Website Planning Resource

Website project planning checklist

Use this checklist to organize the strategy, evidence, content, user experience, privacy, technical controls, launch testing, and ownership decisions behind a business website.

Author: David Petersen, Odd LemonsPublished: August 4, 2026Last reviewed: August 4, 2026

This checklist is a planning aid, not a guarantee that a website meets every legal, accessibility, security, privacy, industry, or platform requirement. Adapt it to the project and involve qualified specialists where the risk or jurisdiction requires them.

Business strategy

Define the primary audience, offer, geography, conversion goal, and reason the website needs to exist.
Identify the business problem, current baseline, constraints, decision makers, budget range, and target launch window.
Decide which outcomes can be measured and which claims require documentation or client approval.
Prioritize the pages and user journeys that support the most important customer decisions.

Content and proof

Inventory existing pages, offers, service details, locations, FAQs, policies, images, and downloadable resources.
Collect attributable testimonials, reviews, credentials, project evidence, and permissions before publishing them.
Document the baseline, period, source, and contribution behind any numerical result claim.
Plan authorship, publication dates, review dates, and primary sources for substantive resource content.

Information architecture and search

Map the navigation, service pages, industry or customer pages, service-area content, resources, policies, and conversion pages.
Assign a unique search intent, title, description, H1, canonical URL, and internal-link purpose to every indexable page.
Plan redirects for changed URLs and confirm robots.txt, XML sitemap, HTML sitemap, canonicals, and structured data.
Connect related services, project profiles, questions, and resources into useful topic paths.

Experience and accessibility

Design and test the important tasks on mobile, tablet, desktop, keyboard, zoom, and screen-reader workflows.
Use meaningful headings, labels, error messages, focus states, alternative text, touch targets, and reduced-motion behavior.
Create a skip link, accessible menus and dialogs, a useful 404 page, and an accessibility feedback path.
Review contrast, reflow, content order, form announcements, and third-party components against the selected accessibility target.

Forms, privacy, and analytics

Collect only the information needed and state what should not be submitted through public forms.
Capture the relevant source, landing page, campaign parameters, consent state, and selected offer or listing.
Test server-side validation, spam controls, error handling, internal notification, confirmation, and duplicate behavior.
Inventory analytics, cookies, pixels, embeds, and vendors; block optional tools until the required consent choice exists.

Performance and security

Optimize image dimensions and formats, font loading, JavaScript, third-party scripts, caching, and rendering choices.
Review current mobile and desktop performance plus real-user Core Web Vitals after launch.
Configure HTTPS, security headers, secrets management, dependency checks, logging, backups, recovery, and a security contact.
Threat-model forms, administrator access, integrations, uploads, exports, webhooks, and regulated data flows.

Launch and ownership

Crawl every canonical URL and test status codes, redirects, forms, links, metadata, sharing previews, and structured data.
Confirm domain, DNS, hosting, analytics, webmaster tools, email delivery, accounts, roles, and multi-factor authentication.
Document code, content, domain, data, license, vendor, billing, backup, and deployment ownership in writing.
Assign post-launch monitoring, maintenance, content, reporting, incident, and improvement responsibilities.

Need a project-specific plan?

Share the audience, offer, pages, content, proof, integrations, location, risks, timing, budget, and ownership expectations.

Discuss the website plan

Business strategy

Define the primary audience, offer, geography, conversion goal, and reason the website needs to exist.

Identify the business problem, current baseline, constraints, decision makers, budget range, and target launch window.

Decide which outcomes can be measured and which claims require documentation or client approval.

Prioritize the pages and user journeys that support the most important customer decisions.

Content and proof

Inventory existing pages, offers, service details, locations, FAQs, policies, images, and downloadable resources.

Collect attributable testimonials, reviews, credentials, project evidence, and permissions before publishing them.

Document the baseline, period, source, and contribution behind any numerical result claim.

Plan authorship, publication dates, review dates, and primary sources for substantive resource content.

Information architecture and search

Map the navigation, service pages, industry or customer pages, service-area content, resources, policies, and conversion pages.

Assign a unique search intent, title, description, H1, canonical URL, and internal-link purpose to every indexable page.

Plan redirects for changed URLs and confirm robots.txt, XML sitemap, HTML sitemap, canonicals, and structured data.

Connect related services, project profiles, questions, and resources into useful topic paths.

Experience and accessibility

Design and test the important tasks on mobile, tablet, desktop, keyboard, zoom, and screen-reader workflows.

Use meaningful headings, labels, error messages, focus states, alternative text, touch targets, and reduced-motion behavior.

Create a skip link, accessible menus and dialogs, a useful 404 page, and an accessibility feedback path.

Review contrast, reflow, content order, form announcements, and third-party components against the selected accessibility target.

Forms, privacy, and analytics

Collect only the information needed and state what should not be submitted through public forms.

Capture the relevant source, landing page, campaign parameters, consent state, and selected offer or listing.

Test server-side validation, spam controls, error handling, internal notification, confirmation, and duplicate behavior.

Inventory analytics, cookies, pixels, embeds, and vendors; block optional tools until the required consent choice exists.

Performance and security

Optimize image dimensions and formats, font loading, JavaScript, third-party scripts, caching, and rendering choices.

Review current mobile and desktop performance plus real-user Core Web Vitals after launch.

Configure HTTPS, security headers, secrets management, dependency checks, logging, backups, recovery, and a security contact.

Threat-model forms, administrator access, integrations, uploads, exports, webhooks, and regulated data flows.

Launch and ownership

Crawl every canonical URL and test status codes, redirects, forms, links, metadata, sharing previews, and structured data.

Confirm domain, DNS, hosting, analytics, webmaster tools, email delivery, accounts, roles, and multi-factor authentication.

Document code, content, domain, data, license, vendor, billing, backup, and deployment ownership in writing.

Assign post-launch monitoring, maintenance, content, reporting, incident, and improvement responsibilities.