A website launch should feel exciting, not stressful.
But a lot of small business sites go live missing something important. Sometimes it’s a broken contact form. Sometimes it’s a page that still says “Lorem ipsum.” Sometimes it’s bigger, no SSL certificate, no analytics, no way to actually be found on Google.
None of those things are hard to fix. They’re just easy to overlook when you’re caught up in getting the design right.
This checklist covers what every small business website needs before it goes live. Bookmark it. Use it.
The Basics
These are the non-negotiables. If any of these are missing, the site isn’t ready.
- A working contact form: test it yourself. Send a message and make sure it lands somewhere you’ll actually see it.
- A real email address connected to your domain: yourname@yourbusiness.com builds more trust than a Gmail address.
- An SSL certificate: this is what puts the padlock in the browser bar and makes your URL start with https. Most hosts include this for free. Without it, browsers may flag your site as unsafe.
- A privacy policy: legally required in many cases and expected by visitors. If you’re collecting any information through forms or analytics, you need one.
- All placeholder content removed: no “Lorem ipsum,” no dummy images, no pages that are still empty.
Content & Clarity
Your site can look great and still fail to convert if the content isn’t doing its job.
- A clear headline on your homepage: visitors should know within a few seconds what you do and who you do it for.
- A services or offerings page: people need to know what they can hire you for before they reach out.
- An about page: people buy from people. A short, genuine about page builds trust faster than almost anything else.
- At least one strong call to action: what do you want visitors to do? Contact you, book a call, request a quote? Make it obvious.
- Contact information that’s easy to find: don’t make people hunt for it.
SEO Foundations
You don’t need to be an SEO expert to get the basics right before launch.
- A unique page title and meta description for each page: this is what shows up in Google search results. Every page should have its own.
- Your business name, city, and service area mentioned on the site: especially important for local businesses.
- Images with alt text: a short description on each image helps with accessibility and search visibility.
- Google Search Console set up: this tells Google your site exists and lets you monitor how it’s performing. Free and takes about ten minutes.
- Google Analytics (or equivalent) installed: you can’t improve what you can’t measure.
Technical
These are easy to overlook and worth double-checking before you hit publish.
- The site works on mobile: more than half of web traffic is on phones. If your site is hard to use on mobile, you’re losing people.
- Pages load reasonably fast: slow sites lose visitors. Google’s PageSpeed Insights will give you a free report.
- No broken links: click through your navigation and any buttons or links in your content.
- Favicon set: the small icon that shows up in the browser tab. A small detail that makes the site feel finished.
- Your old site (if there was one) properly redirected: if you had an existing site, make sure old URLs point to the right new pages so you don’t lose any search ranking you’d built up.
Before You Announce
- Read every page out loud: you’ll catch typos and awkward phrasing faster this way than reading silently.
- Have someone else look at it: a fresh set of eyes will spot things you’ve gone blind to.
- Test on multiple browsers: Chrome, Safari, Firefox. Make sure nothing looks broken.
- Test your forms one more time: seriously, just do it again.
Launching a website is a big deal. A few extra checks before you go live can save a lot of embarrassment and cleanup afterward.
If you’d rather hand this off entirely and have a developer handle it from start to finish, contact Formosa Web for a free consultation. We’ll make sure nothing gets missed.
