Website Launch Checklist for UK Small Businesses

A laptop, keyboard and desk lamp on a wooden workspace

A website launch checklist should help you decide whether real customers can use the site and whether your team can support it. For a UK small business, that means checking service information and enquiry routes as carefully as colours and layout. Give each check an owner, an expected result and somewhere to record evidence.

Start with the agreed scope

Take the current design brief and list the pages and functions promised for launch. Mark anything deliberately deferred. A feature left out by agreement is different from something everyone assumed another person would finish. Resolve that distinction before you approve the release.

Choose three priority visitor tasks. Examples might be checking your service area, finding a price explanation and sending an enquiry. Ask someone outside the project to attempt each task without coaching. Record where they hesitate and whether they reach the intended result.

Check content and contact details

Confirm the business name, telephone number and service coverage.
Read page titles, headings and button labels in context.
Remove placeholder text and unfinished downloads.
Check image permissions, credits and useful alternative text.
Test links in menus, footers and priority service pages.

Ask a colleague who knows the service to review factual claims. A designer can make information readable, but the business still needs to confirm that opening hours, availability and descriptions are accurate.

Test the whole enquiry journey

Submit an agreed test enquiry using clearly fictional test details. Confirm that the message reaches the right staff member and that the visitor receives a useful confirmation. Check the process on a phone as well as a larger screen. A form that looks complete but delivers to an unattended inbox has not passed the check.

Write down who will monitor incoming enquiries on launch day. Include an alternative contact route if the form fails and agree who can make an urgent correction. Keep test messages separate from genuine customer records.

Make accessibility checks meaningful

W3C’s Easy Checks covers introductory reviews of titles, headings, image alternatives, keyboard access and forms. These checks can reveal problems, but W3C stresses that passing them does not establish full accessibility. Agree a suitable wider assessment with your agency.

Try the priority journeys using only a keyboard and with enlarged text. Record the page, action and problem instead of writing only “accessibility checked”. The record should help another person reproduce and fix the issue.

Agree the release and the first review

Name the person who can approve launch, the person performing it and the contact for problems. Ask how the previous version can be recovered if an essential journey breaks. Avoid launching just before everyone responsible becomes unavailable.

After release, repeat the priority checks on the public site. Review enquiries and reported problems during the first few working days. A completed checklist is evidence for a decision, rather than a promise that no further issue can occur.