A Product Hunt launch checklist for the website side of launch day
Launch day sends a burst of curious, impatient visitors to your site, most of them on phones, many deciding in seconds. This checklist covers only the website side: what the page must say, what has to work, what to prepare for press, and how you'll read the traffic afterwards. The listing, the comments and the community are a separate job.
A week before: the page
Launch visitors arrive from a short listing, so your page has to continue that conversation rather than start a new one. Read your listing's tagline, then your headline. If they describe different products, fix the page.
- One headline that names the outcome and who it's for, in the same words as the listing.
- One action. Sign up, start a trial, or buy. A launch page with three equal buttons sends people nowhere.
- Proof that's real. Real screenshots, plus a link to a short screen recording on YouTube or Vimeo (design-engine pages can't play or embed video). Anticode's design gate blocks stock AI phrases and placeholder text, which matters on a day when visitors are comparing many similar pages.
- Answers to the obvious questions in a short FAQ: what it costs (or a link to pricing), what platforms it runs on, what happens to their data.
- A line for launch visitors if you're offering something for the day. Remove it afterwards.
If the page needs reworking, ask for it in a sentence ("tighten this into a launch page with one sign-up button, a screenshots section with a link to the demo video and an FAQ") and the build updates. Check it on a phone first: that's where most launch visitors will read it.
Three days before: make sure everything works
| Item | Test |
|---|---|
| Sign-up form | Submit from a phone and a laptop; check it reaches the dashboard and any connector such as Kit or Mailchimp |
| Checkout link | Open each buy button; buy with your provider's test mode or a small real purchase you refund |
| Domain | Load the site on your own domain over HTTPS, on mobile data as well as Wi-Fi |
| Every link | Click them all; the design gate only blocks empty links (an empty href, "#" or javascript:), not outside links that don't work |
| Publish checks | Run the release checklist, which runs every publish check without publishing |
One capacity check matters on free plans: a free site keeps a monthly allowance of form submissions visible (100 by default) and holds the rest until you upgrade. A good launch can pass that in an hour. Check pricing the week before, not on the day. Paid plans also remove the small "Made with Anticode" badge and allow your own domain.
The press page
Journalists and newsletter writers who find you on launch day want facts fast. A separate page linked from the footer is enough: a two-sentence description, the founders' names and roles, the launch date, a contact email, and downloadable logos and screenshots hosted somewhere you control. Anticode's media uploads are for photos and videos placed in pages, so link to a shared folder for files. See press kit page for more.
On the day: reading the traffic
Anticode's analytics count page views per site per day by source, without cookies, and count AI and search crawlers separately so they don't inflate the numbers. On launch day, note the time you go live and compare views by source at the end of the day with sign-ups in the dashboard. That gives you a rough conversion rate for launch traffic. The Intelligence page answers questions from cited metrics, but it only forecasts after 14 days of data, so don't expect predictions on day one.
Analytics are counted per day, not per minute, and there are no heatmaps or click recordings. If you need finer detail, add UTM parameters to the links you share and read them in a tool you already use.
The day after
- Write to everyone who signed up, from your email tool, within a day. Anticode doesn't email your list.
- Remove launch-day offers and wording.
- Note views, sign-ups and sales by source in a simple log for the next launch.
Limits
Anticode builds and publishes the page, takes sign-ups, points buy buttons at your provider's checkout, and counts visits by source. It doesn't handle your listing, schedule anything, run A/B tests, send emails or take card payments on the page itself. For the broader launch, see the launch page guide.
Questions people ask
What's the most important item on a product hunt launch checklist for the website?
That the page matches the listing and has one action that works. A confused visitor or a broken button is the loss you can most easily prevent.
Can I see launch traffic in real time?
Anticode counts views per day by source, so you'll see the day's totals rather than a live feed. Compare them with sign-ups in the dashboard.
Do I need a custom domain for launch day?
It helps visitors trust the page, and it's on paid plans. Connect it at least a few days before, so DNS and the certificate are settled.