Launching a new website is exciting! To ensure a smooth and successful launch, here’s a comprehensive Webflow-specific checklist covering design, content, SEO, technical, and post-launch essentials.
1. Design & Content
- Proofread all content (grammar, spelling, punctuation)
- Check all images for quality, optimization, and correct licensing
- Verify responsive design on desktop, tablet, and mobile breakpoints
- Test all interactions and animations for smoothness and usability
- Confirm consistent branding (colors, fonts, logo usage)
- Check favicon and webclip icon are uploaded and displaying correctly
- Remove any placeholder content or dummy text/images
- Ensure accessibility best practices (alt text, contrast, keyboard navigation)
2. SEO & Analytics
- Set page titles and meta descriptions for all pages
- Add Open Graph (OG) images and metadata for social sharing
- Use proper heading hierarchy (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
- Create and submit a sitemap (Webflow auto-generates one)
- Set up 301 redirects for any changed or removed URLs
- Connect Google Analytics or other analytics tools
- Connect Google Search Console
- Enable SSL (HTTPS) in Webflow hosting settings
- Add robots.txt rules if needed
- Check URL structure for clean, descriptive slugs
- Compress images for faster load times
- Minify CSS and JS in Webflow site settings
3. Technical & Functionality
- Test all forms (submission, notifications, integrations)
- Verify CMS collections display correctly
- Check dynamic content populates as expected
- Test all links (internal and external)
- Check 404 page is customized and helpful
- Set correct timezone and language settings
- Enable backups/version history
- Disable Webflow staging password before launch
- Remove unused pages, styles, and assets
- Check site speed with tools like Google PageSpeed Insights
4. Hosting & Domain
- Connect custom domain and verify DNS settings
- Set default domain (www or non-www)
- Enable SSL certificate
- Check domain propagation and site accessibility
- Unpublish Webflow.io staging domain if desired
5. Post-Launch
- Submit sitemap to Google Search Console
- Announce launch on social media, email, etc.
- Monitor site traffic and performance
- Check for crawl errors in Search Console
- Collect user feedback
- Schedule regular backups
- Plan ongoing SEO and content updates
Bonus Tips
- Create a backup before launch in Webflow
- Use Webflow’s Audit panel to catch accessibility and SEO issues
- Test on multiple browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge)
- Set up cookie consent if required for GDPR compliance
- Prepare a launch announcement plan
Good luck with your website launch! 