1. Define the purpose and scope.
- Write down the main audience and the action you want visitors to take.
- List the pages and the question each one answers.
- Separate essential launch features from ideas for a later phase.
- Identify booking, payment, catalogue, document or account requirements.
- Agree budget, timing, review rounds and content responsibilities in writing.
If a page has no clear job, reconsider it. If a service needs more explanation than a small card allows, consider a dedicated page with useful detail. The website design process begins with these decisions.
2. Prepare accurate content and assets.
- Provide the business name, logo, colours and approved contact details.
- Write service descriptions using the language customers understand.
- Gather photographs and confirm permission or licences to use them.
- Label concepts accurately and obtain permission before publishing client work or testimonials.
- Prepare FAQs, pricing guidance where appropriate and the information needed to request a quote.
- Review privacy and other policy content against the actual website and business practices.
Keep one approved set of contact details and pricing so the homepage, service pages and forms do not contradict each other.
3. Confirm domains, hosting and account access.
- Confirm who owns the domain and who can access the registrar.
- Record where the website and business email are hosted.
- Agree who manages renewals and receives account notices.
- Identify required third-party accounts and subscription costs.
- Before moving hosting, review existing DNS records and email dependencies.
Keep passwords and private credentials out of public source code and ordinary enquiry forms. Arrange access through the appropriate provider or a secure handover method.
4. Check the experience on real screens.
- Read headings and paragraphs on a narrow phone screen.
- Open and close the menu using touch and a keyboard.
- Check that content does not overflow horizontally.
- Make sure buttons, links and form controls are easy to operate.
- Verify that images load, stay proportionate and have appropriate text alternatives.
- Check focus visibility and that reduced-motion preferences are respected.
Test more than the homepage. Nested service pages, legal pages and a not-found page should also provide a usable route back to the site.
5. Test contact and security basics.
- Confirm HTTPS works on the actual domain.
- Test telephone, email and WhatsApp destinations.
- Submit an authorised test enquiry after deployment and confirm it reaches the intended inbox.
- Check required fields, error messages and the behaviour when delivery fails.
- Ensure forms ask only for information needed for the task.
- Check that private keys, credentials or personal records are not published with the website.
A locally working form does not establish live inbox delivery. Stores and other complex systems also need scenario-specific tests for payments, access and uploaded content.
6. Review the search foundations.
- Give each indexable page a descriptive title, useful meta description and clear primary heading.
- Use consistent page addresses and appropriate self-referencing canonical URLs.
- Link important pages from navigation and relevant content.
- Check that public pages are not accidentally marked noindex or blocked from crawling.
- Include canonical indexable pages in the sitemap and reference it from robots.txt.
- For a redesign, check old URLs and redirect only to equivalent content.
After launch, submit the sitemap in Search Console and inspect important pages. Discovery and indexing are search-engine decisions; a correct setup does not guarantee rankings. See technical and on-page SEO services.
7. Finish the handover and review plan.
- Receive the agreed source files, editing access and account information.
- Document who updates content and handles incoming enquiries.
- Confirm backups, support arrangements and ongoing costs.
- Configure analytics only with valid account details and the appropriate privacy choices.
- Review the live site after launch, then monitor useful search queries and actual enquiries over time.
Keep a record of what was tested and what still needs an owner decision. If you need help preparing the brief, contact NovaSite.Cloud with your current website and priorities.