When it comes to managing your website, you need to stay on top of issues before current or even worse, potential customers find them. That’s why it pays off to be extremely diligent when maintaining your website. As website designers & developers, we’ve developed a daily checklist of the four most important checks for your website.
1. Confirm That Your Website Address Works
This is a no-brainer: type your website address and confirm that it takes you to the correct location. We’ve found that when this check fails, it could be due to several root causes:
- Redirects and infinite loops
- Caching issues related to your server, CDN, and/or browser
- Server misconfigurations
- Conflicts from software updates
- Down servers and services
These root causes can occur on day one of your website’s launch (without you ever knowing), and can affect individual web pages or your entire website. This is especially true when website caching is enabled. If you’re unfamiliar with caching, it stores old data to speed up retrieval later. If you aren’t clearing your cache before running this check, you may miss issues above or others, such as pages showing a browser error, massive layout shifts, or majorly incorrect styling.
We always recommend using a service like UptimeRobot to notify you and your team when your website is down.
2. Are Your Website Contact Forms Functional?
The second check is on your contact forms. This is your primary and, in some cases, the only means of collecting customer information. So, don’t let this check go unnoticed. As you check, keep the following in mind:
- Do all of your lead submission data:
- Get stored in your database?
- Get routed and stored on your CRM (if you’re using one)?
- Trigger an email notification that’s sent to the correct inboxes?
- If you’ve got a spam blocker on your website, does it block legitimate submissions? Sometimes the blocker is too sensitive, blocking normal submissions. If this happens, you may need to tweak the settings or use a different spam service.
- Do all contact forms work across each page?
- Do integrations, such as Google Tag Manager or custom code, fire when a form is submitted? Sometimes, these integrations are updated and, as a result, cause the form or these integrations to fail.
3. Does Your Website Render Correctly on Different Devices?
With thousands of devices out there, it’s impossible to check every device to see whether your website is working. Focus on one from each of the following device types: Mac, PC, iOS, and Android. Confirm that your homepage and any other major pages are loading properly and that any on-page features work as expected.
On each device, the browser type (Chrome, Safari, Edge) can contribute to a bad website experience. That’s why it’s a good idea to check across different browser types in addition to the four device types above. However, if time is a concern, we suggest focusing on Google Chrome since it has the largest market share. This check is worth the time investment and can quickly eliminate costly mistakes across multiple browsers. It’s also something your web design team should do routinely.
4. Get Your Local and Cloud Backups in Working Order
This is one of the most important checks that you can do. First, ensure that your website backups are configured to run automatically and at a cadence that makes sense for your business (i.e., news sites might back up every hour, while B2B sites might back up once a day). At times, backups can fail, resulting in no backups generated or corrupt backup files. That’s why the second part of this check is to confirm that your backups actually work as intended. If you’re unsure of how to do this, consider having a web design team support your backup efforts.
The Bottom Line / TLDR
Anyone who manages a website must confirm the daily functionality of the following: website address, contact forms, device compatibility, and backups. They are pivotal to a seamless digital experience and lead to a reliable lead-generation workflow. Get help with managing a better website experience today and connect with our marketing team.
