It’s Monday, November 3rd. The traffic is coming. I’ve lived through the terror of a holiday site crash. Here is the 5-point checklist I run every year to ensure my site stays fast, secure, and profitable.
I’ll never forget the feeling of my first successful Black Friday. The ads were live. The “New Order!” emails were firing off. And I was staring at my server’s CPU monitor, watching it spike to 80%, 90%, 99%… just praying it wouldn’t all explode.
It was like driving 100mph and not knowing if the bolts would hold.
Out of that terror, my annual “Pre-Flight Checklist” was born. It’s the 5-point check I run every year, three weeks before the big day. This is not the time to add new features. This is not the time to “test” a new plugin. This is the time to lock it down.
This is my personal checklist. Do it this week. It will give you the one thing you really need this holiday: confidence.
1. Check Your Engine (The Final Call on Hosting)
Remember our “Viral Crash” article? This is that, on steroids. A Black Friday traffic spike is 10x bigger. You have one, blunt question to ask yourself:
Are you still on a Shared Hosting plan?
If you are, you are going to crash. It’s not a question of “if.” It’s “when.” A Shared plan is an apartment building. You are not allowed to have a 10,000-person party, and your host will shut you down to protect the other residents.
This is your final call. If you are running a serious store, log into your Cloudfivo account today and upgrade to a VPS plan. Don’t lose $5,000 in Black Friday sales because you tried to save $50. Your engine is the #1 priority. This is the last chance you have to fix it.
2. Check Your “Undo” Button (The Backup)
Remember our “Backup” article? Great. Now, go do it. Before you touch anything else on this list, you need a perfect “restore point” from this moment.
Log into your Cloudfivo dashboard. Find your backup tool. Run a full, manual, off-site backup. Right now. Label it “Pre-Black Friday 2025.” If anything goes wrong in the next four weeks—a bad plugin update, a hack, your own mistake—you can be back online in 10 minutes. Do not skip this.
3. Check Your Speed (Caching & Images)
Remember our “Image Optimization” article? This is where it pays off. But you need to check for new problems.
- Purge Your Cache: Go to your caching plugin (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, etc.) and click “Clear All Cache.” This ensures your fast Cloudfivo server is serving the newest version of your site.
- Run a Speed Test: Go to GTmetrix. Run a test on your Homepage, a Category page, and a Product page.
- Check for “New Bloat”: This is the pro-tip. Did a well-meaning employee just upload a giant 4MB “Happy Holidays!” banner to the homepage? That banner will take down your site. Find it. Optimize it. Now.
4. Check Your Money Path (The Test Checkout)
This is the most important test. Go to your own store, on your phone.
- Add a product to your cart.
- Go to the checkout. Does the SSL (padlock) icon show up?
- Test your holiday coupon code. Does it apply the discount correctly?
- Buy your own product. Use a real credit card. Does the payment go through? Is it fast?
I once had a coupon code fail on Black Friday. It was a $30,000 mistake. Test every single step of the money path. Today.
5. Check Your Alarms (Security & Notifications)
Your store is about to be a massive target. And you need to know when an order comes in.
- Security: Is your Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) working? You cannot get locked out of your own site this month.
- Email: Are your “New Order!” emails (from your Cloudfivo Pro Email address,
sales@yourdomain.com) actually arriving in your inbox? If they’re going to spam, you won’t know you’re making sales. Whitelist your own address.
Conclusion: Lock It Down and Enjoy the Ride
That’s it. Your engine is upgraded. Your backup is saved. Your cache is clear. Your checkout works. Your alarms are on.
You’ve done the work. You’ve partnered with a pro host like Cloudfivo that can handle the volume.
Now, you can stop worrying and start selling. Go get ’em.
