161 checks before your site goes live

What gets checked

1. 01Speed and Core Web Vitals12
2. 02Page weight and asset discipline9
3. 03The phone, which is where your customer actually is11
4. 04Browsers and devices8
5. 05On-page SEO12
6. 06Technical SEO and crawlability13
7. 07Structured data and AI answers10
8. 08Content and copy11
9. 09Getting the call12
10. 10Forms and lead capture10
11. 11Accessibility14
12. 12Security, privacy and legal11
13. 13Analytics and measurement9
14. 14Hosting, domain and email9
15. 15What you get at handover10

Google ranks on how fast the page is for real visitors, not on how fast it feels on our machine. Every number here is measured on throttled hardware.

• Largest Contentful Paint

  Under 2.5s on emulated slow 4G with 4× CPU throttling · verified: Lighthouse, median of three runs

• Cumulative Layout Shift

  0.00 — nothing on the page moves after it paints · verified: Lighthouse, plus a manual scroll on a cold load

• Interaction to Next Paint

  Under 200ms on the slowest interaction on the page · verified: Chrome DevTools Performance panel

• Total Blocking Time

  Under 200ms · verified: Lighthouse, median of three runs

• First Contentful Paint

  Under 1.8s throttled · verified: Lighthouse, median of three runs

• Lighthouse performance score

  90 or better on mobile emulation, every indexable page · verified: Lighthouse CLI against the production URL

• Time to First Byte

  Under 600ms from a cold edge cache · verified: curl timing against the live domain

• The LCP element is identified and is text or the hero image

  Never a decorative background · verified: Lighthouse LCP trace

• No render-blocking scripts above the fold

  Zero blocking third-party requests before first paint · verified: DevTools Network waterfall

• Fonts are self-hosted or preloaded, with a fallback that matches

  No invisible text during load, no reflow when the face lands · verified: Visual check on a throttled first load

• Analytics loads after the page, never before it

  Deferred to idle time after window load · verified: DevTools Network waterfall

• Scores re-measured on production, not on a staging build

  Same URL the public gets · verified: Lighthouse against the live domain post-launch

Most contractor sites are slow because of what was loaded, not how it was coded. This is the section that keeps that from happening.

• Total page weight on the homepage

  Under 1MB on first load, images included · verified: DevTools Network panel, cache disabled

• JavaScript shipped to the browser

  Under 150KB compressed, and every kilobyte accounted for · verified: Build output plus a bundle inspection

• No page builder, no theme framework, no plugin stack

  Custom code only · verified: View source on any page

• Every photo converted to AVIF or WebP with a fallback

  No unconverted JPEG or PNG in the page load · verified: DevTools Network panel, filtered to images

• Images sized to the box they render in

  No image served more than 2× its displayed width · verified: Lighthouse 'properly size images' audit

• Responsive image sets for anything full-width

  A phone never downloads the desktop photo · verified: Network panel at a 390px viewport

• Below-the-fold images lazy-loaded

  Only above-the-fold imagery loads eagerly · verified: Network waterfall on initial paint

• Every image has explicit width and height

  Space is reserved before the file arrives · verified: Source inspection, confirmed by CLS of 0

• No unused CSS or JS shipped

  Under 20KB of unused bytes on any route · verified: DevTools Coverage panel

He is one-handed, outdoors, on a bad signal, and he is comparing you to two other numbers. Every check here is run on a real handset, not a resized desktop window.

