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Before You Go Live: A Website Launch Checklist for Dubai Businesses Updated 2026-11-15

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Before You Go Live: A Website Launch Checklist for Dubai Businesses

12 min read Updated 2026-11-15

A new website usually fails in small ways, not big ones. The design gets approved, the pages look right on the designer's laptop, and the site goes live on a Thursday afternoon. Then the problems arrive one by one: the contact form sends enquiries to an inbox nobody reads, the Arabic pages show broken line breaks on an iPhone, Google keeps showing the old URLs, and the WhatsApp button opens a number that left the company last year.

None of these are design problems. They are launch problems, and almost all of them can be caught with a calm, structured check in the final week. This guide is the checklist we use at Oxedge when we take a business website live in the UAE, written so that a business owner or marketing manager can run through it with their agency, or on their own.

Mobile website mockup designed by Oxedge for a business client

Why a launch checklist matters more in the UAE

Most of the checks below apply anywhere. A few are particular to the way people in the UAE find and contact a business:

  • Mobile first, really. Most visitors will see your site on a phone, often on the way to a meeting or between appointments. If a page is slow or awkward on mobile, they rarely come back to try on a desktop.
  • Two languages, two directions. A bilingual site has to work in English (left to right) and Arabic (right to left). Text that looks fine in English can wrap badly, overlap buttons or mirror the wrong icons in Arabic.
  • WhatsApp and phone calls beat forms. Many UAE customers would rather tap to chat or call than fill in a form. Those buttons need to work perfectly, and they need to be tracked.
  • Trust signals are checked. Buyers compare several suppliers. They look for a real address, a working phone number, clear hours and proof that the business is active.

A launch checklist protects all of this. It also protects the money you spent on design and development: a beautiful site that loses enquiries in its first month is an expensive way to learn what should have been tested.

Two weeks before launch: content and structure

Start early. Content is the most common reason launches slip, and it is much easier to fix before the developers are in the final stretch.

Every page has a job

Open your sitemap and write one line next to each page: what the visitor should do after reading it. Call, send a WhatsApp message, request a quote, book a visit, read a case study. If a page has no clear next step, either add one or ask whether the page needs to exist at all.

Copy is final, not "nearly final"

Placeholder text has a way of surviving launch. Search the whole site for "lorem ipsum", "TBC", "coming soon", "text here" and any internal notes. Check that service names, prices and claims match what your sales team actually says on the phone.

Arabic is written, not just translated

If you have an Arabic version, have a native speaker read it on the real pages, not in a document. Machine-translated headings and buttons are easy to spot, and they quietly tell an Arabic-speaking visitor that the business did not care enough to do it properly. Check that page titles, menu labels, form fields, error messages and thank-you pages are all in Arabic, not just the body text.

Images are licensed, compressed and labelled

Every image should be one you own or are licensed to use. Large photos should be compressed and served in a modern format, and each meaningful image needs short descriptive alt text in the correct language. Decorative images can have empty alt text so screen readers skip them.

One week before launch: technical checks

This is the week to test the site the way a stranger would use it.

Speed on a real phone

Do not judge speed on office Wi-Fi with a fast laptop. Open the staging site on a mid-range phone using mobile data, and run the main pages through Google PageSpeed Insights. At Oxedge our launch target is a mobile PageSpeed score of 90 or more. The usual culprits when a site is slow are oversized hero images, sliders, too many web fonts, chat widgets loading before anything else, and plugins nobody remembers installing.

If you want to see how common these problems are, our UAE website speed study looked at business websites across the Emirates and the patterns that slowed them down.

UAE website speed study by Oxedge

Layout in both directions

Click through every template in English and in Arabic, on mobile and desktop. Look for:

  • Navigation menus that open from the correct side in Arabic
  • Icons and arrows that should flip (back, next, chevrons) and ones that should not (logos, play buttons, phone icons)
  • Numbers, phone numbers and prices that display in the right order inside Arabic sentences
  • Long Arabic words or German-length English headings that break the layout on small screens
  • Font fallbacks: if the Arabic web font fails to load, the backup font should still look acceptable

Forms, end to end

Fill in every form on the site with realistic details and follow each submission all the way through:

  1. Does the visitor see a clear thank-you message or page, in the right language?
  2. Does the enquiry arrive in the right inbox or CRM, with all fields?
  3. Does it land in spam? Send test enquiries to Gmail and Outlook addresses.
  4. Does the visitor get an automatic confirmation, if you promised one?
  5. Is there basic spam protection that does not punish real users?

A form that looks fine but delivers nowhere is the single most expensive launch mistake we see, because nobody notices until a client asks why you never replied.

Tap every click-to-chat, click-to-call and email link on a phone. The WhatsApp link should open a chat with the correct number in international format and, ideally, a short pre-filled message that tells your team which page the lead came from. Phone links should use the full international number, for example +971 50 815 3521, so they work for visitors calling from outside the UAE.

Security basics

The whole site should load over HTTPS with no mixed-content warnings. Admin areas should use strong unique passwords and two-factor authentication. Remove test accounts, default users and any plugins or themes that are installed but not used. Confirm that backups run automatically and that someone has actually restored one to prove it works.

Ownership and access

Before launch, make sure the business, not the agency or a freelancer, owns the domain, hosting account, analytics, Search Console, Google Business Profile and any paid plugins. At Oxedge we register these in the client's name as standard. It saves painful arguments later if you ever change suppliers.

