SEO Checklist for a New Website: Before and After Launch

A new website needs four things in place before launch for search engines to understand it: one clear topic per page, a unique title and description on every page, a clean technical setup (canonical links, sitemap.xml, a robots.txt that does not block anything), and fast pages on phones. After launch, verify the site in Google Search Console, submit the sitemap and watch what gets indexed. Everything below is that list in detail, in the order you will need it.

Before you build: plan pages around real searches

Search engines rank pages, not websites. Each page should answer one kind of search, and you should be able to say which. Write this down before you design anything, because it decides your page list, your URLs and your titles.

Here is a plan for a physiotherapy clinic in Bristol, as an example:

Page	What a customer searches	Example title
Home	physiotherapist bristol	Physiotherapy Clinic in Bristol, Clifton and Redland
Sports injuries	sports injury physio bristol	Sports Injury Physiotherapy in Bristol
Back and neck pain	physio for back pain bristol	Back and Neck Pain Treatment in Bristol
Prices	physio prices bristol	Physiotherapy Prices and Session Lengths
About	(the clinic's name)	About the Clinic and Our Physiotherapists
Contact	(the clinic's name) address	Contact and Directions

• Every page has one main topic you can name in a few words.
• No two pages target the same search. If they do, merge them.
• Every important page is reachable from the main navigation or the footer.
• The page list matches what customers look for, not your internal org chart.

If you are using FNJ's AI website builder, this plan doubles as most of your first prompt: give it the pages and what each one is for, along with a reference design, and the builder plans the site around them.

Before launch: on-page basics

Titles

The title element is one of the most important lines on the page for search. Google's SEO Starter Guide asks for titles that are unique, clear, concise and accurate.

• Every page has a different title.
• The main words come first. Long titles get cut off in results, so keep the important part within roughly the first 50 to 60 characters.
• Your business name appears once, usually at the end, not repeated in every phrase.
• No title is just "Home", "Services" or "Untitled".

For example:

• Weak: Home | Bristol Physio | Physio Bristol | Best Physiotherapist
• Better: Physiotherapy Clinic in Bristol, Clifton and Redland | Clinic Name

Meta descriptions

Google often writes its own snippet from the page, but it does use your description when it fits the search, so it is worth writing one.

• One unique description per page, written as a short pitch for that page.
• It says what is on the page and gives a reason to click: a price, a location, a next step.
• It matches the page. A description that promises things the page does not deliver just gets ignored.

Headings

• One H1 per page that states what the page is about.
• H2s for the main sections and H3s inside them, in order.
• Headings chosen for meaning, not for their font size.
• The words a customer searches appear naturally in the H1 or an H2.

URLs

• Short, lowercase words separated by hyphens: /sports-injuries, not /Page?id=12.
• One version of your domain. Pick www or bare, always HTTPS, and redirect the others to it.
• URLs you will not need to change later. If you are replacing an old site, map every old URL to its new one first; our redirect map guide for website migrations shows how.

Images

• Images resized and compressed before upload. A 4000px photo does not belong in a 600px slot.
• Alt text that describes meaningful images. Decorative images get an empty alt="".
• Descriptive file names (sports-massage-room.jpg, not IMG_4821.jpg).

Internal links

• Pages link to related pages with descriptive anchor text ("see our sports injury treatment"), not "click here".
• No page is an orphan that nothing links to.
• The footer repeats the key pages, the address and contact details.

Before launch: technical setup

Canonical links

A canonical link tells search engines which address is the real one for a page, so variants with tracking parameters or a different domain version consolidate into one:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/sports-injuries">

• Every page has a canonical link pointing to its own preferred URL.
• Canonicals use the final domain, not a staging or preview address.

sitemap.xml and robots.txt

• sitemap.xml exists at the root and lists only live, canonical pages (no redirects, no 404s, no noindexed pages).
• robots.txt exists, allows crawling and points to the sitemap:

User-agent: *
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

• There is no leftover staging rule like Disallow: /. This single line blocks crawling of the whole site, and it is easy to forget.
• There is no leftover noindex meta tag on pages you want found. Remember that robots.txt controls crawling, not indexing, so use noindex to keep a page out of results.

