Why launch week is a poor time to “start SEO”
Search engines need consistent signals: indexable URLs, meaningful titles, internal links, and analytics that attribute traffic to real outcomes. If those pieces are missing, your early data is noise — and teams argue about tools instead of fixing fundamentals.
Crawl and index basics
- Robots and sitemaps: Confirm
robots.txtallows important paths, and submit an XML sitemap that reflects your canonical URL strategy. - Canonicals: Decide how you handle parameters, trailing slashes, and alternate URLs before marketing points paid and social traffic at the wrong variant.
- Status codes: Soft 404s and redirect chains are easy to miss in staging; crawl the production host with the same hostname you intend to promote.
On-page and content readiness
Each major template should have a repeatable pattern for title tags, meta descriptions, H1s, and structured data where appropriate (e.g. Article, Product, FAQ). Avoid shipping placeholder copy on high-intent templates — those URLs often get indexed first.
Measurement you can defend in a board meeting
Configure analytics with events that map to leads, sign-ups, or purchases — not only pageviews. Connect Search Console early so you can correlate queries with landing pages within days of launch.
Handover to growth teams
Document who owns content updates, who approves redirects, and how often you refresh core landing pages. SEO is a operating cadence; launch is just day one.