Launch week: search engines and tracking

Search visibility is where a careless launch can undo years of work, especially on a redesign.

Redirects from old URLs

If you are replacing an existing website, export every URL from the old site that gets traffic or has links pointing to it. Map each one to the most relevant page on the new site and set up permanent (301) redirects. Do not send everything to the homepage. Test a sample of old URLs after launch to confirm they land on the right page.

Indexing settings

Staging sites are usually hidden from search engines, which is correct. The problem is when that setting is carried over to the live site. On launch day, check that:

  • The live site does not have a "noindex" tag on important pages
  • The robots.txt file does not block the whole site
  • An XML sitemap exists, lists the live URLs and is submitted in Google Search Console
  • Each page has a unique title and meta description in its own language
  • English and Arabic versions point to each other correctly with hreflang tags

If a site has been live for a while and still does not appear in Google, the cause is often one of these settings. Our guide on why a website is not showing on Google walks through the full diagnosis.

Website not showing on Google guide by Oxedge

Structured data and local details

Add organisation or local business structured data with your official business name, logo, phone number, email and opening hours. Make sure these match your Google Business Profile and directory listings exactly. Small differences, such as a different phone format or old opening hours, make it harder for search engines to trust that they are looking at the same business.

Analytics that measure enquiries

Page views are not the goal. Before launch, set up tracking for the actions that matter: form submissions, WhatsApp clicks, phone taps and email clicks. Test each one and confirm it appears in your analytics. If you run Google or Meta ads, make sure these conversions are connected to your ad accounts so your campaigns can optimise for real leads from day one.

Publish a privacy policy that explains what data your forms collect and how it is used, and include a cookie notice if you use tracking that needs consent. Check that any claims on the site, such as licences, certifications or awards, are accurate and current.

Launch day: the final run-through

On the day itself, keep it simple and methodical:

  1. Take a full backup of the staging site and of the old live site.
  2. Switch the domain or deploy the new version at a quiet time, not just before a weekend or a big campaign.
  3. Clear caches and check the homepage, a service page, a contact page and the Arabic homepage on mobile and desktop.
  4. Submit a real test enquiry through every form and tap every WhatsApp and call button.
  5. Check HTTPS, the robots.txt file and a few redirects.
  6. Submit the sitemap in Google Search Console and request indexing for the key pages.
  7. Tell your team the site is live and remind them where enquiries now arrive.

The first 30 days after launch

Launch is not the finish line. The first month is when real visitors find the problems no test could predict.

  • Watch Search Console weekly for crawl errors, pages excluded from the index and drops in impressions.
  • Review enquiries and ask your sales team whether the quality of leads has changed.
  • Look at mobile behaviour in analytics: which pages people leave quickly and which buttons they actually tap.
  • Fix bugs quickly. Oxedge includes 30 days of free bug fixes after launch for exactly this reason.
  • Plan the next improvements, such as new service pages, case studies, FAQs or landing pages for ads, so the site keeps growing instead of standing still.

A simple printable checklist

Use this short version on launch week:

  • Every page has a clear next step
  • No placeholder text anywhere, in either language
  • Arabic reviewed by a native speaker on the real pages
  • Images compressed, licensed and with alt text
  • Mobile PageSpeed checked on a real phone
  • English and Arabic layouts checked on mobile and desktop
  • Every form tested end to end, including spam folders
  • WhatsApp, phone and email links tested on a phone
  • HTTPS, backups, admin passwords and two-factor authentication in place
  • Domain, hosting and accounts owned by the business
  • 301 redirects from old URLs mapped and tested
  • No noindex or robots.txt block on the live site
  • Sitemap submitted in Google Search Console
  • Hreflang between English and Arabic versions
  • Structured data with matching name, phone, email and hours
  • Conversion tracking for forms, WhatsApp and calls
  • Privacy policy and cookie notice published

What a launch-ready website costs

A careful launch is part of the project, not an extra. For context, a bilingual brochure website of 5 to 10 pages in Dubai typically costs AED 8,000 to 20,000 and takes 3 to 6 weeks, while a corporate site of 15 to 50 pages with a CMS and CRM-connected forms is typically AED 22,000 to 60,000 over 6 to 12 weeks. Domain, hosting and maintenance come on top. Our full guide to how much a website costs in Dubai breaks down what changes the price.

Frequently asked questions

Who should own the launch checklist, the agency or the business? Both. The agency should run the technical checks, but someone on the business side should test forms, WhatsApp links and content, because they know what a real enquiry looks like and where it should arrive.

Can we launch in English first and add Arabic later? Yes, as long as the site is built so Arabic can be added cleanly, with right-to-left layouts and hreflang planned from the start. Retrofitting Arabic into a site that was never designed for it usually costs more than doing it properly at the beginning.

How long after launch will the site appear in Google? New pages are often crawled within days once the sitemap is submitted, but rankings take longer and depend on competition, content and links. A redesign with good redirects should keep most existing visibility.

What is the most common launch mistake? Forms or WhatsApp buttons that do not deliver leads to the right person. Test them on launch day and again a week later.

Talk to Oxedge

Oxedge is a web design and development company in Dubai that builds fast, bilingual English and Arabic websites for UAE businesses on WordPress, Shopify, Salla, Zid or custom code, with launch, SEO set-up and ongoing care included in the plan.