• Every tap target is at least 48 by 48 CSS pixels

  Buttons, links, phone numbers, form fields, menu items · verified: Lighthouse tap-target audit plus a manual pass

• At least 8px of space between adjacent tap targets

  No accidental taps on the wrong button · verified: Manual pass on a real handset

• Call button pinned within thumb reach

  Reachable one-handed on a 6.1in screen without a grip change · verified: Manual pass on a real handset

• No horizontal scroll at any width from 320px up

  Zero sideways movement on any page · verified: Responsive mode sweep, 320px to 1920px

• No pinch-zoom required to read anything

  Body text at 16px minimum, never below · verified: Manual pass on a real handset

• Phone numbers are tap-to-call links

  Every visible number, on every page, in the header and footer · verified: Tap each one on a real handset

• Address links open the customer's map app

  Works on both iOS and Android · verified: Tap on both platforms

• Forms bring up the right keyboard

  Numeric pad for phone, email keyboard for email · verified: Manual pass on a real handset

• Tested on real iOS Safari, not Chrome device emulation

  Emulation runs a different engine and has missed real bugs · verified: WebKit, then a physical device

• Usable on a slow connection

  Readable and callable within 3s on emulated slow 4G · verified: Throttled load with the network panel open

• Works in landscape and with the on-screen keyboard open

  Nothing is covered, clipped, or pushed off screen · verified: Manual pass on a real handset

A site that only works in the browser it was built in is not finished. This is the matrix every build is walked through before launch.

• Safari on iOS, current and one version back

  Full pass on a physical device · verified: Manual

• Chrome on Android, current

  Full pass on a physical device · verified: Manual

• Chrome, Edge and Firefox on desktop, current

  Full pass · verified: Manual

• Safari on macOS, current

  Full pass · verified: Manual

• Small phone, 320px to 390px wide

  No clipping, no overflow, no unreachable buttons · verified: Physical device plus responsive sweep

• Tablet, portrait and landscape

  Layout holds at both orientations · verified: Physical device or emulation

• Large desktop, 1920px and wider

  Content stays in a readable column, no stretched lines · verified: Manual

• Reduced-motion preference respected

  All non-essential animation stops when the OS asks it to · verified: OS accessibility setting, then reload

This is the part most template sites skip entirely, and it is the reason they never rank for anything but their own business name.

• One H1 per page, and it names the service and the place

  Never a logo, never a tagline, never two H1s · verified: Heading outline inspection on every page

• Heading levels descend without skipping

  H1, then H2, then H3 — no jumps · verified: Accessibility tree inspection

• Unique title tag on every page

  Under 60 characters, service and location first · verified: Crawl of every indexable URL

• Unique meta description on every page

  Under 155 characters, written to earn the click · verified: Crawl of every indexable URL

• A page for every service you sell

  Not one bullet on a combined services page · verified: Service list checked against the sitemap

• A page for every town you actually drive to

  Distinct content per town, never a find-and-replace · verified: Manual read of each page

• No two pages competing for the same phrase

  One target phrase per URL · verified: Keyword map reviewed against the sitemap

• Internal links connect services to the towns that buy them

  No page more than two clicks from the homepage · verified: Crawl depth report

• Descriptive alt text on every meaningful image

  Decorative images marked as decorative, not stuffed · verified: Crawl plus manual read

• URLs are readable and stable

  Words, hyphens, lowercase, no IDs or dates · verified: Sitemap review

• Descriptive link text throughout

  No 'click here' and no bare URLs in body copy · verified: Crawl of outgoing link text

• Enough on the page to be worth ranking

  Every service page answers the question it targets in full · verified: Manual read against the target phrase

Google has to be able to find, fetch and index every page. These are the failures that quietly keep a site invisible for months.

• XML sitemap generated from the real route list

  Every indexable URL present, nothing stale · verified: Fetch the sitemap and diff it against the crawl

• Sitemap declared in robots.txt and submitted to Search Console

  Submitted by hand, confirmed accepted · verified: Google Search Console

• robots.txt allows everything that should be indexed

  No accidental site-wide disallow · verified: Fetch /robots.txt on production

• No staging or preview URL is crawlable

  Previews carry noindex or auth · verified: Fetch a preview URL and check the headers

• Self-referencing canonical on every page

  Prevents preview and parameter URLs duplicating production · verified: Source inspection on every indexable URL

• One hostname, everything else redirects to it

  www and non-www resolve to a single canonical host · verified: curl both, follow the redirect chain

