SaaS Website Launch Checklist

Most SaaS launches are not derailed by bad ideas or poor execution — they are derailed by a long tail of small, preventable issues that compound. A broken form on mobile. A missing meta description. A hero headline that makes sense to the team but nothing to a first-time visitor. This checklist exists to catch all of it.

How to Use This Checklist

Run through these 47 points in the order listed — they are sequenced from foundational (broken things) to refinement (optimisation opportunities). Items 1–15 are blockers: a site should not go live with any of these unresolved. Items 16–47 are improvements: the site can launch, but each unresolved point is leaving conversion on the table.

Budget approximately 60 minutes for a thorough audit. If you find yourself spending longer, that is a signal — not a problem with the checklist, but an indication that the site has accumulated more unreviewed debt than expected.

Category 1 — Technical Foundation

• SSL certificate active and all pages loading over HTTPS with no mixed-content warnings
• All internal links resolve — no 404s, no redirects pointing to other redirects
• robots.txt is correctly configured and not blocking pages you want indexed
• XML sitemap generated and submitted to Google Search Console
• Canonical tags set correctly on all pages, especially if you have both www and non-www variants
• Redirect chains resolved: all old URLs redirect directly to their final destination in a single hop
• Favicon set and displaying correctly across browsers and device types
• No console errors on any page load (open DevTools, check every key page)

Category 2 — Performance

• Google Lighthouse score: 90+ on Performance, Best Practices, Accessibility, and SEO on both desktop and mobile
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) under 2.5 seconds on a simulated 4G mobile connection
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) score below 0.1 — check especially on pages with hero images or embedded content
• All images served in WebP or AVIF format, with appropriate srcset for responsive sizing
• JavaScript bundle size under 200kb gzipped — use the Coverage tab in DevTools to identify unused code
• No render-blocking resources in the critical path — defer or async all non-essential scripts
• Font loading uses font-display: swap to prevent invisible text during load
• CDN active for all static assets

Performance is not a developer concern that lives outside the design brief — it is a conversion variable. A one-second delay in load time reduces conversions by approximately 7% on desktop and up to 20% on mobile. For a SaaS product targeting SMB or enterprise, where initial impressions carry significant weight, this matters.

Category 3 — SEO

• Every page has a unique, descriptive <title> tag between 50–60 characters
• Every page has a unique meta description between 120–155 characters that summarises the page benefit clearly
• H1 tag present on every page — exactly one per page, not zero, not two
• Heading hierarchy is logical: H1 → H2 → H3 with no skipped levels
• Primary keyword present naturally in the H1, first paragraph, and at least one H2
• OG tags (og:title, og:description, og:image) set for all pages that will be shared on social
• Structured data (JSON-LD) added for Organisation and WebSite at minimum; SoftwareApplication schema for the product pages
• All images have descriptive alt text — not "image1.jpg", not keyword-stuffed, just descriptive

Category 4 — Conversion Architecture

• The hero headline answers: who is this for, what does it do, why should I care — within 3 seconds of landing
• Primary CTA is present above the fold and repeated at every scroll depth where a visitor might be ready to act
• Social proof (logos, testimonials, or metrics) appears within the first two viewport-lengths
• Every form has been tested end-to-end: submit, receive confirmation, check that data reaches your CRM or email
• Mobile CTA is finger-friendly: minimum 44×44px touch target, not obscured by fixed navigation
• Pricing page clearly indicates which plan is recommended — anchoring and highlighting applied
• A secondary CTA exists for visitors who are not ready to commit: demo, case study, or newsletter
• Exit intent or scroll-triggered engagement exists for high-intent pages

Category 5 — Copywriting

• All feature descriptions are written as outcomes, not capabilities: "Close deals faster" not "Real-time deal tracking"
• No jargon that a non-expert visitor in your ICP would not recognise without looking it up
• Every testimonial has a named person, their title, and their company — anonymous quotes lose 60% of their trust value
• Pricing page objections are addressed inline, not buried in an FAQ that requires active effort to find
• CTA copy is specific: "Start your 14-day trial" not "Get started" — specificity reduces anxiety at the point of commitment
• Any use of "we" in copy has been reviewed: the page should be about the visitor, not about you

Category 6 — Analytics & Tracking

• GA4 or equivalent installed and verified firing on all pages — check with the Realtime report while browsing your own site
• Conversion events configured: form submits, demo bookings, trial starts tracked as Goal Completions
• Hotjar, FullStory, or equivalent session recording installed on key conversion pages
• UTM parameter tracking tested for all planned paid and email campaigns
• Google Search Console property verified with the correct domain (www vs non-www)

Category 7 — Accessibility

• Colour contrast ratio meets WCAG AA: 4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text and UI components
• All interactive elements (buttons, links, inputs) are keyboard-navigable in a logical order
• Focus states are visible — do not set outline: none without providing an alternative focus indicator
• All form fields have associated <label> elements, not just placeholder text
• Video content (if any) has captions or a transcript available

Category 8 — Cross-Device QA

• Tested on real iOS Safari (not just desktop Chrome with device emulation) — behaviour differences are significant
• Tested on Android Chrome on a mid-range device, not a flagship
• Tested at 1280px, 1440px, and 1920px wide desktop viewports — some layouts break at non-standard widths
• Navigation tested: mobile menu opens/closes correctly, dropdowns work on touch
• All animations and transitions tested on a device with Reduce Motion preference enabled
• Footer links, privacy policy, and terms pages all resolve and are current

“We used to spend three days on pre-launch QA and still find critical issues after going live. With this checklist, our last two launches went live in 90 minutes of audit time and we caught everything before it mattered.”

— Head of Engineering, B2B SaaS Platform