Check My Website: A Practical Checklist for Finding Real Problems

If you are asking "how do I check my website?", you are probably doing one of two things:

1. Running a one-time audit because something seems wrong or you are about to launch
2. Looking to set up ongoing monitoring so you know when things break

Both are valid. The mistake is using the same tools for both, or using tools that only check symptoms while missing the root causes.

This guide covers what to actually check — and how.

Before You Check: Set Up Correctly

The biggest mistake when checking your own site: checking it while logged in as an administrator.

Admins often have:

• Cached sessions that bypass redirects other users encounter
• Special access that lets them reach pages users cannot
• Cached assets that make pages load faster than they do for first-time visitors
• Different default settings or feature flags

Always check your site:

• In an incognito/private window
• While logged out (unless specifically testing authenticated flows)
• With a test account that has the same permissions as a regular user
• On a device and browser you do not use for administration

The Essential Checks

Check 1: Can users reach your site?

This is the baseline — the uptime check. But "can users reach it" means more than "is the server up."

Check list:

• Homepage loads in under 3 seconds on a standard connection
• www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com both work (one should redirect to the other)
• HTTPS is enabled and no browser security warning appears
• SSL certificate is valid and not expiring soon (check the padlock in the browser)

How to check SSL expiry: Click the padlock icon in your browser's address bar → Certificate → check the "Expires" date. If it expires within 30 days, renew it.

Check 2: Do your forms work?

Forms are the most commonly broken part of any website — and the hardest to notice without testing.

For each form on your site:

• Does the form accept input?
• Does submitting with valid data show a confirmation?
• Does submitting with empty required fields show an error?
• Did you actually receive the submission? (Check your inbox, CRM, database)
• Does the confirmation email arrive within a few minutes (if applicable)?

The test you must do: Submit your contact form right now. Use a real email address you control. Then check: did the email arrive? Did the data land in your CRM or spreadsheet?

This takes 2 minutes and will immediately reveal one of the most common silent failures on the web.

Check 3: Does login work?

If your site has accounts:

• Can a new user create an account?
• Does the registration confirmation email arrive?
• Does logging in with valid credentials work?
• Does login fail gracefully with invalid credentials (no crash, a clear error)?
• Does "forgot password" send a reset email?
• Does logging out actually log you out?

The test: Create a fresh test account using an email you control. Go through the full flow in incognito. Verify you end up on the right page after login — not back at the login page, not on an error page.

Check 4: Does checkout work? (E-commerce)

If you sell anything:

• Can users add items to the cart?
• Does the cart persist if they navigate away and come back?
• Does checkout load correctly?
• Does the payment form accept test card numbers?
• Does the order complete and show a confirmation?
• Does the order confirmation email arrive?

The test: Use your payment processor's test mode (Stripe test cards, PayPal sandbox). Complete a full purchase with test data. Verify the confirmation arrives.

This should be run after every deployment. Checkout breakage is the most expensive functional failure — it directly costs revenue.

Check 5: Does navigation work?

• Click every item in the main navigation — do you land on the right page?
• Click the logo — does it go to the homepage?
• Visit a URL that does not exist — is there a useful 404 page?
• Check footer links — do they all lead somewhere valid?

Check 6: Does it work on mobile?

On a real phone (not DevTools):

• Homepage loads and navigation works
• Mobile menu opens and closes
• You can complete the main user flow (checkout, signup, contact) on mobile
• Text is readable without zooming
• Buttons are tappable without extreme precision

The test: Open your site on your phone right now. Go through your checkout or signup flow. Note anything that is difficult or broken.

Check 7: Are your pages fast enough?

• Homepage loads in under 3 seconds (tool: PageSpeed Insights)
• Core Web Vitals pass (LCP under 2.5s, CLS under 0.1, INP under 200ms)
• No oversized images loading on key pages

How to check: Go to pagespeed.web.dev and enter your URL. Look at the "Field Data" section (real user data) — this is more representative than the lab score.

Check 8: Are you appearing in search?

• Your site appears when you Google your brand name
• Key pages are indexed (search site:yourdomain.com in Google)
• No pages are accidentally blocked by robots.txt

Post-Deployment Check (5 Minutes)

Run this after every deployment or code change:

1. Open your site in incognito
2. Homepage loads — confirm no obvious errors
3. Login works — log in with a test account, confirm you reach the expected page
4. Complete your core flow — checkout, signup, contact form — whatever generates revenue or leads for you
5. Check the browser console — press F12, go to Console tab. Any red errors? Investigate.

Five minutes, every deployment. This catches the most common deployment-induced failures before users encounter them.

Automated Checks for Ongoing Confidence

Manual checking is necessary for launches and audits. But it cannot give you ongoing confidence — you cannot manually check your site every 15 minutes.

For ongoing confidence, set up automated monitoring:

Layer 1: Uptime (free options available) Tools like UptimeRobot monitor your site every minute and alert you if the server goes down. Set this up once, forget about it.

Layer 2: Functional monitoring HelpMeTest runs your user flows on a schedule and alerts you when they fail. Describe your checkout flow, login flow, and contact form in plain English. Schedule them to run every 5-15 minutes.

Check my website flows:

1. Can a user submit the contact form and receive confirmation?
2. Can a user log in and reach the dashboard?
3. Can a user complete checkout and receive order confirmation?

This runs continuously. The moment anything breaks, you get an alert — not a customer complaint.

Full Website Check Checklist

Infrastructure

• Site loads (uptime check)
• HTTPS valid and not expiring soon
• www and non-www both work

Core functionality

• All forms submit successfully and data is received
• Login/registration flow works end-to-end
• Checkout flow works end-to-end
• Password reset works
• Navigation links go to correct destinations
• 404 page exists and is helpful

Mobile

• Key flows completable on iPhone Safari
• Key flows completable on Android Chrome
• Mobile navigation works

Performance

• Core Web Vitals pass on Google Search Console
• No oversized images on key pages

Search

• Site appears in Google for brand name
• Key pages indexed (check site:domain.com)
• No unintended robots.txt blocks

Monitoring

• Uptime monitoring configured
• Functional flow monitoring configured
• Alerts going to a channel someone checks

Check Your Site Right Now

The highest-value 10 minutes you can spend on your website:

1. Open your site in incognito on your phone
2. Submit your contact form — check if you receive it
3. Complete your checkout or signup flow — end-to-end, as a new user would
4. Click every nav link — verify each destination is correct

If anything fails, you have just found a real problem affecting real users right now.

If everything passes, set it up to run automatically. HelpMeTest is free for up to 10 tests — enough to cover every critical flow on most sites. You describe what to check in plain English, it checks it every 15 minutes, and you get an alert the moment something breaks.

That is how you go from "my site seems to be working" to "I know my site is working."