Building your first website: the checklist that keeps it shippable
The reason first websites stall is not design taste; it is scope. A site that ships is a small set of pages that each answer one question, published, then improved.
This checklist is the order we recommend, with the free tool that removes the friction at each step.
1. Decide the pages before you touch a layout
Write the URL list first: home, what you do, proof, contact. Four pages you can finish beat twelve you cannot. Every page gets one job and one primary phrase.
- One page per intent — do not merge 'pricing' into 'about'.
- Short, lowercase, hyphenated URLs you will not want to change later.
2. Write the words before the visuals
Layout decisions are easy once the copy exists and impossible before. Draft each page as a headline, a one-sentence promise, three supporting points, and one call to action.
3. Prepare images properly
Images are where new sites lose their speed score. Resize to the largest size actually displayed, compress, and prefer modern formats. Do this once, at export time, rather than shipping 4 MB photos and hoping.
4. Add metadata and share previews
Each page needs a unique title under 60 characters, a description under 160, a canonical URL and Open Graph tags so links render properly when shared. This is a ten-minute job that pays for itself immediately.
5. Run the launch checks
Before announcing anything: no broken links, sitemap published, robots.txt not blocking your own pages, pages load fast on a phone, and forms actually deliver.
6. Publish, then improve on evidence
Ship at 80%. Once the pages are live and indexed you get real queries and real behaviour, which is far better guidance than another week of redesigning the hero section.
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