Quick answer: Before launching a website, check five things: it can be crawled and indexed (robots.txt, sitemap, canonicals, no leftover noindex), old URLs redirect with 301s, every page has a unique title, meta description and one H1, key pages answer buyer questions with schema, and performance and conversions are measured from day one.
Most SEO problems on new sites aren’t strategy problems. They’re launch mistakes: a staging noindex left on, redirects forgotten, every page titled “Home”. This checklist is the one we run before every launch.
Can search engines and AI crawlers access the site?
- Remove staging
noindextags and password protection. robots.txtallows the pages you want found and links to the sitemap.- An XML sitemap lists only canonical, indexable URLs.
- Every page has a self-referencing canonical URL.
- Decide deliberately which AI crawlers you allow.
Are old URLs redirected?
Map every URL from the old site to its closest new page and add permanent 301 redirects. Include old blog posts, PDFs and campaign pages. Check that nothing important returns a 404 after launch.
Is every page’s metadata unique?
- Title tag between 30 and 60 characters, with the service category and the brand.
- Meta description between 70 and 160 characters, with a benefit.
- Open Graph image and text for sharing.
- One H1 per page that states the topic, and a logical H2/H3 hierarchy.
Is the content ready to be cited?
- A one-sentence definition of what you do, for whom and where, on the homepage and About page.
- Key pages open sections with direct answers.
- FAQs where buyers ask questions, marked up with FAQPage schema.
- Organization schema with consistent name, logo, location and
sameAsprofiles. - Descriptive alt text on informative images.
Is it fast and accessible?
- Core Web Vitals within Google’s thresholds on mobile.
- Images in modern formats with responsive sizes.
- Keyboard navigation, focus states, contrast and labels checked.
Is it measured?
- Analytics and conversion events (forms, demo requests, email clicks) firing correctly.
- Search Console verified, sitemap submitted.
- A baseline of rankings and AI visibility recorded on launch day, so you can show progress.
How Yungle launches sites
Every Root project ships with this checklist completed and verified on the live site, and Growth picks up from the baseline. Launching soon or recently launched? A Free Growth Audit will catch what was missed.
Frequently asked questions
How long after launch will a new site rank? Indexing can take days; meaningful rankings usually take months, depending on competition and content.
Do I lose SEO when I redesign my website? Not if URLs are redirected, content that ranks is kept or improved, and the new site is technically sound.
