4 Things To Check Before Approving The Final Website Design

You’re almost there. You’re almost ready to launch.

You’ve just gone through the final revision round with your website designer.

And now it’s here, the final draft of your website.

Now what?

Common sense will dictate that you check everything. But what is everything?

Here are four things you should do before approving the final website design:

1. Make sure all revision requests have been completed

2. Make sure everything works the way it’s supposed to

3. Make sure you know how to use your brand new website

4. Make sure you’re completely happy with how everything looks
   

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1. Make sure all revision requests have been completed

At this point, you would’ve already gone through a few revision rounds. It is the final draft after all.

So I would assume that at this point, you would also have a list of things you wanted to be changed; a list that would have been communicated to your website designer during the last meeting or email.

Take this list, go through each deliverable and confirm if each one has been fulfilled.

Even though this is the final draft, even though you’ve used up all your revision rounds as stipulated in the contract, you can still ask the designer to change a few things if all of the following conditions are met:

1. These changes were communicated during the last revision round; 

2. The designer acknowledged the receipt of these change requests; AND

3. The designer failed to complete it within the last revision round.

Basically, if your website designer missed fixing a few things, then it is okay to send back the design for another revision.

However, if you’ve thought of something new to fix and you’ve already used up all your revision rounds, then you might need to pay an additional fee. This is due to the fact that this new work is no longer covered by the existing contract. 

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2. Make sure everything works the way it’s supposed to

This step is pretty straightforward but can be time-consuming. It simply involves you double-checking the functionality of the website. 

During this step, think of all the things that shouldn’t be on your website:

1. Buy buttons that aren’t working

2. Products that are hard to find

3. A checkout process that’s difficult to complete

4. A contact form that can’t receive messages

5. Links that lead to 404 errors

These are the things that you should be looking for while reviewing the website that’s just been submitted by your designer.

It’s better that you find these mistakes before your potential customers do.

Another way you can go about this is to pretend that you are a potential customer. How would you use the website?

1. As you are looking for information, is there any sample text (a.k.a. Lorem ipsum…) that still needs to be replaced?

2. As you navigate through the website, did you find any broken links? Make sure that they all lead to the right place.

3. Is it easy for you to look for a specific product or could the categorization be improved? 

4. Do a test purchase. Was the process smooth, quick, and easy to complete?

5. Try subscribing to your email list. Did it work? 

6. Fill up your contact form. Did you receive the email?

After all of that, go on your mobile and repeat. Don’t skip this step. I’ve experienced having a website work perfectly on a desktop computer and then find out that people can’t click the buy button on iPhones. I’m a Samsung user. Good thing I had my friends check it first before we officially launched the website.  

So yes, ask your friends to check it for you, too. The more devices/browsers you and your friends use to check your website, the better.

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3. Make sure you know how to use your brand new website

You’ve just checked how a potential customer might use and navigate your website. But what about you? How are you going to use it? How is it going to be maintained? 

I teach my clients how to update their websites by providing a video walkthrough. This would generally include the following topics:

1. How to edit text

2. How to change images

3. How to add a product

4. How to add, schedule, and publish a blog post

5. How to add a new page

(This is one of the reasons why my preferred web platform is Squarespace. It makes it so easy for clients to update their websites while still maintaining the style that I’ve designed for them. The UI is quite intuitive and it’s not as intimidating as other platforms.)

This step usually comes after the approval of the final draft. However, it is already reasonable for you to ask at this stage how you are going to get trained on using your new website. 

Also, not all website designers will provide a video walkthrough for you. It still depends on the designer’s workflow, which makes it more important for you to ask about this.

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4. Make sure you’re completely happy with how everything looks

I’ve added this as the last thing to do because during this stage, when you’ve received the final draft, the look of the website should already be something that you like. Or at least, it should be extremely close to how you’ve imagined your website would be.

Given that, there may still be a few things that are bothering you. This is your last chance to get them fixed. 

It is very important for me that my client is 100% happy with the website he/she is receiving. So even though I feel that this step isn’t quite necessary at this point of the process, it still deserves a mention.

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If you’ve just received the final draft of your website, congratulations!

You are almost there. You are almost at the finish line. You are almost ready to launch. And I am excited for you. Lots of luck to you and your brand new project!

P.S. Did I miss something that should be checked? Comment down below.

Cheers,
Abby Castro

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