Corporate Website Checklist: 15 Things to Check Before You Go Live

Your corporate website is your company's head office online. When a potential customer, supplier or job applicant comes across you for the first time, they usually look at your site first. What they see there shapes their decision long before they pick up the phone.

The trouble is that many corporate sites look good but do not do their job. The phone number is buried at the bottom of the page, the references have not been updated in years, the form quietly fails, or the site has become a slow shop window on mobile. The 15 points below show where to look when you commission a new site or review the one you have.

Why a corporate website needs its own checklist

An online shop is judged by sales. A corporate site is judged more indirectly: calls, quote requests, dealer applications, job applications, or simply the impression that "this company is serious". So before any design work, answer one question: what should a visitor's next step be?

We have grouped the items under five headings. Open your own site as you read and ask, for each one, "do we have this?"

Identity and structure: what visitors see in the first five seconds

1. A clear value proposition on the home page

At the top of the home page, in the area visible without scrolling, say what you do in one sentence. Instead of phrases any company could use, such as "quality service, customer satisfaction", write something concrete like "Commercial kitchen design and installation for hotels and restaurants in Bursa". If visitors cannot tell they are in the right place, they leave.

Directly below that sentence, place one main action: "Get a quote", "Request a catalogue" or "Book a showroom visit". Four different buttons in the same area often means visitors click none of them.

2. A logical menu and page structure

Five to seven main menu items are usually enough. Give each service or product group its own page, and let each page cover a single topic. This helps visitors find what they need and helps Google match each page to the right searches.

3. An "About us" page with real information

Year founded, team, production facility or office, regions you serve, certifications. An about page full of generic sentences goes unread. Filled with concrete facts, it becomes the page that builds the most trust.

Trust signals: why should anyone trust you?

4. References and project examples

Showing who you have worked with and what you did is more convincing than claiming to be the best. On project pages, tell a short story rather than just showing a logo: what the client wanted, what you did and what came out of it. Our Ortakçı Cam project is one example of how we write these up.

Customer testimonials add weight here too, as long as they are real. One quote with a name, job title and company is more believable than ten anonymous compliments. Often a short message to the client after delivery is all it takes to collect one.

5. Real photography

Smiling office workers from a stock library tell visitors nothing. Photos of your own team, products, facility or finished work are among the strongest trust signals you have. A professional shoot can make more difference than extra spend on design.

6. Clear company details

Registered company name, full address, phone number and tax and registration details belong in the footer or on the contact page. They build trust, and for some companies they are a legal requirement. In Türkiye, for example, Article 1524 of the Turkish Commercial Code requires capital companies subject to independent audit to run a website and publish certain information on it, and businesses usually show their MERSİS (central registry) number. Other countries have their own company disclosure rules, so check what applies where you are registered.

Contact and conversion: turning visitors into customers

7. Visible contact on every page

Nobody should have to hunt for your contact page. Put a phone number or a "Get a quote" button in the header and a short call to action at the end of each page. On mobile, tapping the phone number should start a call.

8. Short forms that actually work

If a quote form has twelve fields, most people abandon it. Name, phone or email and a short message are enough in most cases. Test the form before launch and confirm that submissions really reach the right person. A broken form is one of the most common ways businesses lose work without noticing.

9. WhatsApp and other quick channels

In Türkiye, and in many other markets, plenty of customers would rather send a message than fill in a form. A business WhatsApp line can sit on the site as a fixed button. For questions that arrive out of hours, a chat assistant is worth considering; we look at that in our article on AI chatbots for business.

10. Map and Google Business Profile link

If you have a physical address, add a map to the contact page and make sure the details match your Google Business Profile. Consistent address, phone number and opening hours everywhere support your visibility in local search. Our Google Business Profile guide has the details.

Legal pages: privacy notice and cookies

11. Privacy notice

If you collect personal data through a contact form, newsletter sign-up or job application, data protection law requires you to inform the people concerned. In Türkiye that is the Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK, Law No. 6698); if you serve visitors in the EU or UK, the GDPR applies as well. In practice this means an accessible privacy notice on the site, linked next to every form. State clearly which data you process and why. A text copied from another website does not describe your processes.

12. Cookie policy and cookie consent

Google Analytics, advertising pixels and chat tools all use cookies. For non-essential cookies you need the user's consent, plus a cookie settings panel where they can change their choice later. The old-style banner saying "by using this site you accept cookies" is no longer considered enough.

Technical foundations: speed, mobile and security

13. Fast, comfortable mobile experience

A large share of your visitors may arrive on a phone. On mobile, text should be readable, buttons easy to tap and the page usable within a few seconds. Oversized images and unnecessary plugins are the most frequent reasons a site slows down. We go through the fixes step by step in our guide on how to speed up a website.

14. SSL, backups and up-to-date software

A visitor who sees "Not secure" in the address bar will not fill in your form. An SSL certificate is no longer optional; it is a baseline requirement. The site should also be backed up regularly, and its software, theme and plugins kept current. Protect the admin panel with a strong password and, where possible, two-factor authentication.

SEO foundations: being found on Google

15. A properly configured SEO set-up

Getting a corporate website found on Google does not require anything complicated at the start. Getting the foundations right is enough:

• Every page has its own unique title tag and meta description.
• Page URLs are readable, for example /services/commercial-kitchens.
• Each page has a single H1, with a logical H2/H3 structure beneath it.
• Image file names and alt text are meaningful.
• An XML sitemap exists and has been submitted to Google Search Console.
• Structured data (Organization, LocalBusiness) is used for company information.

Content and link building come after these basics. Google's own SEO Starter Guide is a reliable reference, and if you are new to the topic, our article what is SEO explains the logic in plain terms.

If you export: extra points for a multilingual corporate site

For a company looking for customers or dealers abroad, the corporate website is often seen before the trade fair stand. In that case, add a few points to the 15 above:

• A separate URL for each language: Keep English pages in their own folder such as /en/ and connect them to their equivalents with hreflang tags, so Google shows the right language in each country.
• Localisation, not translation: Machine-translated text undermines trust with foreign buyers. Someone who knows your industry should check the technical terms.
• International contact details: Write phone numbers with the country code, and state your time zone and the languages you speak.
• Certificates and compliance documents: Show the documents your target market expects close to the relevant product pages.

If selling abroad is on your agenda, our cross-border e-commerce guide is a good place to start.

The corporate website checklist at a glance

Print this table or share it with your team. For each line, mark "done", "missing" or "needs checking".

The corporate website mistakes we see most often

Some mistakes come up so often in the corporate sites we review that they deserve a mention of their own:

• A giant rotating slider: Five rotating images at the top of the home page scatter the message and slow the page down. One strong image and a clear sentence usually work better.
• "Coming soon" pages: Empty pages or a news section untouched for years suggest a company that does not care. Do not open a section you cannot keep updated.
• Free email addresses: A free webmail address in your contact details undermines corporate credibility. Use an address on your own domain.
• PDF-only catalogues: Putting product information only in a downloadable PDF makes it harder for Google to treat that information as pages. Give your key products and services their own pages.
• No owner: If nobody is responsible for updating the site after launch, it goes stale quickly.

Finding a few gaps when you run this list against your own site is normal. Some take an afternoon to fix; others need a redesign. Measure the site first to tell which is which. If you are planning a new site, the Fietto Creative corporate website service is designed to cover all 15 points from the start.

Frequently asked questions