everyone checks Google once. Then… nothing.
SEO isn’t a one-click install, it needs monitoring. But not the kind that eats your Monday morning with 15 browser tabs and a stress headache.
What to Track (Weekly, Not Hourly)
Focus on trends, not fluctuations. Here’s what actually matters:
-
Impressions and Clicks:
→ GSC → Performance tab → Filter by page or query
→ Are your key pages gaining visibility?
-
Average Position:
→ Track branded and non-branded keywords
→ Ignore minor dips. Look for long-term patterns.
-
Top Pages:
→ See which URLs are pulling the most traffic
→ Are they the pages you want ranking?
-
CTR (Click-Through Rate):
→ If impressions are high but clicks are low, revisit your title tags and meta descriptions.
SEO doesn’t reward panic-checking. Set a schedule, watch your trends, and act when something’s off, not every time your rank drops a position overnight.
Update XML Sitemap and Robots.txt
Your sitemap and robots.txt file are Google’s cheat sheet for crawling your site. But most teams forget to clean them up after launch, and that's how low-priority pages get indexed while valuable ones get ignored.
XML Sitemap: Clean and Current
Your sitemap should:
- Only include live, indexable URLs
- Exclude 404s, redirects, no-index pages, and anything behind a login
- Reflect your actual site structure, not every URL your CMS vomits out
Submit it (or resubmit it) in Google Search Console under Indexing → Sitemaps. Don’t assume it’s working just because it was submitted once.
Robots.txt: Check for Blocked Gold
Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. Ask:
- Are you blocking anything critical (e.g.
/blog/,/product/)? - Is there a
Disallow: /still in place from staging? Yes, it happens. - Are you allowing access to JS/CSS files that affect rendering?
Quick Wins
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| Sitemap includes dead pages | Regenerate it via CMS or plugin after cleanup |
| robots.txt blocks critical folders | Remove or update disallow rules |
| Sitemap not submitted or stuck in “Couldn’t fetch” | Double-check the URL and server response (200 status only) |
Your sitemap and robots.txt don’t need to be fancy. They just need to be accurate. Otherwise, Google’s crawling with bad directions and your best pages stay buried.
Set Up Alerts and Plan for Ongoing Content
Your site’s launched. You’ve fixed the tech. Now what?
Two things:
- Get alerted when something breaks.
- Keep publishing so your site doesn’t gather digital dust.
Set Up SEO Alerts (So You Don’t Get Blindsided)
You don’t need a full-time SEO person watching dashboards. You just need to know when things go off the rails.
Here’s what to set up:
- Index drop alerts → In Google Search Console, use email notifications
- Traffic dip alerts → Ahrefs / SEMrush → Set thresholds for organic traffic changes
- 404 monitor → Use your CMS, Ahrefs, or a simple uptime monitoring tool like UptimeRobot
- Error logs → If you’ve got dev support, track 5xx server errors post-deploy
No news is good news. But silence can also mean: “your forms stopped working 3 weeks ago.”
Create a Content Pipeline (Now, Not Later)
The biggest SEO killer post-launch? No new content. Your site stagnates. Rankings plateau. Google loses interest.
Start with:
- A backlog of search-driven blog posts
- Product updates → Turn these into release notes, use cases, FAQs
- Linkable content → Statistics, tools, explainers — stuff people will actually cite
Schedule at least one post a month. Two, if you’re serious. Add internal links. Share it. Track results.
Your site is never “done.” But if you've made it through this checklist, you're ahead of 90% of new launches.
FAQ: Post-Launch SEO Edition
Do I need to do all of this right after launch?
No. But the longer you wait, the more painful it gets. Prioritize indexing, redirects, and performance in week one. Schedule the rest over the next 2–3 weeks.
We’re using Webflow/Shopify/WordPress. Does this still apply?
Yes. CMS platforms can handle some of this for you, but they won’t fix broken links, bad content, or crawl traps. You still need to audit what actually shipped.
How soon should I expect results?
Expect indexing within days. Rankings? Weeks to months. SEO’s slow to start but fast to compound, if your foundations are clean.
Do I need to hire an SEO agency for this?
Not if you (or someone on your team) is willing to spend 4–6 hours going through this checklist carefully. Most of this is just structured common sense + attention to detail.
What’s the one thing most people screw up post-launch?
No-index tags left on important pages. Redirects pointing to nowhere. Or launching and walking away like the internet will figure it out on its own.
