Website launch checklist for a new UK business

Before you press publish

Launching a website is exciting, and it’s very easy to miss the practical details. This is the checklist we use, grouped by what tends to go wrong. It’s written for UK businesses, but most of it applies anywhere. It’s not legal advice, so check anything legal with a qualified adviser.

Legal and company details

If you trade as a limited company, the law expects certain details on your website, even if you trade under a different brand name.

• Your registered company name, exactly as it appears at Companies House.
• Your company number and where it’s registered (for example, England and Wales).
• Your registered office address.
• If you’re VAT registered, your VAT number.
• A privacy notice explaining what personal data you collect and why.
• A cookie notice, and a consent choice if you use non-essential cookies such as analytics.

Under UK rules, non-essential cookies like analytics need consent before they’re set. “Reject” should be as easy as “Accept”.

Contact and enquiries

This is the part of the site that turns visitors into enquiries, so test it properly.

• Send a test enquiry through every form, and check where it lands.
• Make sure someone monitors that inbox.
• Check your phone number works as a link on mobile.
• If you use a booking tool, book a test slot and cancel it.
• Say what happens next and roughly when people will hear back.

Search and discovery

• Remove any “noindex” settings and robots rules left over from the preview.
• Give every page a unique title and description that says what’s on it.
• Create an XML sitemap and submit it in Google Search Console.
• Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools too. It takes five minutes.
• Add basic structured data for your organisation: name, logo, contact details.
• Set up a Google Business Profile if you’re eligible: Google generally requires in-person contact with customers. Online-only businesses aren’t eligible. Check Google’s eligibility requirements first.

Sharing previews

When someone shares your link on LinkedIn, WhatsApp or Slack, the preview uses your Open Graph tags. Without them, you get a blank box or a random image.

• Add an og:image to every main page, ideally 1200 by 630 pixels.
• Check each page’s title and description in the preview.
• Test a share on LinkedIn before you announce the launch.

Accessibility and quality

• Check the site works with a keyboard alone.
• Add alt text to meaningful images, and leave decorative ones empty.
• Check colour contrast on text and buttons.
• Test on a real phone, not just a narrow browser window.
• Run a quick automated check, then fix what it finds. Automated tools only catch part of the problem, so test the main journeys yourself too.

Speed

• Compress images and use modern formats like WebP or AVIF.
• Keep the number of separate stylesheet and script files low.
• Test with PageSpeed Insights on mobile, not just desktop.

Ownership and upkeep

• Make sure the business, not the designer or developer, owns the domain, hosting and analytics accounts.
• Store login details in a password manager the business controls.
• Set up backups and know how to restore them.
• Agree who updates the content and how often you’ll review it.

After launch

Give it a couple of weeks, then check Search Console for crawl errors, look at which pages people visit and ask your first few customers how they found you. That last question often tells you more than any analytics tool.

Digital Foundations covers your identity, website and launch assets, including the search metadata and handover. Get in touch if you’d like help getting it right first time.