A launch check you can do in twenty minutes

Why check before you announce

The moment you put a new website on your truck, cards and Google profile, real customers start using it. If the form is broken or a phone number has a typo, you won’t hear about it. You will just notice the phone is quieter than expected.

A twenty-minute check catches nearly all of that. I run a version of this on every site I build, and I ran it on this one. The test inquiry I sent showed that the lead tracker wasn’t saving the person’s name. The site looked perfect. Only the test caught it, and it took five minutes to fix.

Minutes 1 to 5: Read it like a stranger

Open the site on your phone and read the homepage as if you had never heard of your business. Then check the facts that have to be exactly right:

• Business name spelled the same everywhere.
• Phone number correct on every page.
• Hours and service area match your Google Business Profile.
• Prices or price ranges are current.
• No leftover placeholder text, like “Lorem ipsum” or “Your text here.”

Minutes 5 to 10: Try every way to contact you

Tap the phone number on your cell. It should ring the phone you actually carry. Tap the email link. Fill out the form with your own details and a note that says TEST.

Then check that the inquiry arrived where it should: your inbox, your phone or whatever you use to track leads. Check the spam folder too. If nothing shows up within a few minutes, stop and fix it before going any further. A site that looks great but drops inquiries is worse than no site, because you think it is working.

Minutes 10 to 15: Click everything

Go through every menu item and button. You are looking for links that go nowhere, pages that say “not found” and buttons that do nothing. Check the footer links too, since nobody ever does.

If you had an old website, try a few of its addresses, especially any that are printed somewhere or that customers might have bookmarked. They should take people to the matching new page rather than an error. That is called a redirect, and whoever built the site can set it up.

Borrow a second phone

Your own phone has your passwords saved, your text size set and maybe the site already cached. Borrow a phone from someone else, ideally the other kind (iPhone if you use Android, or the reverse) and preferably an older one. Load the homepage, tap the phone number and open the menu. Sites that look perfect on one phone sometimes break on another, and this is the cheapest way to find out.

Minutes 15 to 20: Tell the search engines

Search engines will find a new site eventually, but you can help. Set up free accounts in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, add your site and submit your sitemap. Google’s documentation says crawling can take from a few days to a few weeks, so it is worth starting the clock on launch day.

Then update your Google Business Profile with the new website address, and do the same on Facebook, Yelp and anywhere else you are listed. Make sure the link points to the right page.

If something is broken

Don’t panic, and don’t announce the site yet. Write down exactly what you did and what happened, like “Tapped the phone number on the services page on my iPhone, nothing happened.” That one sentence lets whoever built the site fix it quickly, instead of hunting for a problem they can’t see.

Fix the contact problems first, then the wrong facts, then broken links. Looks can wait. A plain site that sends inquiries beats a beautiful one that loses them.

Launch day for your listings

Once the site passes, update everywhere your old web address appears. Start with your Google Business Profile, then Facebook, Yelp, Nextdoor and any directories you are listed in. Then the things people hold in their hands: business cards, invoices, estimate templates, the truck. Keep a short list of where you made changes so you can find them all again next time.

After launch: the one-week follow-up

A week later, do three quick things. Search your business name on Google and see what comes up. Check Search Console for any errors. Ask one or two customers or friends to try the site on their phones and tell you anything confusing.

Then put a monthly check on the calendar. I wrote a short one in a monthly website check for busy owners.