The week a new site goes live is busy: redirects, DNS, a last pass on mobile, a message to customers. Then the project chat goes quiet. Six months later the phone number in the footer is old, the contact form delivers nowhere, and Google still shows the previous branding on the map listing. Launch is a milestone. It is not maintenance.
This checklist is for owners who have just published, or who inherited a site and are not sure what “done” was supposed to include. It sits alongside our WordPress maintenance checklist and the notes on enquiry forms that people actually complete.
Confirm the plumbing in week one
Send a test enquiry from a phone that is not on the office Wi‑Fi. Check the thank-you page appears and that the message reaches a mailbox somebody reads. If you use Microsoft 365, that mailbox should be a shared address, not one person’s personal inbox. SPF and DKIM should already be in DNS so your own auto-replies are not treated as junk.
Open the site on a phone, a tablet and a desktop. Tap every number and email link. Try the cookie banner and the privacy page. If you moved from an old domain or an old host, work through the important URLs and confirm they redirect rather than 404. A new homepage that ranks while the old service pages die is how you lose the traffic you paid to win.
SSL should show a padlock. If the certificate was issued for the www host and you launched on the apex, or the other way round, browsers will complain. That is a hosting and DNS job, not a design one. See SSL certificates explained if the warning is already up.
Tell Google and your existing customers
- Update Google Business Profile with the new URL, photos and the same hours as the website
- Ask Search Console to index the homepage and key service pages once you have access
- Change the link in email signatures, invoices, social bios and any QR codes in the workshop or reception
- Keep the old domain renewing if people still type it, and point it at the new site
- Publish one genuine update in the first month so the site does not look frozen on launch day
Local searches often stop on the map. If the listing still describes the previous site, you have done half the job. Our guide to Google Business Profile for North East firms covers the listing itself. Social profiles should use the same phone number and the same offer as the website — mixed messages cost calls. If you have printed materials still in circulation, a short URL or QR that you control is kinder than reprinting everything in week one.
Agree who updates what
A site you cannot edit will rot. You do not need to become a developer. You do need a login, a short note on how to change a page, and a named person for plugin updates, backups and uptime. Cheap hosting with nobody watching it is how launched sites quietly pick up spam users and outdated PHP.
Decide what “updated” means for your kind of business. A trades firm might add a completed job and a winter hours note. A professional office might refresh bios and a PDF brochure. A shop needs stock and delivery dates. None of that requires a redesign. It does require someone whose job includes looking at the site on a phone once a month.
If you run ads — Google, Meta or otherwise — the landing page you paid for should still match the offer. A launched site that later changes prices without changing the ad destination wastes the spend. Forms on those pages need the same mailbox test as the main contact form.
WordPress in particular needs a rhythm: core and plugin updates, a backup you can restore, and a staging copy for risky changes. That is ordinary managed hosting, not a new project. If the build was custom, the same rule applies to the app and its database.
Garvey's IT designs sites with that aftercare in mind — web design, UK hosting and, if you want it, social media from the same Stockton team. Send us the live URL if you want a post-launch check of forms, SSL, backups and the Google listing before the project is truly closed.
Common questions
How soon should we update a new website after launch?
Correct anything wrong in the first week — hours, phone number, service list. After that, a monthly pass is enough for most brochure sites: a news or project note, a check that the form still arrives, and a glance at Search Console if you use it.
Who should own the website after the designer hands it over?
Someone in the business must be able to change hours, staff names and offers without waiting a week. Hosting, updates and backups can sit with your IT or web partner. Split those jobs in writing so a plugin update is not left to whoever happens to remember.