After receiving a website from a web studio, you should have time to check it. But how do you do that? Online website analysis tools will help us here.
In this article we will go through the items you should check after receiving a site from web developers. At the end of the article you will find a form that takes you to an analysis of all these points.
How to Check a Finished Website
Before diving into a pile of unclear website-analysis data, first read which points matter and why. After that you can safely use the form to run the analysis itself.
1. Indexing
This is the number of site pages indexed by a search engine, meaning these pages can appear to users in search results. If you have just received a website from developers, the numbers may still be zero. That is not a problem, except for one thing: what if the developer accidentally closed all pages from indexing? It is reasonable to agree on a week of testing before the deal is fully closed. Everyone understands that a web resource cannot be tested in five minutes, and any company or freelance developer should give you time to check everything carefully and find existing errors and issues.
2. Virus Check
Your website definitely should not contain viruses. I have not personally encountered this, but when accepting a website, pay attention to this point.
3. Analytics Systems
There should be at least two counters: one from Google and one from Yandex. If you did not agree with the developers about installing analytics counters, do it now. Later they will be very useful for analyzing and reviewing traffic statistics.
4. Page Title
5. Page Description
On the one hand, everything related to text should have come from you to the developer. If you did not separately pay them to write selling copy and fill the website with content, nobody will spend effort and time creating unique attractive titles, descriptions, and other site texts. Nevertheless, these elements must exist. A developer may insert something like "Home page" and then forget to replace it or decide that it is good enough.
During an ordinary visual check of the website, you may not even see this text. Later, users will see exactly this text in the search engine and decide whether to visit your site or choose another one.
Here is an example of how our web studio appears in search:
Note: Titles and descriptions exist on every page of your website, but check at least the homepage, because it is the most important page.
6. Headings
This is a very important point. Each page has not only the page title, but also headings and subheadings inside the text on that page. For search engines to understand what the page is about and show it in search results, these headings are needed. They are wrapped in tags from H1 to H6. Search robots see these tags, while you usually do not, so here is how to check them.
Open https://validator.w3.org/nu/, enter the URL of the page you want to check, enable "outline", and press "Check". You will see site errors, and lower on the page you will see the heading structure, text, and nesting. Every heading matters for promotion and should contain keywords. Each lower-level heading should belong to the heading above it. In the image, for example, Address and Schedule belong to Our Contacts, while Contacts belongs to the Web Studio for Website Creation.
I want to remind you once again: there should be exactly ONE H1 heading. Not zero, not two, not three, but one. In Kazakhstan, web developers often forget this. There are site markup cases where several H1 headings are allowed, but that is a topic for another article.
7. HTML Code Errors
This is definitely the responsibility of the people who made your website, so require them to fix all errors. The most accurate error check is provided by https://validator.w3.org/nu/, which we already discussed in the headings section.
8. Redirect From WWW
If there is an error here, ask them to fix it. You should have one version of the site: either entering webseo.kz redirects to www.webseo.kz, or entering www.webseo.kz redirects to the version without www.
9. Encoding
The encoding must be UTF-8, and it must be explicitly specified.
10. robots.txt File
11. Sitemap Availability
I believe web studios should create robots.txt and Sitemap files by default, without even being asked. If they are making a website for you, these files are an integral part of it. If they are missing, ask the developers to add them immediately.
12. Favicon
This small website logo greatly increases recognition and usability. It should be bright and clear, not a blurry spot. If it is missing, provide it to the developers and ask them to add it.
13. 404 Page Response Code
14. Link From the 404 Page
This is the most common error on the internet. It can happen on absolutely any web resource. Careless setup and design of this page can push users away and cost you many visitors. Every site should have the correct response code, design matching the website, and a link from the error page back to the homepage.
15. Mobile Responsiveness
Today there is no point in making a site that is inconvenient to view on a phone or tablet. Many people access the internet and can land on your resource specifically from mobile devices. This is already a huge traffic stream for your site, and it grows every year.
The most popular way to check a site for mobile responsiveness is Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. You can also open the site on your own smartphone and test everything yourself.
Website Check Form
You can check all the points above by entering your domain in this form, for example: webseo.kz.
Short Video on the Topic
For those who do not feel like reading, I made this short video. At the end of the video you will find a promo code from A.PR-CY.ru, which... well, see for yourself.
You can write about errors on your website in the comments, and we will suggest how to fix them.
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Comments
As always, we are open to conversation: feel free to leave comments, ask questions, and share your opinion. Your feedback is important to us.
