-
Fathom Analytics
Fathom Lite. Simple, privacy-focused website analytics. Built with Golang & Preact.
- Every page has a short meta description that tells users what they can expect from the page.
- Every page has a simple URL that is easy to read and understand (i.e. real words, not numbers or random characters!).
- Every page defines its canonical URL.
- Every page loads in less than 3 seconds (more about this below).
- Old URLs that have been renamed or removed are redirected to their new location via 301 redirects (and have been tested).
- Alternative domain names redirect to your primary domain name (e.g.
mywebsite.comandwww.mywebsite.com, ormywebsite.caandmywebsite.com). - The robots.txt file allows search engines to crawl all public pages.
- Every image is sized appropriately and optimized.
- Render-blocking JavaScript is removed, deferred, or executed in a web worker.
- Render-blocking stylesheets are reduced as much as possible.
- CSS, Javascript and HTML are minified.
- Browser caching is enabled.
- Compression is enabled.
- Unnecessary redirects are eliminated.
- Your server has adequate resources and configurations to handle your traffic (reducing server response time).
- An SSL certificate is set up and configured for auto-renewal.
- Requests to non-HTTPS URLs are redirected to HTTPS.
- A Content Security Policy is set up on the site to prevent script and data injection.
- The x-frame-options header is configured to prevent click-jacking attacks.
- Website backups are set up and configured to run frequently.
- Keep in mind that your users are likely not tech-savvy.
- Keep in mind that new people are likely to take over the website management role without receiving much training (if any).
- Be consistent when naming things. Using two different words to mean the same thing can be confusing.
- Name things using your client's vocabulary, not yours.
- Disable and/or hide sections, features and links that are irrelevant to your clients.
- Add guardrails where possible: validating client inputs and actions can prevent the majority of issues that commonly "break" websites.
- Guide your clients: if your CMS allows you to add help text, use that to provide context and clarifications.
- Wordpress's admin panel is known for becoming increasingly bloated and confusing with every plugin you add. This can be improved by reducing the number of plugins you use and by hiding unnecessary sections and navigation links with plugins or custom code.
- Shopify's basic features are easy to use, but third-party applications often come with their own management interfaces which aren't always as straightforward or intuitive. This can be improved by researching and testing different apps to find the one with the simplest interfaces and workflows.
- Webflow's Editor does a great job of keeping things simple and intuitive for clients, as long as you adequately name your collections and pages.
- The website has a working favicon that matches the brand.
- The 404 (Not Found) error page matches your brand and contains link(s) to the website.
- The site's system and plugins can be updated safely and easily without major risk of breakage.
- First impression;
- Content;
- Navigation;
- Design;
- Usability;
- Forms;
- Responsive;
- Browser compatibility;
- Social media optimization;
- Accessibility;
- On-site SEO;
- Loading speed;
- Security;
- Editability;
- Analytics;
- ... and even more!
-
Plausible Analytics
Simple, open source, lightweight (< 1 KB) and privacy-friendly web analytics alternative to Google Analytics.
- Every page has a short meta description that tells users what they can expect from the page.
- Every page has a simple URL that is easy to read and understand (i.e. real words, not numbers or random characters!).
- Every page defines its canonical URL.
- Every page loads in less than 3 seconds (more about this below).
- Old URLs that have been renamed or removed are redirected to their new location via 301 redirects (and have been tested).
- Alternative domain names redirect to your primary domain name (e.g.
mywebsite.comandwww.mywebsite.com, ormywebsite.caandmywebsite.com). - The robots.txt file allows search engines to crawl all public pages.
- Every image is sized appropriately and optimized.
- Render-blocking JavaScript is removed, deferred, or executed in a web worker.
- Render-blocking stylesheets are reduced as much as possible.
- CSS, Javascript and HTML are minified.
- Browser caching is enabled.
- Compression is enabled.
- Unnecessary redirects are eliminated.
- Your server has adequate resources and configurations to handle your traffic (reducing server response time).
- An SSL certificate is set up and configured for auto-renewal.
- Requests to non-HTTPS URLs are redirected to HTTPS.
- A Content Security Policy is set up on the site to prevent script and data injection.
- The x-frame-options header is configured to prevent click-jacking attacks.
- Website backups are set up and configured to run frequently.
- Keep in mind that your users are likely not tech-savvy.
