Best practices for staging and publishing

You’ve optimized your site and set up your domains — now it’s time to publish. But before you go live, let’s talk about how to make the most of staging, preview, and iteration.

Preview before you publish

As you build your site, use preview mode (the play button in the top left) to test how things look and function directly in Webflow. You can check layout, responsiveness, interactions, and animations before publishing anything.

🖼️ [Screenshot of preview mode]

Preview mode is fast — but staging takes it a step further.

Use staging to test and refine

Publishing to staging creates a draft version of your site on your Webflow.io domain. This gives you a safe space to test, preview, and gather feedback without affecting your live site. It’s the perfect environment for catching issues early, whether that’s a broken link, a missing image, or a section that doesn’t look quite right on mobile. Use your staging site like a real user would. Click through every page, test interactions, submit forms, and review responsiveness on different devices and browsers.

🖼️ [Screenshot of publishing to staging]

Before pushing to production, share your staging link with teammates, clients, or friends. A second (or third) set of eyes can catch things you might miss. Encourage feedback not just on content and layout, but on usability, responsiveness, and clarity. Does the site feel intuitive? Are calls to action clear? The earlier you surface questions or confusion, the easier it is to address them.

🖼️ [Screenshot of where to get staging link]

Publish to production, with purpose

Once your staging site looks solid, it’s time to go live. Publishing to your custom domain moves your site into the world, where real users will interact with it. That means everything from visuals to page load speed matters even more.  Make publishing intentional. Double-check that you’re selecting the right domains, and make sure only authorized team members have publishing access if you’re working collaboratively.

🖼️ [Screenshot of publishing to production]

Iterate after launch

Publishing isn’t a one-time action — it’s part of an ongoing process. After launch, monitor your site’s performance, continue making improvements, and don’t be afraid to publish updates. Whether it’s updating content, refining SEO, or fixing something small, Webflow makes it easy to evolve your site over time.

For sites using the Webflow CMS, take advantage of single-item publishing to update just one Collection item at a time — no need to republish the whole site.

Treat staging and publishing as tools, not just steps, in your site’s success. Use them thoughtfully, and you’ll not only launch with confidence, but maintain momentum long after.

Ready to wrap up?

Let’s wrap up with additional resources to support your site launch.