A practical checklist for your public website.

1. Know which pages you are reviewing.

Begin with the public pages customers can reach from your navigation and internal links. Compare those with the URLs in your sitemap. Record inaccessible URLs and deliberate exclusions separately. A list of successful homepage checks is not a website inventory.

Keep account pages, private documents, customer records, action URLs, and login-protected content outside a public check. If a page loads most of its content with JavaScript, compare the source HTML with what a visitor actually sees before drawing conclusions about missing content.

2. Give distinct pages descriptive titles.

Look at the <title> for each important page. It should help someone distinguish that page from neighboring pages. “Home” and a business name alone often leave the page’s purpose unclear. Reusing one general title across Services and Pricing can create the same problem.

<title>Color services | Juniper Studio</title>
<title>Appointments and pricing | Juniper Studio</title>

These are fictional examples, not a required template. Use language that matches the actual page. Google can draw a search-result title from multiple sources, so changing a title element is a preference signal rather than a promise about the text or position of a future search result. Google’s title-link guidance explains the distinction.

3. Write a relevant page description.

A meta description should summarize the specific page and the decision it helps a visitor make. Review missing descriptions and repeated boilerplate across unrelated pages. Explain the actual service or information instead of filling the field with a list of search terms.

<meta name="description"
      content="Explore the studio’s color services, appointment options, and consultation process.">

Google primarily creates snippets from page content and may use a meta description when it is useful. A missing declaration is a source observation; it does not mean the search result has no description. Google’s snippet guidance describes how those previews are selected.

4. Check whether indexing restrictions are intentional.

Review both HTML robots declarations and the HTTP X-Robots-Tag header. An explicit noindex can be correct for a private report or a utility page. On a public service page you expect people to find, it is worth investigating before creating more content.

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow">

Do not remove an exclusion simply because a checker flags it. First decide whether the page should be public and searchable. Robots access, authentication, canonical selection, and indexing declarations serve different purposes. Google needs to crawl a page to see its noindex instruction. Google’s noindex documentation explains that behavior.

5. Separate unavailable URLs from placeholder controls.

An internal link returning HTTP 404 or 410 may point to a retired page. Review the referring link, the intended replacement, and whether a redirect is appropriate. A server error or a network failure may be temporary; confirm it before making a permanent change.

An empty destination, #, or javascript: marker is different. It is source markup that may support an interactive control. Check what the control does in a browser. Do not call it a broken customer journey solely from that marker.

6. Test the actual contact or booking path.

Find the main next step on a small screen. Is it clear whether the visitor should call, request a quote, or book? Is the destination the intended current service? Source checks can identify contact and action-label candidates, but the full path may include a scheduler, form, email system, or account that needs separate verification.

Check the viewport declaration and document language as basic declarations, then test the rendered layout and keyboard path. A declaration does not establish visual usability, accessibility compliance, message delivery, or a completed booking.

Want one consolidated starting point?

See how Website Check discovers and reports a public website, or open the illustrative five-page sample. The paid report organizes evidence and next steps; it does not make changes or guarantee rankings, traffic, or sales.