- Keep in mind that new people are likely to take over the website management role without receiving much training (if any).
- Be consistent when naming things. Using two different words to mean the same thing can be confusing.
- Name things using your client's vocabulary, not yours.
- Disable and/or hide sections, features and links that are irrelevant to your clients.
- Add guardrails where possible: validating client inputs and actions can prevent the majority of issues that commonly "break" websites.
- Guide your clients: if your CMS allows you to add help text, use that to provide context and clarifications.
- Wordpress's admin panel is known for becoming increasingly bloated and confusing with every plugin you add. This can be improved by reducing the number of plugins you use and by hiding unnecessary sections and navigation links with plugins or custom code.
- Shopify's basic features are easy to use, but third-party applications often come with their own management interfaces which aren't always as straightforward or intuitive. This can be improved by researching and testing different apps to find the one with the simplest interfaces and workflows.
- Webflow's Editor does a great job of keeping things simple and intuitive for clients, as long as you adequately name your collections and pages.
- The website has a working favicon that matches the brand.
- The 404 (Not Found) error page matches your brand and contains link(s) to the website.
- The site's system and plugins can be updated safely and easily without major risk of breakage.
- First impression;
- Content;
- Navigation;
- Design;
- Usability;
- Forms;
- Responsive;
- Browser compatibility;
- Social media optimization;
- Accessibility;
- On-site SEO;
- Loading speed;
- Security;
- Editability;
- Analytics;
- ... and even more!
-
InfluxDB
Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.
-
partytown
Relocate resource intensive third-party scripts off of the main thread and into a web worker. 🎉
- Every page has a short meta description that tells users what they can expect from the page.
- Every page has a simple URL that is easy to read and understand (i.e. real words, not numbers or random characters!).
- Every page defines its canonical URL.
- Every page loads in less than 3 seconds (more about this below).
- Old URLs that have been renamed or removed are redirected to their new location via 301 redirects (and have been tested).
- Alternative domain names redirect to your primary domain name (e.g.
mywebsite.comandwww.mywebsite.com, ormywebsite.caandmywebsite.com). - The robots.txt file allows search engines to crawl all public pages.
- Every image is sized appropriately and optimized.
- Render-blocking JavaScript is removed, deferred, or executed in a web worker.
- Render-blocking stylesheets are reduced as much as possible.
- CSS, Javascript and HTML are minified.
- Browser caching is enabled.
- Compression is enabled.
- Unnecessary redirects are eliminated.
- Your server has adequate resources and configurations to handle your traffic (reducing server response time).
- An SSL certificate is set up and configured for auto-renewal.
- Requests to non-HTTPS URLs are redirected to HTTPS.
- A Content Security Policy is set up on the site to prevent script and data injection.
- The x-frame-options header is configured to prevent click-jacking attacks.
- Website backups are set up and configured to run frequently.
- Keep in mind that your users are likely not tech-savvy.
- Keep in mind that new people are likely to take over the website management role without receiving much training (if any).
- Be consistent when naming things. Using two different words to mean the same thing can be confusing.
- Name things using your client's vocabulary, not yours.
- Disable and/or hide sections, features and links that are irrelevant to your clients.
- Add guardrails where possible: validating client inputs and actions can prevent the majority of issues that commonly "break" websites.
- Guide your clients: if your CMS allows you to add help text, use that to provide context and clarifications.
- Wordpress's admin panel is known for becoming increasingly bloated and confusing with every plugin you add. This can be improved by reducing the number of plugins you use and by hiding unnecessary sections and navigation links with plugins or custom code.
- Shopify's basic features are easy to use, but third-party applications often come with their own management interfaces which aren't always as straightforward or intuitive. This can be improved by researching and testing different apps to find the one with the simplest interfaces and workflows.
- Webflow's Editor does a great job of keeping things simple and intuitive for clients, as long as you adequately name your collections and pages.
- The website has a working favicon that matches the brand.
- The 404 (Not Found) error page matches your brand and contains link(s) to the website.
- The site's system and plugins can be updated safely and easily without major risk of breakage.
- First impression;
- Content;
- Navigation;
- Design;
- Usability;
- Forms;
- Responsive;
- Browser compatibility;
- Social media optimization;
- Accessibility;
- On-site SEO;
- Loading speed;
- Security;
- Editability;
- Analytics;
- ... and even more!
