New Website Launch Week: The Checklist That Protects Your Rankings

Short answer: the week a new website goes live, make sure Google can find it, nothing you had before is lost, every form and phone link works, and your analytics are recording. Then tell Google, your customers and every directory that the new site exists.

Day 1: make sure Google can find it

• Verify the site in Google Search Console and submit the sitemap.
• Check that no page carries a leftover "noindex" tag from development.
• Request indexing for the homepage and your top service pages.
• Confirm robots.txt allows search and AI crawlers.

Day 1: don't lose what you had

• If page addresses changed, add 301 redirects from every old URL to its new home.
• Search site:yourdomain.com a few days later for broken old pages.
• Keep the same domain if at all possible.

Day 2: test everything a customer touches

• Submit every form and confirm the email arrives — check the spam folder too.
• Tap every phone number and booking button on an actual phone.
• Open the site on a slow connection and see what loads first.

Day 2: confirm the numbers are recording

• Check GA4 shows your own visit in real time.
• Mark form submissions and calls as key events so you can count leads.
• Link GA4 to Search Console.

Days 3–5: tell the world

• Update the website link on your Google Business Profile.
• Update Apple Maps, Bing Places, Yelp, Facebook and your trade directories.
• Email past customers and ask the happiest ones for a review.
• Add the link to your email signature, invoices and social profiles.

Day 7: take the baseline

Search your top ten customer questions on Google, ChatGPT and Perplexity and record who gets named. Repeat monthly — it's the simplest way to watch your AI visibility grow.

Every build I offer includes this launch week, done for you, with the baseline delivered as your before-and-after visibility audit. Expect results on the timeline in how long SEO takes.