- A generator can build a pretty site with no title, description, headings or alt texts; check it by hand.
- Accessibility rests on four WCAG principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.
- Use Core Web Vitals to measure speed: LCP, INP and CLS.
Site generators and coding agents build visually convincing results in minutes. The problem is that appearance is not the same as quality. A site can look great and have no title, no description, no sensible headings and no alternative texts; it can run slowly on a phone and be impossible to use with a keyboard. This guide collects the checks you must perform by hand before publishing. It assumes you have the basic process from the article Your first AI-built site.
SEO: the basics a generator skips
Google’s SEO Starter Guide begins by reminding you that SEO is about helping search engines understand content and helping users find the site, and that there are no secrets that will automatically put it first. Practical points from the guide: a page description should be short, unique to that page and contain the most relevant information; images need descriptive alt text explaining the relationship between the image and the content; URLs should be descriptive; the page should be visible to Google the way it is to a user, with access to the same resources. Check that every subpage has its own title and description, that headings form a logical hierarchy (one main heading, then sections) and that text is text and not an image with lettering.
If you care about appearing in AI-based answers, Google’s documentation is unambiguous: the same best practices as in ordinary search apply, and there are no additional technical requirements or special optimizations. The page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet.
Accessibility: four WCAG principles
Accessibility is not an add-on. The WCAG overview describes the international Web Content Accessibility Guidelines standard in versions 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2. Its axis consists of four principles: content must be perceivable, the interface operable, understandable, and the whole technically robust, that is working with different browsers and assistive technologies. For a first site in practice this translates into a few checks: alternative texts for images that carry information, enough contrast between text and background, headings in a logical order, visible focus and keyboard operation of everything, labels on form fields and no information conveyed by colour alone.
| What to check | A quick test | |
|---|---|---|
| Title and description | Unique for each page | See the browser tab and the page source |
| Headings | One main, then sections in order | Review the heading structure |
| Alt texts | Describe the image content | Turn images off and read the page |
| Contrast and focus | Legible and visible elements | Go through the site with the Tab key |
| Forms | Labels and error messages | Fill in a form without a mouse |
| Speed | LCP, INP and CLS within norms | Measure with a Web Vitals tool |
Speed: Core Web Vitals
A generated site is sometimes heavy: large images, needless scripts, animations. Web Vitals is a Google initiative providing unified guidance on the quality of user experience. The three main metrics are Largest Contentful Paint (the time to show the largest element), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness to interactions) and Cumulative Layout Shift (layout stability). Measure them on a real phone and a realistic connection, because everything looks fine on a fast computer. The simplest fixes are scaling and compressing images, lazily loading images below the first screen, removing unnecessary scripts and reserving space for images so that the layout does not jump.
Indexing and verification
- 01ContentTitle, description, headings, alts.
- 02AccessibilityContrast, focus, keyboard, forms.
- 03SpeedLCP, INP, CLS on a phone.
- 04IndexingThe site: operator and Search Console.
- 05TruthEvery sentence can be confirmed.
- 06RepeatAfter every larger change.
After publishing, check that the site is in the index by searching for it with the site: operator and looking at the Search Console tool. The documentation stresses that Google usually finds pages automatically through links, and a sitemap is optional. Repeat the checks after every larger change, especially if the generator rebuilds the template. Remember also that all metadata generated by AI, such as titles, descriptions and alts, needs verification, as Google’s documentation on AI content reminds you and as I describe more broadly in the article AI-assisted content and Google’s rules. You will find the remaining materials in the Your first AI-built site hub.
Last checked: 20 October 2026. Standards and metrics are updated; check current versions.