When should we hire an SEO agency for a new website? Should the SEO team be involved during the website development itself or when the website is about to be launched? Or should we wait a few weeks after the launch and then hire the SEO agency?
My recommendation is simple: An SEO expert should be involved from the planning stage of a website, not just during development or after the website goes live.
I have been developing websites since 1998 and have been involved in SEO for almost as long. Over the years, I have seen several businesses make the mistake of treating SEO as something to be considered only after their new website is completed. Unfortunately, this can be an expensive mistake.
SEO is not just about adding keywords, writing meta descriptions or optimizing content on an existing website. It influences several fundamental decisions about how a website should be planned, structured, developed and maintained.
In fact, I would go one step further and say that an SEO consultant should be involved even before the decision to develop a new website is made.
1. First, determine whether a new website is actually necessary
This is something many businesses overlook.
If an existing website ranks well on Google, attracts organic traffic, and generates business enquiries, why replace it simply because the design looks outdated?
A new website might look much better, offer a superior user experience and use the latest technologies. However, none of these improvements automatically guarantees better performance in search results.
I have personally seen several instances where businesses lost significant search visibility after launching a completely redesigned website, even though the new website was technically and visually far superior to the old one.
There are several reasons this can happen, including changes to URL structures, internal linking, content, page hierarchy, redirects and other technical SEO elements.
My advice is to evaluate the existing website's SEO performance before deciding on a redesign. If it is performing exceptionally well, consider whether a design refresh or incremental improvements would be safer than replacing the entire website.
Sometimes, the right decision is not to build a new website at all.
(Here is a good example right in front of you - this website itself is running with an outdated design for the past few years. The only reason we haven't redesigned this website is that it is ranking well on search engines. We simply don't want to lose SEO ranking just because we redeveloped the website with a better design.)
2. Involve the SEO consultant during the planning stage
Once the decision to build a new website is made, the SEO consultant should participate in the initial planning discussions.
This is when important decisions are made about:
- Website architecture and navigation.
- URL structure and page hierarchy.
- Target keywords and search intent.
- Important landing pages and service pages.
- Content requirements and topic coverage.
- Internal linking strategy.
- Location-specific and industry-specific pages.
- Technical SEO requirements.
- Technologies to be used for the new website (WordPress? Shopify? Custom coding?)
Making these decisions during planning is much easier than trying to correct structural problems after development is completed.
For example, if a business wants to rank for 50 different services, the website architecture must accommodate those services appropriately. Simply creating a generic services page and expecting it to rank for everything is unlikely to be an effective strategy.
We have developed several multi-country, multi-city, multi-language websites. Take a look at this website: https://firstresponsehealthcare.com/. This website, developed by us in 2026, is a typical example of multi-country and multi-language architecture, which you can take as a model if you are targeting more than one country through your website.
3. SEO involvement during UI/UX and design
SEO and website design should work together.
The designer should understand which pages are important for organic traffic, how content needs to be presented and how users should navigate between related pages.
Some design decisions can unintentionally affect SEO performance. For example:
- Hiding important content behind unnecessary interactions.
- Using images where crawlable text would be more appropriate.
- Creating confusing navigation structures.
- Designing pages without sufficient space for meaningful content.
- Ignoring mobile usability and page performance.
The objective should be to create a website that is attractive to visitors while remaining accessible to search engines.
In my experience, an overcomplicated UI can have a negative impact on SEO. I have been watching a lot of websites and have experienced how they lost their ranking after they launched an overcomplex website. Too many UI elements may make the website look great, but it can be complex for readers to comprehend and could negatively affect the keyword ranking. Usually, simple websites with a nice, clean UI can perform better and I have experienced this in many cases. Here is a good example of a simple, clean website we developed that ranks on the top 3 positions on Google for nearly 75 keywords: https://www.cdaaudit.com/
4. SEO involvement during development
The SEO consultant should work closely with the development team to ensure that the technical implementation follows SEO best practices.
This includes:
- Proper implementation of title tags and meta descriptions.
- Correct heading hierarchy.
- Canonical tags.
- XML sitemaps and robots.txt.
- Schema markup where relevant.
- Mobile responsiveness.
- Page speed and Core Web Vitals.
- Crawlability and indexability.
- Proper handling of redirects.
- Image optimization and accessibility.
- Correct implementation of multilingual SEO, if applicable.
It is important that developers understand these requirements before implementation rather than receiving a long list of corrections just before launch. I have observed most developers usually overlook the SEO basics like the nofollow attribute, hreflang attribute, robots.txt file, sitemaps etc. Active involvement of an SEO person can help to avoid such trivial mistakes.
5. Conduct SEO testing before launch
Before the new website goes live, the SEO team should conduct a thorough audit.
