Publish Your First Site

This guide takes a workspace from a blank or draft public presence to a site that customers can use.

What You Will Publish

A launch-ready site should include:

• Branded shell with logo, navigation, footer, and legal links.
• Homepage or landing page.
• At least one customer action: book, buy, submit a form, contact, or open a support path.
• Valid domain and email sender when production traffic is expected.
• Clear privacy, terms, refund, cancellation, and communication policies.

Step 1: Confirm The Site Status

Open Settings > General or the site status card. Keep the site in draft or protected mode while setting up. Move to public only after the checks below pass.

This is the launch safety switch. Draft or protected status lets operators finish content, policies, payment setup, forms, and booking configuration without exposing incomplete customer paths to search, ads, or direct traffic.

Step 2: Build The Website Shell

Open Website and configure:

1. Header navigation.
2. Footer sections.
3. Legal links.
4. Brand imagery.
5. Homepage content.
6. Page builder blocks for custom pages.

Use the public site preview after each major change. The console and sites apps share the same branding model, so the public shell should reflect saves quickly.

Step 3: Add Public Content

Create the content customers need before acting:

• About, services, or product overview pages.
• Policies for cancellation, refunds, shipping, privacy, and terms.
• Contact page and support path.
• Stories or resource articles if the business uses editorial content.
• Help content for common questions.

Step 4: Enable The Primary Conversion Path

Choose one first conversion path and verify it across the full customer path.

Step 5: Connect Domain And Email

Open Settings > Domain and Email.

• Add DNS records.
• Verify routing.
• Configure email sender identity.
• Confirm all public links use the right host.
• Confirm email replies go somewhere monitored.

Verify domain and email together because customer links in notifications should match the production host. If DNS is still propagating or sender authentication is incomplete, keep the site protected and avoid campaign traffic until links and replies are reliable.

Step 6: Check Search And Sharing

Open Discovery.

• Confirm title and description for key pages.
• Add redirects or short links for campaign paths.
• Verify sitemap and robots behavior.
• Check Open Graph previews for the homepage and important product/service pages.
• Add IndexNow or search verification only when the site is ready to be crawled.

Step 7: Run The Launch Pass

Open the public site in a clean browser session and test:

1. Homepage.
2. Navigation and footer.
3. Mobile layout.
4. Product or service flow.
5. Contact or form submission.
6. Customer portal login.
7. Email notification receipt.
8. Error and empty states.

Use the final customer URL whenever possible. If you must use a preview URL, repeat the critical path on the final domain before launch because DNS, callbacks, social previews, cookies, auth, and email links can behave differently from preview routing.

Capture the result as a launch note: tested URL, customer action, test customer, order or booking ID when applicable, notification result, portal result, and any disabled features.

Step 8: Publish

When the launch pass is clean, change the site status to public, confirm the production domain, and run the same public-site pass once more from the final URL.

Publishing is not complete until the final URL has been tested by someone who was not editing the site. That second pass catches stale preview assumptions, browser cache, DNS mismatches, and customer-facing links that still point at draft or fallback routes.

After Launch

Monitor console surfaces for the first real activity:

• Insights for traffic and revenue signals.
• Sales for orders, invoices, and booking transactions.
• Scheduling for booking lifecycle.
• Inbox for customer events and form submissions.
• Reviews and Google Business Profile for reputation signals.