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Pre-Launch SEO Audit

A comprehensive SEO check before launch — title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, internal links, sitemap, robots.txt — so new pages are crawlable and rankable from day 1.

Why

Search engines take 2-8 weeks to index and rank new pages, so SEO mistakes made on launch day cost you 2 months of organic traffic before you even notice. A pre-launch audit catches the preventable errors: missing title tags, duplicate meta descriptions, broken heading hierarchy, noindex on pages you want indexed, sitemaps that don't include the new URLs. These are 5-minute fixes on launch day and 2-month penalties if missed. The audit also establishes your baseline: which pages currently rank, for which keywords, at which position — so post-launch you can measure whether the new pages helped or hurt. Products that skip the audit launch with 30% of their pages de facto noindexed (robots.txt blocks, canonical pointing to the wrong place) and don't discover it until traffic fails to materialize in month 2.

When

1-2 weeks before launch, after all new pages are built but before deploy. Fix all issues found, then re-audit on staging 2 days before launch.

How

1. Crawl the site with Screaming Frog or Sitebulb (up to 500 URLs free) — this reveals every SEO issue in one pass: missing titles, duplicate metas, broken links, redirect chains
2. Check title tags: every page has a unique 50-60 char title with the primary keyword near the front; new pages (e.g. /launch, /launch/[slug]) must have titles, not the default
3. Check meta descriptions: every page has a unique 150-160 char description that includes the keyword and a value prop; these are the snippet text in search results
4. Check heading hierarchy: exactly one H1 per page, H2s nest under it, H3s under H2s; no skipped levels (H1 → H3)
5. Check indexability: pages you want indexed have no robots noindex tag and are not blocked by robots.txt; pages you don't want indexed (admin, staging) have noindex
6. Check canonical tags: every page has a self-referencing canonical; paginated pages canonical to the first page; alternate language pages use hreflang (see hreflang-config)
7. Check internal linking: every new page is reachable from at least 2 other pages via a crawlable <a href> link (not JS); orphan pages never get indexed
8. Generate and submit sitemap: build sitemap-pages.xml including all new URLs, submit to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
9. Check page speed with Lighthouse: target LCP < 2.5s, CLS < 0.1, INP < 200ms; slow pages rank lower
10. Document the baseline: export current Search Console data (impressions, clicks, position by page and query) to compare post-launch

Example

# Pre-Launch SEO Audit — ez4code v2.0
Tool: Screaming Frog (47 existing + 30 new = 77 URLs)

## Issues found
1. /launch — missing title tag (default "EZ4Code")  → FIXED
2. /launch/[slug] — duplicate meta description (all "Launch guide")  → FIXED
3. /growth — H1 missing, H2 used as title  → FIXED
4. /maintenance — canonical points to / (should self-reference)  → FIXED
5. robots.txt — blocks /astro/* but also blocks /launch/* by mistake  → FIXED
6. /launch not in sitemap-pages.xml  → ADDED
7. 3 new pages have LCP 3.2s (target < 2.5s)  → image optimization
8. /launch/[slug] — no internal links from /launch to detail pages  → ADDED

## Baseline (Google Search Console, Oct 2026)
Pages with impressions: 47
Total impressions: 12,400/mo  Clicks: 892/mo
Top queries: "python cheatsheet", "js snippet", "ai code review"

## Post-launch target
+30 new pages → +8,000 impressions/mo (3-month projection)
New target queries: "developer lifecycle", "launch a dev tool"

## Re-audit (T-2 days, staging)
All 77 URLs: 0 missing titles, 0 duplicate metas, 0 noindex errors
Lighthouse: LCP 2.1s, CLS 0.05, INP 180ms ✓
=> READY for launch

Common Problems

  • ⚠Auditing only the homepage — the homepage might be perfect while 30 new pages have missing titles and duplicate metas; crawl all URLs, not just the entry page.
  • ⚠Fixing issues on staging but not re-checking after deploy — staging and prod have different configs (robots.txt, canonical domain); re-audit on production within 24 hours of launch.
  • ⚠No baseline measurement — without pre-launch Search Console data, you can't tell if the new pages increased impressions or not; 'traffic seems up' is not a measurement.
  • ⚠Ignoring page speed because 'it's fast enough' — LCP > 2.5s is a ranking penalty; 3 new pages at LCP 3.2s will rank below competitors at 2.0s regardless of content quality.

Best Practices

  • ✓Automate the audit in CI — run Lighthouse + a sitemap validator + a broken-link checker on every PR; this prevents SEO regressions from being merged, not just caught at launch.
  • ✓Use a single SEO checklist template for every launch (title, meta, H1, canonical, hreflang, sitemap, internal links, speed) — consistency across launches means the audit is a 30-minute check, not a 3-hour investigation.
  • ✓Submit the sitemap to Search Console on launch day, not after — immediate submission starts the crawl clock; waiting a week means a week of delayed indexing.
  • ✓Track the baseline → 1-week → 1-month → 3-month progression in a spreadsheet — this is how you learn whether your SEO launch playbook actually works, and it informs the next launch's projections.