Website Launch Checklist: 25 Things to Do Before You Go Live

You have spent weeks, maybe months building your online store. The products are loaded, the design looks great, and you are ready to hit publish. But before you do, take a breath.

Skipping your pre-launch checks is one of the most common reasons new stores struggle out of the gate, and fixing issues after launch is always harder and more expensive than catching them before.

This website launch checklist covers the 25 most important things to verify before your ecommerce store goes live.

Your Ecommerce Launch Checklist: 25 Things to Do Before You Go Live

Think of this ecommerce checklist as your final quality control pass. Each item here represents a real gap that causes lost sales, broken experiences, or legal exposure. Whether you are building an online store on a budget or investing in a fully custom build, move through them in order and do not skip anything just because it feels minor.

DOMAIN AND HOSTING

1. Connect your custom domain: Your store should be live on a branded domain, not a default platform subdomain. Confirm that your domain is connected, and resolve correctly. A clean domain builds immediate trust with customers and signals that you are a legitimate business.
2. Enable your SSL certificate: Your store URL should display https:// before anything else. SSL encryption protects customer data and is a Google ranking factor. Most hosting providers and platforms offer free SSL, so there is no reason to skip this. Customers who see “Not Secure” will leave immediately.
3. Check your site speed: Slow pages cost you sales. Use Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to test your load time across mobile and desktop. Aim for under three seconds. Compress large images, remove unused plugins, and enable caching if your platform supports it.

DESIGN AND USER EXPERIENCE

4. Test on mobile devices: More than half of online shoppers browse and buy on their phones, so your mobile ecommerce experience needs to be flawless. Check every page on at least two different devices. Buttons should be easy to tap, text should be readable, and nothing should overflow or break on smaller screens.
5. Check for broken links and 404 errors: Broken links frustrate customers and hurt your SEO. Use a tool like Screaming Frog or your platform’s built-in checker to identify and fix any broken internal links, missing images, or dead-end pages before your store goes live.
6. Review your navigation and menu structure: A confused customer is a lost customer. Make sure your main navigation is clear, logical, and leads people where they expect to go. Test every menu link, dropdown, and button to confirm they all work and take users to the right pages.
7. Add a favicon: A favicon is the small icon that appears in browser tabs and bookmarks. It is a small detail that signals professionalism. Design one that reflects your brand and upload it through your platform settings before launch.

PRODUCT PAGES

8. Review all product titles and descriptions: Every product on your online store needs a clear, specific title and a description that answers the buyer’s questions. Weak or missing descriptions are one of the most common reasons customers do not convert. Strong product descriptions do the selling work for you, so invest the time to get them right.
9. Upload high-quality product images: Your images are doing the job a physical store display would do. Use clean, well-lit photos from multiple angles, and include lifestyle images where relevant. Make sure images are optimised for the web, that is, high quality, but not so large they slow your pages down.
10. Set accurate pricing and inventory: Check every product for correct pricing, including any variants like sizes or colours. Confirm that your inventory numbers are accurate and that out-of-stock items are clearly labelled rather than left available to order without fulfilment.
11. Configure product variants and options: If your products come in multiple sizes, colours, or bundles, test every combination to make sure variants are set up correctly. A customer who adds the wrong item to their cart because of a misconfigured variant will not be a happy customer.

CHECKOUT AND PAYMENTS

12. Test your payment gateway: Run a real test transaction before you go live. Confirm that your payment gateway is not in test mode, that payments process correctly, and that the customer receives an order confirmation email. This applies whether you use Paystack, Flutterwave, Stripe, or PayPal.
13. Test the full checkout flow: Walk through your entire checkout process as a customer would. Add a product, proceed to checkout, enter shipping details, and complete the purchase. Check for any friction points, confusing steps, or errors that could cause someone to abandon their order.
14. Set up abandoned cart recovery: Customers will leave your checkout without completing their purchase and that is a fact of ecommerce. Set up an automated email sequence to recover those abandoned carts before launch, not after. This is one of the highest-ROI automations any store can have from day one.
15. Confirm tax settings: Tax configuration depends on where you are selling and where your customers are based. Set your tax rates correctly for your relevant regions, Nigeria, the US, the EU, or wherever you sell. Getting this wrong creates serious problems down the line.

SHIPPING AND FULFILMENT

16. Configure your shipping methods and rates: Set up all your shipping options such as flat rate, free shipping, or carrier-calculated rates and make sure the right rates display at checkout. Customers need to see clear delivery costs before they commit to buying. Unexpected shipping fees at checkout are a leading cause of cart abandonment.
17. Set your delivery timelines and fulfilment process: Confirm that your estimated delivery times are accurate and clearly communicated on your product and checkout pages. Also document your internal fulfilment process including how orders move from purchase to delivery so you can handle volume smoothly from day one.

SEO AND ANALYTICS

18. Write meta titles and descriptions for all key pages: Every page on your store homepage, product pages, category pages should have a unique, keyword-rich meta title and description. This is foundational for your website launch checklist and one of the most impactful pre-launch SEO tasks you can complete.
19. Set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console: Install GA4 tracking and connect your store to Google Search Console before launch. These tools give you data from day one, including where your traffic comes from, which pages perform well, and any indexing issues Google flags on your site.
20. Submit your XML sitemap: Generate and submit your sitemap to Google Search Console so search engines can crawl and index your pages efficiently. Most platforms generate a sitemap automatically, your job is to make sure it is submitted and that Google can access it.

LEGAL AND TRUST

21. Publish your Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, and Refund Policy: These pages are not optional. They protect your business legally and build trust with customers who want to know how you handle their data and what happens if they need a refund. Link them clearly in your footer so they are easy to find on every page.
22. Add a cookie consent banner: If you serve customers in the EU or collect any data through analytics or marketing tools, which you do, a cookie consent notice is legally required. Add one that clearly explains what data you collect and gives users the option to accept or decline.
23. Display contact information clearly: Customers want to know there is a real person behind your store. Add your email address, phone number, or WhatsApp contact in your header, footer, or a dedicated Contact page. Visible contact details reduce hesitation and increase conversions.

PRE-LAUNCH FINAL CHECKS

24. Review your email notifications: Check every automated email your store sends such as order confirmations, shipping updates, password resets and make sure they are on-brand, accurate, and going to the right addresses. A confusing or missing order confirmation email creates immediate customer anxiety.
25. Do a full cross-browser and cross-device test: View your store on Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge, as well as on both Android and iOS devices. What looks perfect in one browser can break in another. This final check catches display issues that could affect a significant portion of your potential customers.

Conclusion

A successful store launch is not just about having a great-looking website, but also about making sure everything behind the scenes works the way it should.

This ecommerce website launch checklist covers the technical, design, legal, and operational details that separate stores that convert from ones that frustrate.  Whether you are just starting an online store for the first time or rebuilding an existing one, work through each item before you go live, and you will be launching from a position of strength rather than scrambling to fix problems after customers have already shown up. 

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