Pre-launch speed work is a gate. Post-launch monitoring is a habit. Confusing the two is how green launch screenshots become amber months with no owner.
Before you flip DNS
- Run lab checks on home, primary template, and conversion page on staging or production-like hosts.
- Confirm images have dimensions, fonts do not reflow the hero, and third parties are the agreed set, not the full marketing wishlist.
- Capture one diagnostic pass (GTmetrix or similar) if you need a waterfall for the launch ticket.
- Record baselines you will compare after go-live; a screenshot without a date is not a baseline.
In the first two weeks live
Put the same money URLs on a schedule. Watch lab trends after real traffic and real tags land. Check whether CrUX data exists yet; many new or low-traffic origins will not. Keep a diagnostic tool ready for the first regression, but do not rely on calendar reminders as the only safety net.
Free check as a kickoff artefact
Apogee Watcher’s free domain check is a useful kickoff artefact when you want a multi-page lab snapshot to share before monitoring is sold. It does not replace a launch gate on staging, and it does not replace GTmetrix when you need a location-specific waterfall tonight.
Open checklists on GitHub
- site-audit-checklist-performance-onboarding — onboarding a new client for performance monitoring
- cwv-monitoring-checklist — agency monitoring SOP
- performance-budget-thresholds-template — budgets to attach after go-live
- core-web-vitals-checklists — full index of Apogee CWV templates