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Start with the stranger test
Before anything else, open your own site on your phone the way a stranger would. Not from the admin screen, not from your laptop with the design open beside it. Phone, cold, the way a person finds you on a Tuesday night when the sump pump has quit.
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Can they tell what you do, where you do it, and how to reach you, before they scroll? That's the whole test. Everything below is a version of it: the phone number, the phone test, the form test, the hours, the page titles, and who holds the logins.
The non-negotiables
- Your phone number and your service area go near the top of the first screen, not tucked in a footer. A person who has to hunt for the number will phone whoever made it easier to find.
- The site has to work on a phone. Google says it uses the mobile version of a site's content for indexing and ranking, so the phone version is the one that counts, for your customers and for search. If you have to pinch and zoom to read your own services, it isn't ready.
- Give people more than one way to reach you. A phone number, an email address or a form, and a way to book if you take bookings. Some people will never fill in a form and some will never phone, and you don't get to choose which kind of customer needs you.
- Hours and service area have to be true. Wrong hours are worse than no hours. If you serve Kingston, Amherstview, Napanee, and Gananoque, say so in words on the page, because that is what people type into the search box.
- Every page needs a real page title that says what the page is. "Kitchen renovations in Kingston" does that; "Home" never will. Google's advice is to write descriptive, concise title text and avoid vague descriptors like "Home", and the title is the line people click in search results.
Where the storefront and the truck part ways
A launch checklist that treats a Princess Street shop and a plumber working from a truck the same way gets both of them wrong. The shop needs people to walk in. The truck needs people to phone. Neither is a real client; they are the two shapes of business the list has to fit.
| At launch | Storefront on Princess Street | Trade run from a truck |
|---|---|---|
| First screen | Street address, door hours, phone | Phone, what you do, the towns you cover |
| Hours | Door hours, plus holiday closures | The hours you answer, and whether that includes weekends |
| Where you work | The neighbourhood, so a directions link lands at the door | Every town you drive to, named in words, with the one you are based in first |
| Proof you're real | A photo of your actual storefront, so people recognise it when they arrive | Photos of finished jobs, each one with the town named |
| The way in | A directions link and the phone number | A quote form, tested from a phone, and the phone number |
A shop that also does home visits can serve both columns from one site. The first screen just has to pick which one matters more when the phone is the only thing the customer has in hand.
Wrong hours are worse than no hours.
The things that get missed the night before
These are the ones worth a second look after everything else says done.
- The contact form nobody tested. Fill it in yourself, from your phone, and confirm the message arrives somewhere a human reads. Forms fail quietly, and a broken one costs you enquiries for as long as nobody notices.
- The placeholder text that survived. A line of filler, a stock photo of an office nobody works in, or a heading that still says "About us goes here". Read every page once, top to bottom, looking only for those.
- Old information carried over from the last site. A phone number you stopped using, a price from two years ago, a person who no longer works there.
- Nobody claimed the Google Business Profile. Google says you can add or claim your business at no charge, and that verifying it is what lets you edit your business information, such as your hours or business name. Claim it, verify it, and give it the same phone number and hours as the site.
- No plan for who updates what. Somebody has to own the hours, the prices, and the phone number, and know how to change them without phoning the designer.
What has to be in your name before launch
The domain name, the hosting account, and an administrator login to the site itself belong to you, in your name, with your email address on the renewal notices, before launch day. If the designer holds them, every future change goes through the designer, including the day you want a different one.
Ask for three things in writing: the login for wherever the domain name is registered, the login for the hosting account, and an administrator login for the site (the one that can add and remove other users). Then check that the renewals are charged to a card that belongs to the business. A domain that lapses because it was on a designer's expired card takes the site, and the email, down with it.
Common questions
Should I launch before every page is finished?
Yes, if the pages that exist are true. Launch with your services, your contact details, and your area, and add the rest later. Leave an unwritten page out entirely rather than publishing a "coming soon" page, because a page that says nothing still gets found and then sends the reader away with nothing.
What happens to the old site's addresses?
If the new site lives at the same domain, the old pages people bookmarked or found in search should send visitors to the matching new page instead of an error. Ask the designer for a list of the old addresses and where each one now goes, and click three of them yourself on launch day.
What if my hours change with the season?
Decide before launch where the hours live: the site, the Business Profile, and the sign on the door. Give one person the job of changing all three on the same day, and write the date of the next change on the calendar now, not when the season turns.
If you're a week out from launch and want a second pair of eyes on this list, send me the address and I'll tell you what I would fix before it goes live. If you're starting from nothing, the Kingston page has the three sizes and how I work, and what a website actually costs in Kingston has the numbers.
Checked against Google help pages on 2026-09-21: Mobile site and mobile-first indexing best practices, Influencing your title links in search results, Add or claim your Business Profile, Verify your business on Google
Related guides
- What pages does a small Kingston business site actually need?
- What does a website actually cost in Kingston?
Building for another town? Kingston, Amherstview, Gananoque and Napanee each have a page of their own.