Every page has a tag with a unique title (if possible, keep it around 50–60 characters).
Once these checks have been done, your site has its SEO basics covered. But as we said, there's a lot more to SEO than what we covered in this list, and it can be a good skill to have if you're building many websites for clients.
If you want to go further, we recommend you take a look at Moz's Guide to SEO.
Loading speed
As stated earlier in this article, you only have about 10 seconds to convince your users that your site is worth visiting.
If your page takes 7 seconds just to load and become interactive, that leaves very little time for you to convince people.
Plus, making sure your pages load and become usable quickly improves your users' experience, which should be your #1 goal.
Here are some of the main things you should look at to improve your page speeds:
To start testing your website's loading speeds, check out our Loading Speed page.
Moz's write-up on Page Speed can also be a good place to start if you want more information about improving Page Speed.
Security
Most of us have seen or heard about sites that got hacked or imitated by bad actors, or of user information being stolen and sold online.
These guidelines will help you reach a basic level of security for your site:
If your site manages any information about your visitors or users, especially personal information, you should make sure to apply best practices in your development and to vet the libraries, services and vendors you use to ensure that they are secure as well. Neglecting to do so may result in fines and legal trouble, so it's worth taking the time to learn about beforehand.
Editability
If the website you built will be managed by someone else, they need to be able to edit it.
That's not gonna be a problem: the site is built with a CMS!
Are you ready to hear the bad news?
If you do not make any special effort to make using the CMS easy and intuitive, you'll find that most clients will have a hard time using it.
And when people have a hard time using a CMS, the likelihood of the website breaking skyrockets. 💥
So you have to put in some effort to make it more intuitive for your clients. But how?
Here are a few tips to guide you:
These tips may seem simple, but stick to them! Use every opportunity your CMS gives you to make the admin experience better, and it will most definitely pay off.
It's also important to note that some platforms have a better user experience for their administrators than others:
Improving your client's experience will not only make them happier: it also reduces the number of support requests you receive from them. It's a win-win! ✨
Analytics
If you want to get some data about how your site is doing after you launch, you should set up some sort of Analytics service.
The most commonly used platform for this is Google Analytics. But Google Analytics is already illegal in some EU countries, and will likely be ruled illegal in many others in the future unless they take a sudden turn.
At Koalati, we recommend you analyze your analytics needs and go with a privacy-friendly alternative like Plausible or Fathom. You can also browse a more complete list of Google Analytics alternatives.
A few more things...
These last few things might not be as crucial as the rest, but they're good to test for as well:
And... that's it! You're done!
Congratulations, you have thoroughly tested your site and are ready for launch! 🎉
Summary
Thoroughly testing a website before launching it is essential to ensure a high-quality user experience.
You need to think about:
To help guide you through the process, Koalati offers a comprehensive website quality control checklist, which you can use to test your sites along with your teammates and report issues that need to be fixed.
Every page has a tag with a unique title (if possible, keep it around 50–60 characters).
Once these checks have been done, your site has its SEO basics covered. But as we said, there's a lot more to SEO than what we covered in this list, and it can be a good skill to have if you're building many websites for clients.
If you want to go further, we recommend you take a look at Moz's Guide to SEO.
Loading speed
As stated earlier in this article, you only have about 10 seconds to convince your users that your site is worth visiting.
If your page takes 7 seconds just to load and become interactive, that leaves very little time for you to convince people.
Plus, making sure your pages load and become usable quickly improves your users' experience, which should be your #1 goal.
Here are some of the main things you should look at to improve your page speeds:
To start testing your website's loading speeds, check out our Loading Speed page.
Moz's write-up on Page Speed can also be a good place to start if you want more information about improving Page Speed.
Security
Most of us have seen or heard about sites that got hacked or imitated by bad actors, or of user information being stolen and sold online.
These guidelines will help you reach a basic level of security for your site:
If your site manages any information about your visitors or users, especially personal information, you should make sure to apply best practices in your development and to vet the libraries, services and vendors you use to ensure that they are secure as well. Neglecting to do so may result in fines and legal trouble, so it's worth taking the time to learn about beforehand.
Editability
If the website you built will be managed by someone else, they need to be able to edit it.
That's not gonna be a problem: the site is built with a CMS!
Are you ready to hear the bad news?
