NRCW Website Checklist

The NRCW Website Checklist is a fast guide to making sure you cover all the basics when building a great website.

Content & Style

Check for incorrect punctuation marks, particularly apostrophes, quotation marks and hyphens/dashes
Check headings for where you could potentially use ligatures
Check for widow/orphan terms in important paragraphs

Check for hard-coded links to staging domain (i.e. ensure all links will change to the ‘live’ URL/domain when site is launched)
Ensure no test content on site
Check how important pages (e.g. 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’ (e.g. alt text, transcriptions, text in JavaScript functions)
Check web font rendering across major browsers
Check logos and other key images on retina displays

Page titles are important; ensure they make sense and have relevant keywords in them
Create metadata descriptions for important pages
Check for canonical domain issues (e.g. variations in links to index.html should be reduced to a single consistent style)
Ensure content is marked-up semantically/correctly (<h1>, etc.)
Check for target keyword usage in general content
Check format (user/search engine friendliness) of URLs
Set up Analytics, FeedBurner, and any other packages for measuring ongoing success
Create an XML Sitemap
Configure Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools
Ensure conversion tracking is enabled for all PPC campaigns
Check goals and funnels are correctly setup in analytics tools

Check all bespoke/complex functionality
Check search functionality (including relevance of results)
Check on common variations of browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome etc.), version (6, 7, 2.2, 3.1 etc.) and platform (Windows, OSX, Linux)
Check on common variations of screen resolution
Test all forms (e.g. Contact Us, blog comments), including antispam features, response emails/text, etc.

Configure backup schedule, and test recovery from backup
Protect any sensitive pages (e.g. administration area)
Use robots.txt where necessary
Security/penetration test
Turn-off verbose error reporting
Check disk space/capacity
Set-up email/SMS monitoring/alerts (e.g. for errors, server warnings); consider internal and external monitoring services

Load test
Protect any sensitive pages (e.g. administration area)
Check image optimization
Check and implement caching where necessary
Check total page size/download time
Minify/compress static (JavaScript/HTML/CSS) files
Optimise your CSS: use short image paths; make full-use ‘cascading’ nature of CSS; etc.
Check correct database indexing
Check configuration at every level (web server, database, any other software e.g. Content Management System)
Configure server-based logging/measurement tools (e.g. database/web server logging)
Check and configure CDN where necessary for distributed caching and load balancing
Test without JavaScript, Flash, and other plug-ins
Check all external links are valid

Monitor and respond to feedback (direct feedback, on social media sites, check for chatter through Google, etc.)
Check analytics for problems, popular pages etc. and adjust as necessary
Update content