Go-Live Checklist

This checklist covers SEO, metadata, structured data, content, conversion, performance, and operational items to validate before turning the site live.

SEO & Meta

  • Title tags: Verify each page has a unique, keyword-appropriate <title>.
  • Meta descriptions: Ensure every page has a clear meta description (120–160 chars).
  • Canonical URLs: Confirm <link rel="canonical"> points to the preferred URL; remove duplicates.
  • Robots & sitemap: Add/verify robots.txt and sitemap.xml are present and correct and submitted to search consoles.
  • Open Graph / Twitter: Test OG/Twitter meta for home and 3 key pages (image, title, description).

Structured Data / JSON-LD

  • Organization & WebSite: Validate Organization and WebSite JSON‑LD (name, url, logo, description).
  • Page-level schema: Add Article, BreadcrumbList, or Product schema where appropriate.
  • Validation: Run Google Rich Results Test and Schema.org validator for representative pages.

Content & Assets

  • Primary CTAs: Confirm visible CTAs and correct links (Request Early Access, About, Products).
  • Hero visual: Ensure hero image/preview exists, is optimized, and is suitable for OG sharing.
  • Images: Provide alt text, correct dimensions, and optimized file sizes (consider WebP).
  • Copy & legal: Verify Privacy, Terms, and contact email are accurate and linked.

Conversion & Forms

  • Lead capture: Test mailto: and any form endpoints (Formspree/Netlify) and confirm delivery.
  • Spam / validation: Add basic form validation and spam protection (honeypot, reCAPTCHA if needed).
  • Confirmation flow: Ensure users receive a confirmation page/email after submission.

Analytics & Tracking

  • Analytics: Configure Google Analytics or GTM via site.google_tag_manager in _config.yml.
  • Consent: Implement cookie/consent banner if required for GDPR/regions you operate in.
  • Event tracking: Track CTA clicks (early access, product links, blog follow).

Performance & Security

  • PageSpeed: Run Lighthouse for core pages; address major opportunities (images, caching).
  • HTTPS: Ensure site served over HTTPS (certificate ready on production).
  • CSP & headers: Plan security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options) on host/CDN.
  • CDN / caching: Plan asset CDN and cache strategy.

Accessibility & QA

  • Contrast & keyboard: Test keyboard navigation and color contrast for hero/CTA/buttons.
  • ARIA & semantics: Ensure landmarks, aria-labels, and semantic HTML on interactive elements.
  • Automated checks: Run Lighthouse accessibility and WAVE on sample pages.
  • Link check: Run a link validator to catch broken internal/external links.

Deployment & URLs

  • Site config: Set site.url and site.baseurl correctly in _config.yml for production.
  • Root path: Ensure the site root serves the videotec_io content (remove temporary redirect).
  • Redirects: Add necessary redirects (old paths → new paths) and test them.
  • DNS & SSL: Verify DNS entries and TLS certificates are issued and auto‑renewing.

Social & Preview

  • Social preview: Share test links to Slack/Twitter to confirm OG preview looks correct.
  • External links: Update external profiles and blog links to point to final site URL.

Monitoring & Backup

  • Error monitoring: Add Sentry/monitoring or simple logging for 500s and client errors.
  • Uptime: Configure uptime checks/alerting (UptimeRobot, Pingdom).
  • Backup: Ensure site source and generated assets are in Git and backed up.

Quick pre-launch runbook

  • Run Lighthouse (Performance / SEO / Accessibility) for home, product, and about pages.
  • Run Google Rich Results Test for pages with JSON-LD.
  • Validate OG/Twitter metadata using the Facebook/Twitter card validators.
  • Submit sitemap to Google Search Console / Bing Webmaster.
  • Test forms and confirmation flows end-to-end.
  • Verify analytics events fire on CTA clicks.
  • Verify HTTPS and TLS chain on production domain.

If you want, I can also commit these checks to automated CI tasks (Lighthouse + link/SEO checks).

Branching, PRs & CI (next steps)

  • Create a dev branch: Work in dev and open PRs to main when ready to promote to production. Example commands:
git checkout -b dev
git push -u origin dev

  • Feature branches & PRs: Create short-lived feature branches off dev, open pull requests targeting dev (or main if you prefer). Use PR titles and descriptions that explain the change and link to any related issues.

  • PR checks (LHCI assertions): CI now runs Lighthouse assertions from .lighthouserc.json. Adjust thresholds as needed during ramp-up. If a PR fails LHCI, review performance/accessibility findings and iterate.

  • Branch protection (enable at go-live): When ready, enable GitHub Branch Protection for main (require CI pass, require PR reviews, disallow direct pushes). This prevents accidental direct commits to main.

  • PR template & checklist: Add a simple .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md to remind contributors to run local checks, update metadata, and verify JSON-LD. Example items:
    • Build passes locally (bundle exec jekyll build)
    • Lighthouse smoke test run locally
    • JSON-LD validated
    • No broken links

  • Temporary workflow during ramp-up: If you want to move fast, keep protections off initially and use the dev → main PR pattern; enable protections and stricter LHCI thresholds only when confident.

  • Automate linting locally: Add npm scripts or a small Makefile to run html-validate and node ./scripts/validate-jsonld.js so reviewers can reproduce checks before opening PRs.

If you’d like, I can create the dev branch, add a PR template, and add example npm scripts now.