Will your new website be found? The basic SEO to ask for in a quote

When commissioning a new website, almost all the attention goes to graphics and content. Visibility on search engines is often put off until "after launch". In this article we look at which activities make up basic SEO, why it pays to think about it while the site is being built, and which questions to ask when you receive a quote.

Why SEO should be planned while the site is being built

SEO means the set of activities that help search engines find, understand and display a site's pages. Imagine building a house and telling the architect: "For now just do the walls, we'll think about the foundations later". Something similar happens with a website: working on it once it is finished can mean reworking parts already built, with more time and more cost.

Search remains one of the main ways new customers reach a website. If the site is not set up properly from the start, part of those visits is given up.

The basic SEO checklist

Every professional website project should cover four areas of work. For each one, here is what it means in plain terms.

1. The technical part: invisible foundations

Its purpose is to make sure Google can reach, read and store the site's pages (known as crawling and indexing).

• Robots.txt file. A simple text file that tells search engines which parts of the site to visit. If it is set up badly it can block important pages, or the whole site.
• XML sitemap. The list of the site's important pages, meant to help search engines discover them. It is worth submitting it through Google Search Console.
• Clear page addresses. Short and descriptive: an address like www.yoursite.com/services/marketing-consulting tells you at once what the page is about, one like www.yoursite.com/p?id=123 does not.
• HTTPS. The certificate protects the data exchanged with the site and avoids the browser's "Not secure" warning. For Google it is a quality signal of modest weight: the main value is visitors' trust. We also cover it in the signs of an outdated website.
• Per-page instructions. A setting (the robots meta tag) says whether a page should appear in search results. It is used to exclude private areas or duplicate pages.

2. On-page SEO: optimising what the user sees

It concerns the content and elements of each individual page, to communicate its topic clearly.

• Preliminary keyword analysis. For the main pages (Home, Services, About us) the terms customers use to look for what you offer are identified.
• Page title. The title shown in search results. It should be unique for each page, describe the topic and contain the main term. As a rough guide it stays around 60 characters, beyond which it may be cut off.
• Page description (meta description). The text under the title in results. It does not directly affect rankings but helps persuade people to click. It should be unique and clear; as a guide it stays within about 160 characters.
• Heading hierarchy. Each page has a single main heading (H1), followed by subheadings (H2, H3) that organise the text logically.
• Images. Files with relevant names (for example basic-seo-service.jpg) and alternative text (alt) describing the image: it helps image search and accessibility.

Page copy counts as much as the technical part: to write it well, read how to write web copy that brings enquiries.

3. Speed and performance

A slow site tests visitors' patience and makes it harder to turn visits into enquiries. Google assesses a page's experience with Core Web Vitals, three measures covering:

• LCP. How quickly the main content appears.
• INP. How ready the page is to respond to a tap or click (it replaced FID, still mentioned in many older guides).
• CLS. How stable the page is, meaning whether elements shift around while reading.

To keep them in check, images are compressed so they are light without losing quality, and caching systems are enabled to speed up later visits.

4. Monitoring tools

Launching a site without measurement tools is like driving at night with the headlights off.

• Google Search Console. Shows how Google sees the site: it lets you submit the sitemap, check indexing errors and see which searches you appear for.
• Google Analytics. Shows how many visitors arrive, from where, which pages they view and how they move around.

To learn how to read the data after launch, see how to check SEO results.

Basic SEO and ongoing SEO: what is the difference

Telling the two services apart avoids false expectations. The first prepares the site, the second makes it grow over time.

Ongoing SEO activities include publishing new content, for example with a company blog, and seeking links from other authoritative sites (known as link building). No SEO activity can guarantee a specific position on Google: it can improve the conditions for the site to be found. For news on AI-powered search, see AI and indexing.

What to ask for in a new website quote

Do not assume SEO is included in the project. Ask explicitly, using these questions.

Where to start

1. List the main pages. For each one, note the term you think customers would use to look for it.
2. Ask for the included activities. Get the list of basic SEO covered in the quote.
3. Check after launch. Use Search Console to verify that the important pages have been indexed.
4. Decide on what comes next. Assess whether you need an ongoing strategy, based on your goals and competition.

Frequently asked questions