Website launch checklist

This is a generic checklist of things to check before deploying any public-facing website.

The below list is inspired by this episode of the Syntax FM podcast.

Automated robot checkers:

• Lighthouse - can be launched via Chrome developer tools

• SEO checkers/audits, to make sure all the major SEO tags and metadata is filled on all pages

• Accessibility checks, such as axe, to make sure all the buttons, links, images etc. have correct accessibility metadata. Also checks for sufficient contrast on all items, to make sure the page can be seen and read by people with non-ideal vision.

Build tools & performance:

• Code splitting: make sure the code bundles are minified and split, i.e. only parts of the code that are required are loaded

• Use PageSpeed Insights to check website's performance

• If a service workers are used, make sure to disable it on launch to prevent the end user caching the website for a long time. The SW should be enabled once the website is stable and no more fixes/patches are expected

Compatibility:

• Test the website on all browsers that we expect to support. Ask all employees to check the website on all of their devices

Content:

• Check spelling and grammar. Make sure multiple people go through the texts on all pages. Make sure there is no placeholder text (lorem ipsum etc.)

• A working 404 page. Make sure it exists and looks acceptable

Accessibility (in addition to the robot checkers):

• Correct tab order. Use the site with keyboard only and make sure it’s a good experience. Tab order should make sense and not jump around the page unpredictably

SEO (in addition to the robot checkers):

• Sitemap created and uploaded to Google Webmaster Tools

• Correct heading hierarchy. Every page should have no more than one H1 tag, and any lower tags should be preceded by a higher order tag (no H3 directly under H1)

Analytics:

• Google analytics

• Facebook tracking pixel

• Any other analytics platforms should be initialized (such as drip)

Server config & access:

• .htaccess, if applicable

• Redirects where needed

• robots.txt, configure where and what the crawlers should have access to

• Enable GZIP compression on the server

• Caching, Cloudflare or other CDN, especially on all static pages

Other generic points and pitfalls:

• Make sure tests are passing

• Git issues are closed

• Merge pull requests

• Write documentation on processes (readme, etc.)

• Deploy to staging environment and test production build

• No unwanted logs or errors left in production build

• Check TODO: comments in the code

• DNS Propagation