• HTTPS everywhere, HTTP redirects permanently

  301, no mixed content warnings anywhere · verified: curl plus a console check on every page

• Every URL returns the status code it should

  200 for real pages, 301 for moved, 404 for missing · verified: Full crawl of the site

• A real 404 page that keeps the visitor

  Branded, with navigation and the phone number on it · verified: Visit a URL that does not exist

• No redirect chains and no loops

  One hop maximum · verified: Crawl with redirect tracing

• Old URLs redirected if we are replacing an existing site

  Every ranking URL mapped to its new home before cutover · verified: Crawl of the old site, mapped one to one

• Pagination and filters cannot generate infinite URLs

  No crawl traps · verified: Crawl with parameter discovery on

• Every page rendered and indexed after launch

  Confirmed in Search Console, not assumed · verified: URL Inspection on a sample of every page type

Search engines and AI assistants read a machine-readable copy of your business. If it is missing or wrong, you get left out of answers you should be in.

• LocalBusiness or the correct trade-specific type

  Valid, with no errors and no warnings that matter · verified: Google Rich Results Test and Schema.org validator

• Name, address, phone and hours match everywhere

  Identical across the schema, the footer and the contact page · verified: Side-by-side comparison

• Service schema on every service page

  Correctly typed and linked to the business · verified: Rich Results Test on each page

• Service area declared

  Every town you cover, matching the town pages · verified: Schema inspection

• FAQ schema where there are real questions and answers

  Emitted from the same content the visitor sees · verified: Rich Results Test, plus a visual diff

• Breadcrumb schema matching the visible navigation

  No invented hierarchy · verified: Rich Results Test

• No review or rating schema until there are real reviews

  Zero exceptions — inventing it risks a manual penalty · verified: Schema inspection

• Answers written in the format AI assistants extract

  Question, then a direct answer in the first sentence · verified: Manual read of every answer block

• Key facts stated in plain text, not only in images

  Hours, service area and pricing readable without OCR · verified: Text-only render of each page

• Baseline AI visibility recorded before launch

  Measured so the change after launch is provable · verified: aivisibilitymetrics.com, a tool we built and run

The words do the selling. Every page is written from one call with you and comes back for your approval before it is built.

• Every page approved by you before it goes public

  In writing, on a staging link · verified: Approval recorded against the staging URL

• Services described the way you describe them

  Your trade vocabulary, not generic marketing language · verified: Read-back on the review call

• Real photos of your trucks, crews and finished work

  No stock photography of models in clean hard hats · verified: Visual audit of every image on the site

• Licence and insurance details stated where a buyer looks

  Licence number visible, current, and correct · verified: Checked against your paperwork

• Service area stated in plain language

  The towns you drive to, named · verified: Confirmed against your list

• Hours, emergency availability and response time stated

  Accurate on the day of launch · verified: Confirmed with you at handover

• Every price or claim on the site is one you stand behind

  Nothing written that you would not say on the phone · verified: Line-by-line read on the approval call

• No placeholder text anywhere

  Zero lorem ipsum, zero 'coming soon', zero sample content · verified: Full-text search of the built site

• Spelling and grammar checked

  US spelling throughout, consistent · verified: Automated pass plus a manual read

• Business name, phone and address identical site-wide

  Character for character, including formatting · verified: Full-text search across every page

• Nothing on the site contradicts anything else on it

  Hours, coverage and services agree on every page · verified: Cross-page consistency pass

A site that ranks and never rings is a failure. These are checked on the live site, on a real phone, before handover.

