Website QA means going through every page and checking that everything looks right, works right, and performs well. The main areas to test are: visual consistency (does it look good on all devices?), functionality (do forms, links, and interactive elements work?), performance (does it load fast?), accessibility (can everyone use it?), and SEO (will search engines find it?). The most common QA failures are broken forms, missing mobile responsiveness, and slow page loads from uncompressed images.
What Website QA Actually Means
QA stands for quality assurance, which sounds fancy but really just means "checking that everything works before someone else finds out it doesn't." It's the part of a web project that everyone knows is important but nobody wants to do because it's tedious.
But here's the thing — skipping QA is how you end up with a client calling you at 9pm because the contact form doesn't actually send emails.
Visual QA
This is about making sure the site looks right everywhere, not just on your nice big monitor.
- Check every page on desktop, tablet, and phone. Actual devices if you can, not just browser resizing.
- Look for images that are stretched, cropped weird, or blurry.
- Make sure fonts are loading. If your web font fails, check that the fallback doesn't look terrible.
- Check spacing between sections. It's really common for one page to have different padding than the others.
- Look for horizontal scrollbars on mobile. They're almost always a bug.
- Check that colors match the brand. Sounds obvious, but hex codes get typo'd all the time.
Functionality QA
Does the site actually do what it's supposed to do?
- Submit every form and check that submissions arrive where they should.
- Click every link. Every. Single. One.
- Test navigation on every page, including mobile hamburger menus.
- Try all interactive elements: dropdowns, accordions, modals, sliders, tabs.
- Test search if the site has it. Does it actually return useful results?
- Check that third-party integrations are connected — analytics, chat, payment processors.
- Go to a URL that doesn't exist. Does the 404 page look okay, or does it show a server error?
Performance QA
Nobody waits for a slow website anymore. If it takes more than 3 seconds to load, people leave.
- Run Google PageSpeed Insights on your most important pages.
- Check image file sizes. If any image is over 500KB, it probably needs compression.
- Make sure lazy loading is working for images that aren't visible right away.
- Test on a slow connection. Throttle your network in Chrome DevTools and see if the site is still usable.
- Check Core Web Vitals: LCP (main content loads fast), INP (responds to clicks fast), CLS (nothing jumps around).
Accessibility QA
This isn't optional — it's about making sure everyone can use the site, including people using screen readers or keyboard navigation.
- Check that all images have meaningful alt text. "IMG_4832.jpg" doesn't count.
- Try navigating the whole site using only your keyboard. Tab through everything.
- Check color contrast. Light gray text on a white background might look nice but it's unreadable for a lot of people.
- Make sure form fields have labels, not just placeholder text.
- Check that focus states are visible. When you tab to a button, can you tell it's selected?
SEO QA
- Does every page have a unique, descriptive title tag?
- Does every page have a meta description?
- Is there one H1 per page, and does it make sense?
- Does the sitemap exist and is it submitted?
- Check robots.txt — are you accidentally blocking search engines from your whole site?
The Best Way to Do Website QA
Going through a checklist is good. Going through the actual site and pinning issues directly where you find them is better.
Pin issues directly on your website
Paste your URL, click on every issue you find, and leave notes. Way faster than a spreadsheet.