Ten checks before your site goes live
· 2 min read
Most problems discovered after launch could have been caught in a ten-minute check. Here is that check.
When a site is finished everyone rushes to launch it. Yet most of the problems discovered afterwards would have been caught by a ten-minute check. Do these in order.
1. Open it on your phone
A site that looks perfect on a desktop can fall apart on a phone, and most of your visitors will arrive on one. Open it on your own phone, scroll to the bottom, press every button.
2. Actually test the contact details
Tap the phone number — does it start a call? Click the email address — is it the right one? Does the map point at your actual door? If those three are wrong, nothing else on the site matters.
3. Submit the contact form
Fill the form in with real details, send it, and confirm the message arrives. If it does not, either it is landing in spam or email was never configured. Both must be fixed before launch.
4. Read the copy out loud
Reading silently, your eye skips mistakes. Read the home page and service pages aloud; every sentence you stumble over is a sentence to fix.
5. Click every link
Go through the menu, the footer and the links inside the text. A single "page not found" costs you credibility.
6. Check how it looks when shared
Send the address to yourself on WhatsApp. Is the preview title, description and image correct? If not, everyone who shares your site shares that mistake.
7. Look for the padlock
The address must start with https and show a padlock. Without it, the browser tells your visitor the site is "not secure" — and nobody fills in a form after seeing that.
8. Measure how fast it loads
Put your address into pagespeed.web.dev and read the mobile result. Google measures three things: how long the largest element takes to appear (under 2.5 seconds is good), how much the page jumps while loading (under 0.1 is good), and how quickly it responds to a tap (under 200 ms is good). Anything red is a problem.
9. It may still be hidden from search engines
Sites are blocked from search engines while being built, and unblocking is easy to forget. When that happens the site stays out of Google for months. Ask directly: "is it open to search engines?"
10. Change your admin password
The password handed over at delivery is usually simple and usually known by more than one person. Change it first, then store it somewhere safe.
Bonus: are there backups?
Is the site backed up, how often, and to where? One day something will be deleted and you will want to know the answer. Ask before you launch.