Website Checklist Before You Launch Your Course
We've launched enough course websites at this point to notice a pattern: the mistakes that hurt the most aren't design mistakes. They're small, boring, easy-to-skip steps that get pushed aside in the excitement of finally hitting publish.
Nothing on this checklist is hard. That's exactly why it's easy to skip.
Here's the exact list we run through with every client in the final days before launch.
1. The essential pages are actually in place — not "almost done"
At minimum, you need five pages working:
- Homepage that explains what you do
- Sales page for your core offer
- Checkout page
- Thank-you page
- A clear way for people to contact you
We've seen launches get delayed by a week because the thank-you page was still a placeholder — nobody thinks about it until the first sale comes in and there's nothing there. Extra pages like About, FAQ, or testimonials can go live a few days after launch. These five can't.
2. Your offer passes the ten-second test
Put yourself in the shoes of someone landing on your sales page with zero context. Can they tell what they're buying, what it costs, and what they walk away with — in ten seconds, without scrolling? If you have to explain the offer out loud to make it make sense, the page is doing too much work for the reader. Test this on someone who's never heard you talk about the course.
3. Checkout works end-to-end, with real money
Don't just "check that it looks right" — actually buy the course. Use a real card if you can (refund yourself immediately after). This one step catches problems that are otherwise invisible:
- A bump offer that doesn't display
- A broken redirect after payment
- A discount code that doesn't apply correctly
- An offer still connected to the wrong price
We've seen a launch go out with checkout accidentally pointing at a $0 test offer. It was live for six hours before anyone noticed.
4. Confirmation and delivery emails are set up and tested
Every purchase needs an automatic email confirming access, with an actual link to log in — not "we'll be in touch." Test this by buying the course yourself and watching your own inbox. If the confirmation lands in spam, takes ten minutes, or the login link is broken, that's exactly the moment a paying customer starts to feel uneasy about what they just bought.
5. Mobile experience is checked, not assumed
A large share of your traffic — often more than half — lands on mobile first. Open every key page on your actual phone and look for:
- Buttons too small to tap accurately
- Text cut off or overlapping
- Images pushing important content below the fold
Desktop looking great tells you almost nothing about how a page behaves on a phone.
6. Proof is visible exactly where the decision gets made
Testimonials and results need to live on the sales page itself, near the offer and CTA — not on a separate page nobody visits before buying. The moment someone decides whether to trust you enough to pay is the moment they need to see that other people already did.
7. Analytics and tracking are live before you send a single visitor
Set up Kajabi's built-in analytics plus any ad pixels before launch day. You cannot go back and measure traffic that already came and went untracked — and your first 48 hours are often your highest-volume, most valuable data.
8. Legal basics are covered, not just "somewhere in a Google Doc"
Terms of service, a privacy policy, and a refund policy should be linked and visible, typically in the footer. A visible refund policy also quietly reduces buyer hesitation at checkout — it's a trust signal, not just a compliance box.
9. Someone outside the business runs the entire flow, unguided
This is the step people skip most, and it catches the most real problems. Ask a friend or past client to go through the full buying journey with zero help from you. Watch where they pause or ask "wait, what do I click now?" A real customer will feel that same hesitation — except they won't tell you about it. They'll just leave.
Final Thought
None of this is complicated. That's exactly why it's easy to skip — nothing on this list is hard, it just requires slowing down at the moment you're most excited to hit publish. A careful, unhurried pass through this checklist the day before launch will save you more than any last-minute redesign ever could.
