3D Website Design Checklist: 12 Things to Do Before You Go Live
You have built your site, customised the design, and written your content. It looks great in preview. You are almost ready to hit publish — but "almost" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Launching a website without a pre-flight check is like boarding a plane without the pilot reviewing the instruments. Most things will probably be fine. But the one thing that is not fine has a way of being the most important thing.
This checklist covers 12 essential checks to run before your 3D website goes live. Work through it from top to bottom, and you will launch with confidence — knowing your site is fast, findable, legally compliant, and ready to convert.
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1. Review All Content for Accuracy and Completeness
Start with the most basic check: read every word on your site.
- Remove all placeholder content. Search for "Lorem ipsum", "Coming soon", "Your Name Here", and similar filler text. These are embarrassing to leave live and damage credibility instantly.
- Verify all facts are correct. Business address, phone number, email address, pricing, service descriptions — confirm everything is accurate.
- Check for typos and grammar. Paste each page's content into Grammarly or Hemingway for a quick review. A single typo on a landing page can undermine trust.
- Confirm all links work. Click every internal link and button. Broken links on a new site are a red flag.
2. Test on Mobile Devices
Over 60% of web traffic is now mobile. Your site must work flawlessly on small screens.
- Open your site on at least two real devices: an iPhone and an Android if possible
- Check that text is readable without zooming
- Verify all buttons are large enough to tap accurately (minimum 44×44px touch targets)
- Confirm images are not cropped awkwardly on portrait orientation
- Test the navigation menu — does it open and close correctly on mobile?
- Submit any forms to verify they work end-to-end on mobile
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3. Run a Performance Audit
Page speed is a ranking factor and a conversion factor. Slow sites lose visitors before they even read your headline.
Run your site through these tools and address any critical issues:
- Google PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) — aim for a mobile score above 75
- GTmetrix — check Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Total Blocking Time (TBT)
- Chrome Lighthouse (built into DevTools) — run the Performance audit
- Compress any images that are over 300KB
- Ensure fonts are loaded efficiently (use `font-display: swap`)
- Verify lazy loading is enabled for below-the-fold images
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4. Complete Your SEO Basics
SEO is not just for after launch. Getting your metadata right before you go live means Google indexes the correct information from day one.
Check the following for every page:
- Page title: Under 60 characters, includes your primary keyword
- Meta description: 140–160 characters, compelling and keyword-rich
- H1 tag: Every page should have exactly one H1 heading
- Image alt text: All images should have descriptive alt text
- URL slugs: URLs should be lowercase, hyphenated, and descriptive (e.g., /services/brand-identity, not /page-3)
- Canonical tags: Ensure no duplicate content issues between www and non-www versions of your domain
For a comprehensive SEO setup guide, visit: SEO for 3D Websites: The Complete 2026 Guide.
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5. Set Up Google Analytics and Search Console
You cannot improve what you do not measure. Set up your analytics before you launch so you capture data from the very first visitor.
Google Analytics 4:
- Create a GA4 property at analytics.google.com
- Copy your Measurement ID (G-XXXXXXXX)
- Add it to Draftly via Settings > Integrations > Google Analytics
- Verify data is flowing by checking the Realtime report while visiting your site
Google Search Console:
- Go to search.google.com/search-console
- Add your domain as a property
- Verify ownership using the HTML tag method or DNS verification
- Submit your sitemap (typically yoursite.com/sitemap.xml)
- Request indexing for your homepage under URL Inspection
Both tools are free and essential. Without them, you are flying blind on traffic, search performance, and user behaviour.
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6. Add Required Legal Pages
This is the item most frequently skipped — and the one with the most serious consequences if missed.
Depending on your location and the nature of your site, you may be legally required to have:
- Privacy Policy: Required if you collect any user data (contact forms, analytics, email signups). GDPR (EU), CCPA (California), and PIPEDA (Canada) all have specific requirements. Use a generator like Termly or iubenda if you do not have a lawyer.
- Terms and Conditions: Recommended for any business website. Sets the rules for using your site and limits your liability.
