Before design: map the customer decision.
Write down the main services, high-value customer questions, locations served, strongest proof, and the one or two actions the website should drive. If the project cannot explain those decisions before mockups begin, design is being asked to solve a strategy problem.
- Primary services
- Customer questions
- Proof and objections
- Contact action
- Search intent by page
During build: protect crawlability and mobile clarity.
Important copy should be readable in HTML, headings should stay semantic, images should be compressed and sized properly, navigation must work by keyboard, and calls to action must remain obvious on small screens. A visually impressive redesign that becomes slower or harder to crawl is a regression.
Before launch: prove the business path works.
Test every form, phone/email action, analytics event, redirect, canonical, metadata field, sitemap entry, mobile breakpoint, and payment or booking handoff. Launch day should verify the full path from search or direct visit to saved inquiry—not just that the homepage renders.