• Phone number visible without scrolling on every page

  Above the fold on both phone and desktop · verified: Manual pass on both

• Call button in the thumb zone on mobile

  Present on every page, never scrolls out of reach · verified: Manual pass on a real handset

• Every call link dialed and answered as a test

  Rings the phone you actually answer · verified: Live test call before handover

• One clear next step per page

  No page leaves a visitor without an obvious action · verified: Page-by-page review

• Quote form reachable from every page

  One tap or one click, always · verified: Navigation audit

• Emergency or after-hours path is obvious

  Where it applies to your trade · verified: Manual review

• Trust signals near every call to action

  Licence, insurance, years in business, service area · verified: Page-by-page review

• Google reviews shown live on the page

  Real current rating, not a screenshot · verified: Compare the page against your Google listing

• No dead ends

  Every page links onward to a service, a town or the form · verified: Crawl for pages with no outbound internal links

• Nothing interrupts a visitor before they have read anything

  No entry popups, no chat bubble ambush, no auto-play sound · verified: Cold visit in a clean browser profile

• Click-to-text where you offer it

  Opens the messaging app with the number prefilled · verified: Tap on iOS and Android

• Every conversion path walked end to end on the live site

  Call, text, form — all three, after launch · verified: Manual test, results confirmed with you

Every extra field costs you leads, and a form that silently fails costs you all of them. Both are checked.

• Quote form is four fields

  Name, phone, address, what's wrong · verified: Form inspection

• Test submission received end to end

  Lands where you will actually see it · verified: Live submission before handover, confirmed by you

• Notification reaches you within one minute

  Email, text or both, whichever you asked for · verified: Timed test submission

• Leads are stored, not only emailed

  A dropped notification can never lose the lead · verified: Submit, then confirm the stored record

• Spam protection that does not punish real people

  No CAPTCHA puzzle in front of a paying customer · verified: Submit as a human, then as a bot

• Validation messages are specific and readable

  Says which field and why, never just 'error' · verified: Submit deliberately bad input

• Errors do not clear what was already typed

  Nothing retyped after a failed submission · verified: Trigger a validation error and check the fields

• Confirmation screen tells them what happens next

  Who calls, and how soon · verified: Complete a real submission

• Form works with the keyboard alone

  Tab order is sane, focus is always visible · verified: Keyboard-only pass

• Form works with JavaScript disabled or failed

  Degrades to something that still submits, or fails loudly · verified: Disable JS and submit

Measured against WCAG 2.2 level AA. Some of your customers are older, some are on a cracked screen in the sun, and some use a screen reader. All of them can hire you.

• Lighthouse accessibility score

  100, every indexable page · verified: Lighthouse CLI

• Automated audit with no violations

  Zero errors at WCAG 2.2 AA · verified: axe-core

• Body text contrast

  4.5:1 minimum against its background · verified: Contrast checker on every text and background pair

• Large text and UI component contrast

  3:1 minimum · verified: Contrast checker

• Every interactive element reachable by keyboard

  Nothing reachable only by mouse · verified: Keyboard-only pass of every page

• Focus is always visible

  A clear indicator on every focusable element · verified: Tab through every page

• Tab order follows the visual order

  No jumps backward or into hidden content · verified: Keyboard-only pass

• Skip-to-content link present

  First tab stop on every page · verified: Tab once from a fresh load

• Screen reader pass on the main paths

  Homepage, a service page, and the quote form · verified: VoiceOver on macOS and iOS

• Every form field has a real label

  Placeholder text is never the only label · verified: Accessibility tree inspection

• Landmarks and regions correctly marked

  Header, nav, main, footer all present once · verified: Accessibility tree inspection

• Images carry alt text, decorative ones marked empty

  No image announced as its filename · verified: Screen reader pass

• Page language declared

  Set on the html element · verified: Source inspection

• Nothing conveyed by color alone

  Errors, links and states carry a second signal · verified: Grayscale render of every page

The parts that only matter on the day they go wrong. Checked before handover so that day does not arrive.