Social previews

• Open Graph tags (og:title, og:description, og:image, og:url) on every page, plus twitter:card.
• A share image around 1200 by 630 pixels with readable text.
• Test by pasting a link into a messaging app before announcing the launch.

Structured data

• For a local business, LocalBusiness or Organization markup in JSON-LD, with the same name, address and phone number shown on the page.
• Validated with Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator.
• Nothing in the markup that is not true or not visible on the page.

Speed and phones

Google's Core Web Vitals define "good" as Largest Contentful Paint of 2.5 seconds or less, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less.

• Run a Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights test on the home page and one inner page, on the mobile setting.
• The largest image at the top of the page loads quickly and has set dimensions, so nothing jumps.
• No unused third-party scripts: old chat widgets, duplicate analytics tags, abandoned pixels.
• Every page works at phone width with no sideways scrolling.

Error pages

• A custom 404 page that links back to the main sections.
• Missing pages return a real 404 status, not a 200 with an error message.

Launch day

1. Remove anything that blocks search engines: staging passwords, Disallow: /, noindex tags.
2. Turn on redirects from old URLs if you replaced a site, and test a handful by hand.
3. Verify the site in Google Search Console. A domain property covers every version of your domain and is verified with a DNS record. Google's getting started guide for Search Console explains the options.
4. Submit your sitemap in Search Console's Sitemaps report.
5. Inspect your home page and two or three key pages with the URL Inspection tool and request indexing.
6. Add the site to Bing Webmaster Tools, which can import a site you have already verified in Search Console.
7. Update your Google Business Profile if you have one, so the website link and the business details match the site exactly.
8. Install analytics if you use it, and check that a test visit shows up.
9. Share one link somewhere private and check the preview card.

The first month after launch

• Week one: open the Page indexing report. Statuses like "Discovered - currently not indexed" and "Crawled - currently not indexed" are common at first. Statuses such as "Blocked by robots.txt" or "Excluded by 'noindex' tag" on pages you want found need fixing right away.
• Weeks two to four: the Performance report starts to show queries. Look for pages with impressions but few clicks; a clearer title or description often helps.
• Search your own business name. Check how your titles and descriptions appear. Google sometimes rewrites titles, often because they are vague or stuffed.
• Earn a few genuine links: suppliers, partners, trade associations, local directories that real customers use. A handful of relevant links beats hundreds of junk directory listings.
• Leave your URLs alone. Changing them a month after launch resets work search engines have already done.
• Write where the demand is. If the Performance report shows searches you have no page for, that is your next page.

What you can skip

• Meta keywords. Google's SEO Starter Guide says Google Search does not use the keywords meta tag.
• A target word count. Write as much as the page needs to answer the question.
• Daily rank checking. New sites move around. Look at trends over weeks.

For a site built on Next.js, our Next.js SEO checklist for the App Router covers the framework-specific parts. If AI wrote some of your copy, read whether AI-built websites are bad for SEO before launch.

Where FNJ fits

FNJ's AI builder gives every page its own search title and description and a real heading structure. The exported Next.js or static HTML includes Open Graph and Twitter tags, a canonical link and structured data when you set them, and it generates sitemap.xml and robots.txt once you set the site's address, so set the address before you export. Hosting is yours, so the launch-day steps in Search Console are still up to you. See how FNJ's AI website builder sets up titles, sitemaps and export.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take for a new website to show up on Google?

It varies from a few days to several weeks, depending on how easily Google can discover the site. Verifying it in Search Console, submitting a sitemap and requesting indexing for key pages usually helps it get found sooner.

Do I need a sitemap for a small website?

Google can find well-linked pages without one, but a sitemap helps a new site get discovered and makes Search Console reports easier to read. It is worth having even for five pages.

What launch mistake can keep a new site out of Google entirely?

Leaving staging settings in place, such as a Disallow: / rule in robots.txt or a noindex tag on every page. Either one can keep the site's pages out of search results, or listed without a description, until someone notices and removes it.

Do Open Graph tags help SEO?

They do not affect rankings directly. They control the title, description and image shown when someone shares your link, which affects whether people click it.