What to check in the first 30 days after your new website launches.

Launch day isn't the end of a website project. The first month shows whether Google has found the new pages, whether old links still work and whether inquiries are coming in. This is what to check and when.

A new website can look perfect on launch day and still lose you work for weeks. Old links break, Google takes time to catch up and a form stops sending without anyone noticing. The first month is when you catch these problems.

Write down your starting numbers before launch.

You can't tell whether the new site works unless you know where the old one stood. Note how many inquiries came in each month, by form, phone and email. In Google Search Console, note the searches and pages that brought in the most clicks. Keep a list of every page on the old site.

Point every old address at its new page.

Links from other websites, bookmarks and Google's results all point at your old addresses. Each one needs a permanent redirect to the page that replaced it. Google recommends permanent redirects such as 301s and says a medium-sized site can take a few weeks or more to settle in search.

Check Google Search Console every week.

In the first month, check that Google is finding the new pages, that it has read the sitemap and that errors aren't piling up. Some ups and downs in search are normal while Google moves over. A page that loses its clicks and doesn't recover needs a look. Our guide to what a business owner should check in Search Console goes through the reports.

Test the forms and phone links yourself.

Send a test inquiry through every form and check it arrives. Tap the phone number on a phone. It's the cheapest check there is, and easy to forget.

Judge the site by its inquiries.

Visits can rise while inquiries fall. The number that matters is people asking you to quote or to talk. Compare the months after launch with your starting numbers, and give it a few months before you judge.

We do this on every site we launch.

On our website rebuilds we point every old address at its new page and watch Search Console after launch. If you want the growth work to carry on after that, with new pages and your numbers every month, that's our SEO Growth Program.