• Valid SSL certificate with auto-renewal

  No expiry date you have to remember · verified: Certificate inspection plus renewal confirmation

• Security headers set

  HSTS, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, frame protection · verified: Response header inspection

• No secrets, keys or credentials in the shipped code

  Zero · verified: Automated secret scan of the repository

• Dependencies free of known vulnerabilities

  No high or critical advisories at launch · verified: Dependency audit

• Form endpoints rate-limited

  A bot cannot flood your inbox · verified: Repeated submission test

• No console errors or warnings on any page

  A clean console on every route · verified: DevTools console sweep

• Privacy policy present and accurate

  Describes what is actually collected, nothing more · verified: Read against the real data flow

• Terms of service present

  Linked in the footer on every page · verified: Footer audit

• Cookie and tracking position stated honestly

  If nothing is tracked, no banner is shown · verified: Cookie inspection on a clean profile

• Accessibility statement where you want one

  Optional, offered on every build · verified: Confirmed with you

• Licence numbers and legal business name correct

  Matches your registration exactly · verified: Checked against your paperwork

Without this there is traffic and nothing else. You get the logins, not a monthly PDF of numbers you cannot check.

• Analytics installed and firing on every page

  Confirmed receiving data before handover · verified: Live event check in the dashboard

• Calls tracked as a conversion

  Every tap-to-call link, on every page · verified: Test tap, confirmed in the dashboard

• Form submissions tracked as a conversion

  Fires on success, not on click · verified: Test submission, confirmed in the dashboard

• Text and email clicks tracked

  Labeled by where on the page they happened · verified: Test click, confirmed in the dashboard

• Search Console verified and the sitemap submitted

  Verified on the domain, not on a single URL · verified: Google Search Console

• Google Business Profile connected where you have one

  Website field pointing at the new site · verified: Profile inspection

• Baseline numbers recorded on launch day

  Speed, indexed pages and AI visibility, dated · verified: Written into the handover document

• Analytics does not slow the site down

  Loaded after the page, never blocking it · verified: Network waterfall plus a before-and-after Lighthouse run

• You have your own logins

  Owner access, not view-only under our account · verified: Confirmed by you signing in at handover

The plumbing. Most of it is invisible until a domain expires or your quotes start landing in spam.

• Domain registered in your name

  You are the registrant, not us · verified: WHOIS record

• Domain auto-renew on, with a reminder to you

  Expiry date recorded in the handover document · verified: Registrar settings

• DNS records documented before any change

  A copy of the old zone kept, so a cutover is reversible · verified: Exported zone file

• Email unaffected by the website cutover

  MX records untouched, mail tested after the switch · verified: Send and receive a test message post-cutover

• SPF and DMARC records present

  So the site's form notifications are not filtered as spam · verified: DNS inspection plus a deliverability test

• Hosting on a CDN with automatic scaling

  A storm week cannot take the site down · verified: Deployment configuration review

• Uptime monitoring active with alerting

  We find out before you do · verified: Monitor configured and test-alerted

• Automatic backups with a tested restore

  Restore actually performed once, not assumed to work · verified: Test restore before handover

• Rollback to the previous version available

  Any deploy reversible in minutes · verified: Deployment history review

Ownership does not depend on staying a client. This is handed over on launch day whether you stay on the retainer or not.

• Domain registrar login, in your name

  Transferred to your account · verified: You sign in and change the password

• Hosting account access

  Owner-level, not a shared seat · verified: You sign in and change the password

• The source code

  The complete site, yours to take anywhere · verified: Repository access or a delivered archive

• Every photo and every piece of copy

  Full resolution originals, not the compressed web versions · verified: Delivered file bundle

• Analytics and Search Console access

  Owner-level on both · verified: You sign in

• This checklist, completed and signed

  Every item marked, dated, with the measured numbers filled in · verified: Countersigned at handover

• The launch-day measurements

  Speed scores, indexed page count and AI visibility baseline · verified: Written into the signed copy of this document

• A written record of what changed

  Old URLs, new URLs and every redirect, if we replaced a site · verified: Delivered redirect map

• How to text a change, and what counts as one

  In writing, with the number · verified: Handover document

• A walkthrough of the finished site

  One call, as long as you want it to be · verified: Scheduled at handover

Questions

About the checklist

The checklist is stage 04 of a five-stage build. See how the rest of it runs, or open the sites it was run on.