This should include comparing the old and new websites, checking important URLs, verifying redirects, reviewing content, testing internal links and ensuring that search engines can crawl the new website correctly.
Particular attention should be given to pages that currently generate significant organic traffic.
A page that brings hundreds of valuable visitors every month should never disappear or change its URL without a properly evaluated migration strategy. In case of our clients, before launching any website, I would personally involve and conduct an SEO audit before the website is launched. If a new site is launched with SEO mistakes, it may be very difficult to fix it and could take weeks or months before such fixes actually get reflected in search engines.
6. Monitor SEO performance after launch
SEO involvement should not end when the website goes live.
The team should closely monitor Google Search Console, organic traffic, indexing, keyword visibility and important landing-page performance.
If rankings or organic traffic decline, the team should investigate immediately rather than assuming that Google will eventually adjust to the new website.
Some changes may take time to settle, but significant or sustained declines deserve attention.
I always tell our website development team: never launch a website on the weekends. Immediately after the launch, the next 3-4 days are very critical. If we launch a website and then take off for the weekend holidays, the site could get messed up in the search engines due to some SEO mistakes.
One important observation from my experience
I have seen businesses spend considerable amounts of money developing beautiful new websites, only to discover that their organic search performance has deteriorated after launch. (I have experienced this myself multiple times after launching the redeveloped websites with completely new designs)
The irony is that the new website may be faster, more attractive, mobile-friendly and technically more advanced than the previous one. Yet, it may perform worse in Google.
This is because a website's SEO value is not determined by its appearance or technology alone. It is also built on years of accumulated search visibility, content relevance, backlinks, user behaviour and established website structure.
One more point I would like to emphasize: If SEO is an important source of business for a company, it may be wiser to plan a major website revamp when the existing website's rankings or performance start showing signs of decline, rather than replacing a website that is already performing exceptionally well.
Of course, this does not mean businesses should wait for their rankings to collapse. It means that a redesign should be driven by a clear business or technical need, supported by an SEO assessment, rather than simply by a desire for a fresh-looking website.
My final recommendation
Treat SEO as an integral part of website development, not as a post-development marketing activity.
Ideally, the SEO consultant should be involved in the following stages:
1. Before planning: Evaluate the existing website and determine whether a new website is necessary.
2. Planning: Define website architecture, URLs, content strategy and keyword targeting.
3. Design: Ensure SEO requirements are considered in UI/UX decisions.
4. Development: Guide technical SEO implementation.
5. Pre-launch: Conduct a comprehensive SEO audit and migration assessment.
6. Post-launch: Monitor search performance and address any issues.
Having developed websites since 1998 and worked in SEO alongside that journey, I strongly believe that the best time to involve an SEO expert is before the first design or development decision is made.
A good website development team builds a better website. A good SEO consultant helps ensure that the new website does not lose the search visibility and business value that the old website took years to build.
If you are planning to redevelop a website, SpiderWorks can help you with SEO advice, even if you have your own team for developing the website. Contact us today for more details regarding SEO consultation for website redevelopment.
My recommendation is to involve the SEO team right at the beginning of website development, preferably during the planning and requirement-gathering stage. SEO should not be treated as a marketing activity that begins after developers finish building the website. Several important SEO decisions concern the website's structure, navigation, URL patterns, content hierarchy, page templates, technical configuration and user experience. These decisions are much easier to address before development begins than after the website is completed.
I have seen businesses invest considerable time and money in developing attractive websites, only to discover that the websites are not properly structured for search engines. In some cases, important service pages are missing, URLs are poorly planned, content is difficult to crawl, or the website has technical problems that affect indexing. By the time the SEO agency gets involved, correcting these issues may require substantial changes to the website. Having worked with businesses across different industries and website development projects, one thing becomes clear: SEO decisions made during the early stages can prevent considerable rework later.
The first stage of website development usually involves understanding the business, identifying its target audience, deciding which services or products to feature and planning the website's pages. This is precisely when the SEO team should get involved. The SEO team can research what potential customers search for, identify relevant keywords, study competitors and recommend the pages the website should have.
For example, consider a Dubai-based company offering accounting, tax consultancy, auditing and business setup services. If the development team creates only a general Services page, the website may miss opportunities to rank for individual service-related searches. An SEO analyst may recommend separate pages for accounting services in Dubai, corporate tax consultancy, audit services and business setup services, depending on the company's actual offerings and search demand. These recommendations influence the website's sitemap, navigation, page hierarchy and content requirements.
Google's own SEO Starter Guide recommends organizing a website logically so that search engines and visitors can understand how individual pages relate to one another. This is much easier to plan before the website is designed and developed.
Once the website structure is approved, the SEO team should work alongside the designers, developers and content writers. This does not mean that the SEO team has to supervise every development activity. Their responsibility is to review the important SEO requirements and provide recommendations before the relevant parts of the website are completed.
