Website Launch Checklist

Pre-Launch

Content and Style
Typography and layout 1->Check for incorrect punctuation marks, particularly apostrophes,quotation marks and hyphens/dashes 2->Check headings for where you could potentially use ligatures 3->Check for widow/orphan terms in important paragraphs
Spelling and grammar
1->Consistency Capitalisation (especially of main headings) 2->Tense/style of writing 3->Recurring/common phrases (e.g. ‘More about X’ links) 4->Variations in words (e.g. Websites vs Web Sites, or UK vs US spelling) Treatment of bulleted lists (e.g. periods or commas at end of each item) 5->Check for hard-coded links to staging domain (i.e. ensure all links will Change to ‘live’ URL/domain when site is launched) Ensure no test content is on the live site 6->Check how important pages (e.g. content items) print For redesigns, ensure important old/existing URLs are redirected to relevant new URLs, if the URL scheme is changing 7->Check all ‘hidden’ copy (e.g. alt text, transcriptions, text in JavaScript functions)
Standards and Validation
Accessibility 1->HTML validation 2->JavaScript validation 3->CSS validation
Search Engine Visibility, SEO and Metrics
1->Page titles are important; ensure they make sense and have relevant keywords in them 2->Create metadata descriptions for important pages 3->Check for canonical domain issues (e.g. variations in links to http://site.com, http://www.site.com, http://www.site.com/index.html should be reduced to a single consistent style) 4->Ensure content is marked-up semantically/correctly , etc.) 5->Check for target keyword usage in general content 6->Check format of URLs for user and search engine friendliness 7->Set up Analytics, FeedBurner, and any other packages for measuring on-going success 8->Create an XML Sitemap 9->Configure Google Webmaster Console and Yahoo! Site Explorer
Functional Testing
Check all bespoke/complex functionality 1->Check search functionality (including relevance of results) 2->Check on common variations of browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari,Chrome etc.), version (6, 7, 2.2, 3.1 etc.) and platform (Windows, OSX, Linux) 3->Check on common variations of screen resolution 4->Test all forms (e.g. contact us, blog comments), including anti-spam features,response emails/text, etc. 5->Test without JavaScript, Flash, and other plug-ins 6->Check all external links are valid
Security/Risk
1->Configure backup schedule, and test recovery from backup 2->Protect any sensitive pages (e.g. administration area) 3->Use robots.txt where necessary 4->Security/penetration test 5->Turn off verbose error reporting
Check disk space/capacity
1->Set-up email/SMS monitoring/alerts (e.g. for errors, server warnings) 2->consider internal and external monitoring services
Performance
Load test 1->Check image optimisation 2->Check and implement caching where necessary 3->Check total page size/download time 4->Minify/compress static (JavaScript/HTML/CSS) files 5->Optimise your CSS; use short image paths, make full use of the ‘cascading’ nature of CSS, etc. 6->Check correct database indexing 7->Check configuration at every level (web server, database, any other software e.g.Content Management System) 8->Configure server-based logging/measurement tools (e.g. database/web server logging)
Finishing Touches
1->Create custom 404/error pages 2->Create a favicon
Post-Launch
Marketing 1->Social marketing: Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Facebook, Stumbleupon. 2->Submit to search engines on-going,Monitor and respond to feedback (direct feedback, on social media sites, check for chatter through Google, etc.) 3->Check analytics for problems, popular pages etc. and adjust as necessary Update 4->content