The SEO checklist we run before every launch

Why a checklist beats intuition

After 350+ launches we kept finding the same 5 mistakes on every site. So we wrote them down. Then 5 became 12, became 28. The checklist is now mandatory for every launch — including ours.

The 28 checks

• Single H1, properly nested heading hierarchy
• Meta titles under 60 chars, descriptions under 160
• Open Graph + Twitter cards on every page
• JSON-LD: Organization, WebSite, BreadcrumbList minimum
• Canonical URLs on every page
• robots.txt + sitemap.xml + IndexNow ping
• hreflang for multilingual sites
• 404 page that converts (not just an error)
• Internal links from at least 3 places to every key page
• Alt text on every meaningful image
• LCP under 2.5s on mobile (target 1.5s)
• CLS under 0.1 (target 0)
• INP under 200ms
• Image dimensions specified to prevent layout shift
• Fonts subset and self-hosted
• No render-blocking JavaScript
• Lazy loading below the fold
• Preload critical resources
• HTTPS + HSTS
• Forms work without JavaScript
• Structured data validates in Rich Results Test
• Mobile-friendly test passes
• Page indexable (no accidental noindex)
• Friendly URL slugs
• 404s redirected from old site
• Analytics + Search Console verified
• Conversion goals tracked
• First Contentful Paint under 1.8s