The site is finished and you’re itching to hit “publish.” Before you do, run through three things that separate a decent website from one that actually works: speed, accessibility, and an honest check before launch.

Speed isn’t cosmetics, it’s money

Google measures the real experience of your visitors with Core Web Vitals. Three numbers worth knowing:

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): how long it takes for the main content to load. Aim for under 2.5 seconds.
INP (Interaction to Next Paint): how quickly the page responds to a click. Aim for under 200 ms.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): how much the content “jumps around” as it loads. Aim for under 0.1.

These aren’t academic figures. A slow site loses visitors before they even see what you’re offering. Every extra second of load time means a measurable drop in conversions, and on a shop that’s revenue walking out the door. Core Web Vitals are also one of the signals Google uses to rank results.

Three things that help the most and that you can handle yourself:

Images. The biggest hog. Scale them down to the size they’re actually displayed at, and use modern formats (WebP, AVIF). For background photos, 80% quality is fine; you won’t see the difference.
Reserve the space. Give images and embeds a width and height so the layout doesn’t shift. That’s how you knock down CLS.
Fewer scripts. Every chat widget, tracker, and extra “pixel” costs something. Only add what you actually use.

You can measure all of this for free in PageSpeed Insights or in the Lighthouse tab of your browser’s developer tools.

Accessibility: common decency that’s also the law in the EU

An accessible site can be used by someone who can’t see, can’t hear, or can’t use a mouse. These aren’t edge cases. And since June 2025, the European Accessibility Act has been in force in the EU, requiring accessibility from a wide range of commercial sites and online shops. Ignoring it isn’t just rude, it’s a legal risk.

The basics that cover most problems:

Contrast. Text has to be readable against its background. Gray on light gray looks expensive and nobody can read it. Aim for a ratio of at least 4.5:1 for regular text.
Keyboard. Go through the whole site using only the Tab key. Can you reach the menu, the form, the “submit” button? Can you see where you currently are (the focus ring)?
Alt text. Every image that carries information needs a description. Leave a purely decorative image with an empty alt="".
Semantics. Use <button> for buttons, <nav> for navigation, one <h1> per page. A screen reader uses these to orient the user.

Bonus: an accessible site tends to be faster, gets indexed better, and is easier to maintain. Here, doing the decent thing pays you back.

A checklist before you go live

Before you let the site loose on the world, run through this. Point by point is fine:

Analytics is running and recording (Plausible, Matomo, or GA4). Without data you’re shooting in the dark.
Forms tested. Did you send yourself a test message, and did it actually land in your inbox? Verify it, don’t assume.
A 404 page exists and leads back into the site, not into the void.
Favicon in the browser tab. A small thing, but without it the site looks unfinished.
OG image for sharing on social. Without one, Facebook and messengers show nothing but a bare link.
Backups set up and tested. A backup you’ve never restored isn’t a backup.
Legal pages: a privacy policy, a cookie banner (only if you actually collect cookies), and terms and conditions for a shop.

Go through the site on a phone, too. Most people will reach you from one.

And if you’d rather not deal with it

All of this can be done yourself, and this guide handed you the map for it. But if you’d rather spend your time on your business, you can hand the whole list to us. We’ll build it so that everything stays yours: the code, the accounts, the domain. No locked doors you don’t hold the key to. Get in touch and we’ll talk it over.