WordPress site launch checklist for agencies coordinating client-owned go-live work

Name the client-side final approver and confirm they can make the go-live decision.

Confirm the launch scope, including domains, subdomains, languages, and excluded pages.

Identify the WordPress administrator who can invite agency users safely.

Invite agency users with the least permissions needed for launch work.

Confirm the hosting account owner and the safe support escalation path.

Confirm the registrar, DNS host, and person available for DNS changes.

Record the planned launch window, time zone, agency deployer, and client backup contact.

Approve final copy for the homepage, service pages, about page, landing pages, and legal pages.

Confirm image, logo, testimonial, case study, and downloadable asset permissions.

Review menu labels, footer links, social links, phone numbers, addresses, and service areas.

Confirm plugin license ownership, renewal responsibility, and production activation limits.

Review theme license ownership and whether child-theme or custom-code changes are documented.

Confirm form recipients, autoresponders, CRM routing, spam protection, and notification owners.

Prepare the redirect map for changed URLs, removed pages, taxonomy archives, and priority posts.

Confirm the backup plan, restore owner, and rollback contact before production changes begin.

Take a fresh database and file backup immediately before production deployment.

Verify maintenance mode, password protection, and staging blocks are removed from production only.

Confirm production environment variables, salts, mail settings, and cache settings are correct.

Run the launch deployment or migration using the approved production process.

Update DNS records only after the launch owner confirms the cutover window is open.

Verify SSL, canonical host, www or apex behavior, and forced HTTPS after DNS resolves.

Test the homepage, priority templates, navigation, footer, search, and important conversion paths.

Submit every production form and confirm the right inbox, CRM, or automation receives it.

Confirm transactional emails, contact notifications, and SMTP settings send from production.

Run redirect checks for priority legacy URLs and any URLs with paid, search, or referral traffic.

Check robots.txt, XML sitemap, canonical tags, noindex settings, and Search Console verification.

Purge page cache, object cache, CDN cache, and plugin cache after production validation.

Test mobile breakpoints, menus, sticky elements, cookie banners, and embedded third-party widgets.

Confirm analytics, Tag Manager, conversion events, and consent behavior are firing on production.

Ask the named client approver to approve launch or list exact blockers before public announcement.

Monitor uptime, DNS stability, SSL status, and cache behavior through the first business day.

Review form submissions, CRM records, booking flows, and notification inboxes after real traffic arrives.

Check Search Console coverage, sitemap discovery, indexing issues, and crawl errors after launch.

Review analytics traffic, conversion events, source attribution, and any ecommerce or booking goals.

Confirm redirects are working for high-value URLs and correct any missed legacy paths.

Document known exceptions, accepted post-launch items, and owners for each follow-up task.

Remove temporary agency admin users or reduce permissions according to the handoff plan.

Confirm plugin, theme, core update, backup, and security monitoring responsibility after launch.

Send the client the production URL, admin access path, support process, and launch approval record.

Schedule a post-launch review for content corrections, SEO checks, and stakeholder feedback.

Confirm privacy, cookie, accessibility, and legal changes that moved to post-launch have owners.

Archive the launch checklist, blocker decisions, final approval, and rollback notes for reference.

Verify third-party integrations such as maps, chat, calendars, payment embeds, and marketing tools.

Review 404 logs or analytics landing-page errors for old URLs that still need redirects.

Close the launch only after blockers are resolved or approved as documented exceptions.