- Cookie Policy / Cookie Consent Banner: Required under GDPR if your site uses any cookies (Google Analytics counts). A cookie banner must appear on first visit with an option to accept or decline.
- Refund/Returns Policy: Required for e-commerce sites in most jurisdictions.
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7. Test All Forms and Interactive Elements
Every interactive element on your site is a potential point of failure. Test them all before launch:
- Contact forms: Submit a test enquiry and verify you receive it in your inbox. Check both success and error states.
- Booking widgets: Complete a test booking end-to-end. Verify the confirmation email arrives. Check the calendar sync.
- Email signup forms: Submit a test address and verify it is captured in your email platform (Mailchimp, ConvertKit, etc.).
- E-commerce: If selling products, complete a test purchase and verify the order confirmation, payment processing, and inventory update.
- Search functions: If your site has search, run a few test queries.
- Video embeds: Check that videos load and play correctly, especially on mobile.
8. Configure Your Custom Domain and SSL
If you are connecting a custom domain, this needs to be set up and fully propagated before you announce your launch.
- Domain DNS records added and verified in Draftly
- SSL certificate active (URL shows https:// with padlock)
- www and non-www redirect configured to your preferred primary version
- Old URLs (if migrating from another site) redirect to correct new URLs
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9. Test Social Sharing Previews
When someone shares your site link on LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, or Facebook, a preview card is generated. If you have not configured your Open Graph metadata, this preview will either look wrong or not appear at all.
Check and set the following:
- og:title: The title that appears in the share card
- og:description: A compelling one-to-two sentence summary
- og:image: A high-quality horizontal image (1200×630px is the standard)
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10. Set Up a 404 Error Page
A 404 page appears when someone visits a URL that does not exist on your site. Without a custom 404 page, visitors get an ugly browser default error and have no easy way to navigate back.
A good 404 page should:
- Confirm the page was not found in friendly, on-brand language
- Offer a link back to the homepage
- Include your navigation so users can find what they were looking for
- Optionally include a search bar
Draftly allows you to customise your 404 page in Settings > Pages > Error Pages.
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11. Prepare Your Launch Announcement
Going live quietly means missing a valuable opportunity for early momentum. Plan your launch announcement in advance:
- Write a LinkedIn post for the day of launch (include a screenshot of the site and the link)
- Prepare an email to your existing contacts or mailing list
- Draft social posts for Instagram, Twitter/X, or wherever your audience is active
- Ask 3–5 colleagues or clients to share the announcement on launch day
- Consider a limited-time offer for visitors who come from the launch announcement
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12. Do a Final Cross-Browser Check
Your site should look and function correctly in all major browsers. Open your site in:
- Google Chrome (desktop and mobile)
- Safari (desktop and iPhone — Safari handles CSS differently in some cases)
- Mozilla Firefox
- Microsoft Edge
- Fonts rendering correctly
- Animations playing as expected
- Layout not breaking in any browser
- Forms submitting correctly across browsers
Your Pre-Launch Checklist Summary
Before you hit publish, confirm each of the following:
- All placeholder content removed and copy proofread
- Mobile experience tested on real devices
- PageSpeed score above 75 on mobile
- SEO metadata complete on all pages
- Google Analytics 4 and Search Console set up
- Privacy Policy, Terms, and Cookie Consent in place
- All forms and interactive elements tested
- Custom domain connected with HTTPS active
- Social sharing previews configured
- Custom 404 page created
- Launch announcement prepared
- Cross-browser check completed
You Are Ready. Go Live.
Working through this checklist takes one to two hours, but it pays dividends immediately — in search rankings, user trust, and conversion rates. The sites that perform best are not always the most beautiful; they are the ones that have been launched thoughtfully and maintained consistently.
Once you are live, the next phase begins: driving traffic, analysing behaviour, and iterating on what works.
For a broader view of the 3D web landscape and what makes these sites so effective in 2026, start here: Top 10 Use Cases for 3D Websites in 2026.
Now go live. You have got this.
