The pre-handoff checklist: 10 things to check before you give a client their new website
A site can look finished and still be hard for Google and AI tools to read. These are the checks we run on every scan. Each one takes seconds to verify.
- One clear title per page. Not "Home", not the theme default. Business name plus what the page is about.
- A meta description on every page. One or two sentences a person would click on. Empty descriptions let search engines pick random text.
- Exactly one H1 per page. Many themes use the logo or a slider as the H1, or add none at all.
- Alt text on every meaningful image. Describe what is in the photo. Leave decorative images empty on purpose.
- robots.txt does not block search. Staging sites often ship with "Disallow: /" still in place.
- No leftover "noindex". The WordPress setting "Discourage search engines" is easy to forget after launch.
- Business facts in structured data. Name, phone and address as LocalBusiness JSON-LD, matching what the page says.
- A sitemap, submitted. Check that /sitemap.xml exists and lists the real pages.
- Social sharing tags. og:title and og:image, so the link looks right when the client shares it.
- The raw HTML, not only the browser view. Many AI crawlers do not run JavaScript, so text that only appears after scripts load may never reach them.
Run it in one pass
Paste the client's URL into the free scan at voltfound.com. It checks these items and shows what to fix. No signup.
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FAQ
- Why check the raw HTML instead of the page in a browser?
- Many AI crawlers fetch the page's HTML and do not run JavaScript, so titles, descriptions or text that only appear after scripts load may never reach them. Google renders JavaScript, but later and not for every page.
- What is the most common leftover after launch?
- A staging block: robots.txt still saying "Disallow: /" or the WordPress "Discourage search engines" box still ticked. Both are one-click fixes and both stop indexing entirely.
- Does passing all ten checks guarantee rankings or AI mentions?
- No. These checks make a site readable and unambiguous; rankings and AI answers depend on many other things and change daily. A scan is a snapshot of readability, not a promise of results.