Website launch: the pre-launch checklist

Every lesson in this track converges on this final pass. This is the pass you run before the site’s address leaves your hands — ordered so the checks most likely to fail, and slowest to fix, come first. Set aside one honest hour.

Data: is the site serving what you think?

Start with the board connection, because nothing else on this list matters if you announce a site full of samples believing it is live. If your approval has landed, confirm the grid shows real inventory and open three listings end to end — photos, map pin, details. If you are still waiting on the board, that can be a legitimate launch choice, but make it consciously: the sample data is clearly labeled, and your announcement should not say “browse my listings” until the real feed is on.

Identity: domain, brand, tab

Three quick looks. The address bar: are you launching on your connected domain — the connection lesson takes minutes if you deferred it — or deliberately on the subdomain? Promotion should wait for the domain. The browser tab: your icon, in your colour. The pages: your headshot where the template features it, no stretched or placeholder imagery anywhere.

Content: read every page aloud once

Slow, but it catches what skimming cannot. The homepage says its one thing and its buttons all point to the one action. The about page is current. The community pages would survive a local’s reading. And the details layer — the layer everyone skips — is right: phone number correct, email correct, brokerage name exactly as registered, office address current. Advertising rules care about that layer, and so does every referrer who checks you out before passing your name along.

Legal: confirm the automatic layer

Your site ships its terms, privacy policy, and the board-required listing disclosures automatically — you did not have to write them, but you should confirm the variables inside them are true: your brokerage identification and contact details flow from your account settings, so a stale setting means a stale legal page. Two minutes in the footer links settles it.

Capture: the test lead

Run the end-to-end test from the capture lesson if you have not in the last week: private window, enquiry on a listing, confirm it lands in your CRM and the notification reaches your phone. Add one more check here: the valuation page is reachable from your navigation, and your nurture plan is reviewed and consciously on or off — not sitting in a state you have never looked at.

Mobile: walk it with your thumb

On your actual phone, not a resized browser window: homepage, search, one listing, one community page, the enquiry form. Type in the form fields for real — mobile form bugs are felt, not seen. Most of your visitors will only ever meet this version of your site.

Announce it

Done means every section above passed today — then ship the link to your database, your social profiles, your email signature, and your print reorder. If the sequencing of the whole journey is useful to see in one place, the launch timeline guide lays it out, and the fast-path version compresses it for the impatient.

The mistake that costs the most

Announcing on a feeling instead of a checklist. The failure mode is never dramatic — it is a typo’d email address quietly eating enquiries for a month. One hour of verification buys you the right to promote the site hard, which is exactly what the next lessons are about.