Website Best Practices Checklist: What to Include

A website best practices checklist is a systematic document that outlines the technical, design, content, and performance standards your agency should meet before launching or maintaining client sites. It functions as your quality control framework—a list you reference throughout the development process to ensure nothing slips through the cracks. For agencies, this typically covers areas like mobile responsiveness, page load speed, SSL certificates, meta tags, heading hierarchy, internal linking structure, call-to-action placement, form functionality, image optimization, and accessibility standards. The checklist becomes more valuable when you customize it based on your specific client industries, services, and technical stack. A SaaS agency's checklist will differ from an e-commerce agency's, and that's intentional.

Why this matters for your agency goes beyond delivering quality work. A checklist protects your reputation by preventing embarrassing oversights that damage credibility. When a client's homepage loads slowly or breaks on mobile, they don't blame the developer—they blame your agency. A documented checklist also creates accountability within your team. Junior developers know exactly what's expected rather than relying on intuition or asking senior staff repeatedly. It speeds up project reviews because you're not rediscovering issues during client handoff. For client relationships, a checklist becomes a communication tool. You can share which boxes you've checked and why certain standards matter to their business goals, positioning your agency as thoughtful rather than just checking boxes.

Practically, build your checklist into your actual workflow rather than treating it as a separate document. The most effective approach is integrating it into your project management system—whether that's Asana, Monday, or custom tooling. Create tasks for each checklist item within your standard template so it's completed during development phases, not as an afterthought. Have your designer verify responsive design at 320px, 768px, and 1200px viewport widths. Have your developer confirm Core Web Vitals using PageSpeed Insights, and set specific benchmarks (under 3 seconds LCP, for example) that align with your service promises. Include security checks like HTTPS everywhere and strong password policies for admin accounts. Add accessibility verification using WAVE or axe DevTools, not just compliance but actual usability for screen reader users.

The checklist should also address the client-side elements: verifying that tracking pixels fire correctly, Google Analytics and Search Console are properly configured, local business schema is implemented if relevant, social media meta tags display correctly, and redirects from old URLs function properly. Create different versions for different project types so your checklist stays relevant. An agency that uses checklists effectively typically sees fewer post-launch issues, faster iterations with clients, and stronger portfolio results because sites actually perform as promised.