If you do not make any special effort to make using the CMS easy and intuitive, you'll find that most clients will have a hard time using it.
And when people have a hard time using a CMS, the likelihood of the website breaking skyrockets. 💥
So you have to put in some effort to make it more intuitive for your clients. But how?
Here are a few tips to guide you:
These tips may seem simple, but stick to them! Use every opportunity your CMS gives you to make the admin experience better, and it will most definitely pay off.
It's also important to note that some platforms have a better user experience for their administrators than others:
Improving your client's experience will not only make them happier: it also reduces the number of support requests you receive from them. It's a win-win! ✨
Analytics
If you want to get some data about how your site is doing after you launch, you should set up some sort of Analytics service.
The most commonly used platform for this is Google Analytics. But Google Analytics is already illegal in some EU countries, and will likely be ruled illegal in many others in the future unless they take a sudden turn.
At Koalati, we recommend you analyze your analytics needs and go with a privacy-friendly alternative like Plausible or Fathom. You can also browse a more complete list of Google Analytics alternatives.
A few more things...
These last few things might not be as crucial as the rest, but they're good to test for as well:
And... that's it! You're done!
Congratulations, you have thoroughly tested your site and are ready for launch! 🎉
Summary
Thoroughly testing a website before launching it is essential to ensure a high-quality user experience.
You need to think about:
To help guide you through the process, Koalati offers a comprehensive website quality control checklist, which you can use to test your sites along with your teammates and report issues that need to be fixed.
Every page has a tag with a unique title (if possible, keep it around 50–60 characters).
Once these checks have been done, your site has its SEO basics covered. But as we said, there's a lot more to SEO than what we covered in this list, and it can be a good skill to have if you're building many websites for clients.
If you want to go further, we recommend you take a look at Moz's Guide to SEO.
Loading speed
As stated earlier in this article, you only have about 10 seconds to convince your users that your site is worth visiting.
If your page takes 7 seconds just to load and become interactive, that leaves very little time for you to convince people.
Plus, making sure your pages load and become usable quickly improves your users' experience, which should be your #1 goal.
Here are some of the main things you should look at to improve your page speeds:
To start testing your website's loading speeds, check out our Loading Speed page.
Moz's write-up on Page Speed can also be a good place to start if you want more information about improving Page Speed.
Security
Most of us have seen or heard about sites that got hacked or imitated by bad actors, or of user information being stolen and sold online.
These guidelines will help you reach a basic level of security for your site:
If your site manages any information about your visitors or users, especially personal information, you should make sure to apply best practices in your development and to vet the libraries, services and vendors you use to ensure that they are secure as well. Neglecting to do so may result in fines and legal trouble, so it's worth taking the time to learn about beforehand.
Editability
If the website you built will be managed by someone else, they need to be able to edit it.
That's not gonna be a problem: the site is built with a CMS!
Are you ready to hear the bad news?
If you do not make any special effort to make using the CMS easy and intuitive, you'll find that most clients will have a hard time using it.
And when people have a hard time using a CMS, the likelihood of the website breaking skyrockets. 💥
So you have to put in some effort to make it more intuitive for your clients. But how?
Here are a few tips to guide you:
These tips may seem simple, but stick to them! Use every opportunity your CMS gives you to make the admin experience better, and it will most definitely pay off.
It's also important to note that some platforms have a better user experience for their administrators than others:
Improving your client's experience will not only make them happier: it also reduces the number of support requests you receive from them. It's a win-win! ✨
Analytics
If you want to get some data about how your site is doing after you launch, you should set up some sort of Analytics service.
The most commonly used platform for this is Google Analytics. But Google Analytics is already illegal in some EU countries, and will likely be ruled illegal in many others in the future unless they take a sudden turn.
At Koalati, we recommend you analyze your analytics needs and go with a privacy-friendly alternative like Plausible or Fathom. You can also browse a more complete list of Google Analytics alternatives.
A few more things...
These last few things might not be as crucial as the rest, but they're good to test for as well:
And... that's it! You're done!
Congratulations, you have thoroughly tested your site and are ready for launch! 🎉
Summary
Thoroughly testing a website before launching it is essential to ensure a high-quality user experience.
You need to think about:
To help guide you through the process, Koalati offers a comprehensive website quality control checklist, which you can use to test your sites along with your teammates and report issues that need to be fixed.