Website Checklist

Website hosting

• Know the monthly bandwidth limits.
• Know the cost for extra bandwidth each month.
• Read and understand the Terms of Service.
• Verify the amount of server storage allowed.
• Understand the policy regarding CGI scripts.
• Verify database access and ecommerce shopping cart access.
• Confirm your access to server logs.

Pre-launch

• Choose typography and layout.
• Check content and style.
• Check headings for where you could potentially use ligatures.
• Check for widow/orphan terms in important paragraphs.
• Correct all spelling and grammar errors.
• Use capitalisation.
• Use recurring/common phrases (eg. 'More about X' links).
• Use variations in words.
• Check for hard-coded links to staging domain.
• Ensure no test content on site.
• Check how important pages (eg. content items) print.
• For re-designs, ensure important old/existing URLs are redirected to relevant new URLs, if the URL scheme is changing.
• Check all 'Hidden Copy' (eg. alt text, transcriptions, text in JavaScript functions).
• Create a custom error page.

Standards and Validation

• HTML validation.
• JavaScript validation.
• CSS validation.

SEO

• Ensure page titles make sense and have relevant keywords in them.
• Create metadata descriptions for important pages.
• Check for canonical domain issues.
• Ensure content is marked-up correctly.
• Check for target keyword usage in general content.
• Check format of URLs.
• Set up Analytics and any other packages for measuring ongoing success.
• Create an XML Sitemap.
• Configure Google Webmaster Console and Yahoo! Site Explorer.

Functional Testing

• Check all bespoke/complex functionality.
• Check search functionality (including relevance of results).
• Check page display in all browsers and operating systems.
• Test pages at different screen resolutions.
• Test all forms (eg. contact us, blog comments), including anti-spam features, response emails/text.
• Test without JavaScript, Flash, and other plug-ins.
• Verify all hyperlinks.

Security/Risk

• Configure backup schedule, and test recovery from backup.
• Protect any sensitive pages.
• Use robotstxt where necessary.
• Perform security/penetration test.
• Turn-off verbose error reporting.
• Check disk space capacity.
• Set-up email/SMS monitoring/alerts for errors and server warnings.

Performance

• Test your page load speed.
• Check image optimisation.
• Check and implement caching.
• Minify/compress static (JavaScript/HTML/CSS) files.
• Optimise your CSS.
• Check correct database indexing.
• Check configuration at every level (Web server, Database)
• Configure server-based logging/measurement tools.

Post-Launch

• Use social marketing: Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Facebook, Stumbleupon.
• Submit to search engines.
• Set-up PPC/Google Adwords.
• Check formatting of site results in SERPs.
• Monitor and respond to feedback.
• Check analytics for problems, popular pages and adjust when necessary.
• Update content regularly.