One important task is planning the URLs. For example, a Dubai-based real estate company may need separate pages for apartments, villas, commercial properties and individual residential projects. The URL structure should reflect the website's content hierarchy and remain reasonably consistent as the website grows. Changing URLs after launch can create additional work involving redirects, internal links and indexing.
The SEO team should also review the website's navigation, internal linking opportunities, page templates, heading structure, title tags, meta descriptions, image optimisation and content placement. Developers should receive the technical SEO requirements while building the website, particularly those concerning page rendering, crawlability, canonical tags, structured data and XML sitemaps.
Technical considerations become particularly important when a website uses JavaScript extensively. Google processes JavaScript-based websites through crawling, rendering and indexing stages. If important page content or links are not accessible in the rendered output, search engines may have difficulty understanding the website. This is why technical SEO should be discussed with developers rather than treated as a post-launch correction exercise.
Another important consideration is mobile responsiveness. Google primarily uses the mobile version of a website's content for indexing. Therefore, the SEO team should review whether important content, headings, links and other information remain accessible on mobile devices, rather than checking only how attractive the desktop version looks.
Absolutely. In fact, I consider pre-launch SEO testing one of the most important stages of the entire project.
A website may look perfect during a presentation, but that does not necessarily mean it is ready for search engines. Development websites are often protected using password restrictions, robots.txt rules or noindex directives to prevent premature indexing. These restrictions must be reviewed before the public launch. Otherwise, the live website may remain inaccessible to search engines even after the developers announce that the project is complete.
Before launch, the SEO team should check the important URLs, page titles, meta descriptions, heading hierarchy, canonical tags, internal links, image alt text, mobile rendering, page loading performance, redirects and structured data. They should also check for broken links, duplicate pages, missing content and accidental indexing restrictions.
For a business targeting customers in Dubai and other parts of the UAE, the review should also cover location-specific content, relevant service-area pages and the consistency of business information across the website.
Google Search Console and Google Analytics should also be configured before or around launch. Once the website becomes publicly accessible, the SEO team can submit the XML sitemap, inspect important URLs and monitor Google's indexing activity. Google's own website launch documentation recommends verifying ownership, requesting indexing for important URLs and monitoring the Page Indexing report.
There is nothing wrong with hiring an SEO agency after a website goes live. However, it is not the approach I would recommend for a new business website. When an SEO agency gets involved several weeks after launch, it may find that important pages have not been created, URLs need restructuring, content needs rewriting or technical problems need developer intervention. These corrections can involve additional costs and delays, particularly when the website has already been approved and the development team has moved on to other projects.
I have come across situations where businesses approached SEO teams only after their new websites had gone live, expecting immediate improvements in Google rankings. However, the initial website structure itself was not suitable for their target search terms. The SEO team then had to recommend new service pages, revise existing content and request changes to the website's navigation. Some of these changes could have been addressed much earlier if SEO had been part of the initial discussions. This is one of those things you tend to understand better after working on multiple website development and SEO projects. A website can be visually attractive, technically functional and ready for customers, yet still require considerable work before it becomes a good search engine asset.
That said, SEO does not end at launch. The first few weeks after publication are important for checking how Google discovers and indexes the website. The SEO team should monitor Search Console, identify indexing problems, check organic search impressions, review landing pages and address any technical issues that emerge. It is also important to remember that Google does not guarantee immediate indexing or rankings simply because a website has been submitted for indexing. For existing websites undergoing redesigns or migrations, the SEO team has an even more important responsibility. Existing URLs may already have search visibility, backlinks and organic traffic. These signals need to be considered before changing the website structure. Google recommends preparing URL mappings, implementing appropriate permanent redirects and monitoring the old and new URLs during site migrations.
I would recommend the following approach for a new business website:
This is not a fixed timeline for every business. A small corporate website may require fewer SEO activities than a large e-commerce website with hundreds of product pages. However, the principle remains the same: SEO planning should begin before development, and optimization should remain an ongoing activity after launch.
If you are planning a new website, I would strongly recommend hiring an SEO agency before approaching a web development company or, at the very least, involving both teams during the initial planning discussions.
Website development and SEO are closely connected. Developers focus on building a functional, secure and visually appealing website, while SEO professionals consider how potential customers will find its pages through search engines. Both perspectives are necessary when building a website that is expected to generate business inquiries, leads and sales.
At SpiderWorks, we consider SEO during website planning and development rather than treating it as an activity that starts after launch. Our experience across website development, content marketing and SEO has shown that addressing search requirements early can prevent avoidable technical changes and content restructuring later.
My advice is simple: Don't wait until your website is ready to launch to hire an SEO agency. Bring the SEO team into the project before the first page is designed. It is much easier to build a search-friendly website correctly than to revisit major development decisions after the website goes live.
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