What to look for in a website rebuild preview

When you get a preview of your rebuilt website, the design is the least of what to check. Look first at the facts: your phone number, hours, address, services and names. Then use the site on your own phone the way a customer would, tap every button, send yourself a message through the form, and see whether your old pages still have a home. Write down what is wrong as you go, in plain sentences, and send it all in one list.

Give it two sittings, not one

Your first look is a gut reaction: do you like it, does it feel like your business. That matters, but it is not a review. Look once for the feeling, then come back later, ideally the next day, with a list and a pen. A tired evening glance misses the wrong digit in a phone number.

Do the second sitting on the device most of your customers use. For most local businesses that is a phone, so start there and check a computer after.

Check the facts first

A preview built from your old site, or from what you told someone, can carry over old mistakes or introduce new ones. Read slowly and check each of these against what is true today:

Business name, spelled and punctuated exactly as you use it.
Phone number, every place it appears. Read each digit.
Email address.
Street address and ZIP code, or the area you serve if you do not show an address.
Hours, including weekends and any seasonal hours.
Services. Anything listed that you do not do? Anything missing that you do?
Towns or area served.
Prices, if shown. Are they current, and are they ones you are happy to publish?
Names of people: your own, your staff, anyone quoted.
License numbers, years in business, certifications. These have to be exact.
Claims. Anything that sounds bigger than you would say yourself, like "the best in the state" or a guarantee you do not offer.

Circle anything you are unsure of. A website states things on your behalf, so only approve what you would say to a customer's face.

Use it like a customer on your phone

Now stop reading and start using. Pretend you are a customer who has never heard of you.

First screen. Without scrolling, can you tell what the business does, where, and how to call?
Call. Tap the phone number or call button. Does your phone offer to dial the right number?
Find a service. Pick a service and try to reach its page from the menu. How many taps did it take?
Find the hours and the area. Could a customer answer "are you open Saturday" and "do you come to my town" quickly?
Scroll a long page. Does anything overlap, get cut off or jump around? Are photos cropped badly, with heads or the important part missing?
Rotate the phone sideways and back. Does it still look right?
Text size. Can you read everything without zooming, without your reading glasses if you normally manage without?

If you can, hand your phone to someone who does not know the site, such as a spouse, a friend or an employee, ask them to find one thing, and watch where they hesitate.

Click everything

Links break quietly. Go through:

Every item in the menu, at the top and in the footer.
Every button: "Get a quote", "Book now", "See our work".
Links to your social pages, Google reviews, booking tool or payment links. Do they open the right page, under your business?
The email address: does tapping it open a new email to the right address?
The map or directions link: does it put the pin on your building?

Test the form for real

Fill in the contact form with your own details and a message like "Test from preview, please ignore." Then check:

Did a thank-you message appear, and does it say something sensible?
Did the message arrive in your inbox, or the inbox you chose, within a few minutes?
When you reply to it, does the reply go to the address you typed in?

Some previews send form messages to a test address until the site goes live. Ask whoever built it where the messages go now and where they will go after the switch.

Check what came over from your old site

If this is a rebuild of an existing site, compare old and new side by side.

Pages. Is every page you care about there, or deliberately merged into another? Old service pages and town pages are the ones most often dropped.
Old page addresses. Ask whether every old address will still work, either as the same page or by forwarding to the new one. This protects bookmarks, links from other sites and whatever place in search results the old pages have earned. Our guide on why old page addresses matter explains what to ask.
Testimonials and photos. All there? Any you would rather drop?
Important text. Policies, warranties, service details you wrote carefully years ago.

Write your changes so they get done

Collect everything in one list rather than sending ten messages. For each change, say:

Where: the page and the section. "Home page, the box under the big photo."
What is there now: "It says we are open Sundays."
What it should be: "We are closed Sundays."

Be specific about taste changes too. "I don't like it" is hard to act on; "the green feels too bright, can it be closer to the green on our truck" is easy. Our guide on giving a web designer feedback that gets results has more examples.

After the changes come back

Check that each change was made and that nothing else moved. Then do the phone test and the form test once more. For the final round before the switch, use how to test your new website before it goes live.

What to do this week

Set aside two short sessions with the preview, one for the feeling and one for the checklist.
Check every fact on the list above.
Do the seven phone steps and tap every link.
Send yourself a test message.
Send one clear list of changes.

If you do not have a preview yet, you can see your site rebuilt first and use this list on it before deciding anything.