Launch SEO / 30-minute launch runbook

The 30-minute AI website launch checklist

A timed, practical pre-publish runbook for founders shipping an AI-built or no-code website.

9 min read6 sections

This runbook is for the final half hour before publishing. Start a timer, use the live production candidate rather than an editor preview, and stop the launch when a critical check fails.

Minutes 0–5: prove the production URL works

Open the exact public URL in a private browser window. Confirm HTTPS loads without a certificate warning, the preferred www or non-www version wins, and HTTP redirects once to the final HTTPS address.

Record the final URL. Every later check—canonical, Open Graph, sitemap, analytics, and sharing—must agree with it. A polished preview on a temporary builder domain does not count as production evidence.

Minutes 5–10: remove indexing blockers

Inspect the rendered page for meta robots and the response headers for X-Robots-Tag. The launch page must not carry noindex, and robots.txt must not inherit a staging-wide Disallow rule.

Verify that the canonical points to the same intended production page and that the URL appears in the current sitemap. If those signals disagree, pause and fix the conflict before requesting indexing.

Minutes 10–15: check what searchers will see

Read the title and description as a stranger. They should explain the page’s specific job, not repeat the company name or an AI builder’s default copy. Confirm there is one clear H1 that matches the promise.

Check the page source or rendered head, not only the CMS fields. Client-side templates sometimes fail to emit metadata into the HTML that crawlers receive.

Minutes 15–20: run the conversion path

Use the primary CTA exactly as a visitor would. Submit the form, follow the confirmation state, inspect the destination, and verify that errors explain how to recover.

Then check analytics in a debug or realtime view. A tag merely appearing in source is weaker evidence than the intended event arriving with the correct page and action context.

Minutes 20–25: test sharing and mobile

Paste the production URL into a social preview debugger or inspect og:title, og:description, og:image, and og:url. The image must be public and the preview must describe this page, not a generic template.

Repeat the primary journey on a narrow viewport. Look for clipped headings, hidden buttons, overlapping sticky elements, horizontal scrolling, and forms that trigger the wrong mobile keyboard.

Minutes 25–30: assign post-launch ownership

Write down who will watch uptime, form submissions, analytics, Search Console, and application errors during the first day. Also record the rollback action for DNS, deployment, and tracking changes.

Launch only when every critical failure has an owner and resolution. Warnings may be accepted deliberately; unknowns should not be silently converted into passes. Export the scorecard as the release record.