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Launch checklist

Work through this before you point your domain at the site. It is ordered so that the things most likely to embarrass you come first.

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1. Remove the demo leftovers

Every imported page carries sample marketing text for a fictional product. Hero headlines, feature cards, testimonials, pricing tiers — all of it. Search your site for the demo strings before launch.
The primary CTA defaults to #features, an anchor inside the demo homepage. The secondary defaults to /contact/. Point both at real, high-intent destinations.
Screenshot: the Customizer General section showing the CTA text and URL fields

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2. Forms must actually work

The demo Contact page will not work out of the box. It contains a Contact Form 7 shortcode with a form ID from another site. Fix this before launch — a broken contact form on a live business site is a lost lead.
1

Install and configure Contact Form 7

Create a form at Contact → Contact Forms and set your receiving email.
2

Confirm email delivery

Submit the form on the live site. Confirm it arrives — and check spam. If it does not arrive, your host needs an SMTP plugin such as WP Mail SMTP.
3

Insert the form

Replace the broken shortcode on the Contact page with your new form.
Full instructions: Contact Form 7.

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3. Identity and branding

  • Site title and tagline are accurate
  • Logo uploaded and sized correctly — check both light and dark mode
  • Site icon (favicon) uploaded, 512 × 512, legible at 16 px
  • Brand colors set in the Customizer
  • Font family and base size chosen
  • Footer description, email, social links, and copyright filled in
See Site identity, Colors, and Footer settings.

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4. SEO essentials

Yoast SEO or Rank Math. The theme provides Open Graph tags and a minimal WebSite schema, but not title templates, meta descriptions, or XML sitemaps.
At minimum: home, about, services, contact, and your most important posts.
In the SEO plugin, generate the XML sitemap and submit it in Google Search Console.
The theme outputs Open Graph tags, but the preview image comes from your SEO plugin or featured image.
See SEO.

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5. Performance

  • A caching plugin is active and configured
  • An image optimisation plugin is active
  • Featured images are sized appropriately, not full-resolution uploads scaled down by CSS
  • Pages load quickly on mobile, not just desktop
  • Google PageSpeed Insights tested on the live URL
The theme already self-hosts fonts and defers assets — see Performance for what remains in your hands.

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6. Security

  • HTTPS is active with no browser warnings
  • Security plugin installed (Wordfence, Sucuri, or similar)
  • Default admin username changed if you still have admin
  • File editing disabled in the WordPress File Manager
  • Tools → Site Health → Status shows no critical issues
  • All plugins and WordPress core are up to date
  • A working backup is configured

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7. Content

  • At least five published posts, or a deliberate decision to launch without a blog
  • Featured images set on posts and pages
  • Excerpts written — the theme uses them in cards and meta descriptions
  • Categories and tags used sensibly (they drive filtering and related posts)
  • The homepage shows your latest posts in the blog preview section if you use the default layout
Related posts and category filters both depend on good category usage. If every post is in one catch-all category, related posts will be arbitrary. A few focused categories produce better results than many narrow ones.

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8. Navigation and functionality

  • Primary menu assigned under Appearance → Menus
  • Menu items point to real pages — click every one
  • Mobile menu opens and closes correctly on a real phone
  • Dropdown submenus open and are reachable by keyboard
  • Search returns results
  • 404 page is reachable and has a working search form
  • Breadcrumbs enabled if you want them on pages
See Header and menus.

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9. Accessibility spot-check

  • Tab through the header — the skip link appears first and jumps to main content
  • All dropdowns open with the keyboard and close with Escape
  • Body text meets 4.5:1 contrast in both light and dark mode
  • No images missing alt text
  • Video content has captions or a transcript
  • Headings descend in order on your key pages
See Accessibility.

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10. Final technical pass

  • Tools → Site Health → Status — no critical issues
  • All plugins updated
  • Theme updated to the latest version
  • Permalinks are not the default ?p=123 — set to Post name
  • Discussion settings match your intent (comments on or off)
  • Test on a real phone, not just a responsive preview
  • Test in a private window — bypasses page cache and shows what visitors see

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The two-minute pre-launch test

If you only have two minutes, do these four things:
1

Submit the contact form

Confirm it arrives in your inbox.
2

Click every header link

Every single one. On desktop and on mobile.
3

Load the homepage on a real phone

If it is slow or broken there, your visitors are not seeing what you are.
4

Search the site for demo text

Search for “Lorem”, “demo”, and the fictional product name from the imported pages. Anything that shows up is a miss.

Troubleshooting

Something already broken? Start here.

Removing demo content

Prefer a clean install to editing the demo?