When Should You Hire an SEO While Building a Website?
Many business owners hire SEOs after they launch the website, but they should consider doing it much earlier.
Video Transcript:
David Zimmerman 0:05
So I’m going to recap. Okay. So. We were talking about. The fact that developers. Even the best developers. Have a goal when they build a website, which is to make the website work. And they can be given to design. And they can build this beautiful website that works exactly as expected. But. Because of choices and decisions they make in the process. Sometimes Google, Google, can’t read it. It’s not a fault of the developer. It’s it’s, it’s the fact that the developer is not as informed about technical SEO, so that then they end up. Building a beautiful website that just simply can’t be read by Google.
David Zimmerman 0:55
So Brian, you were saying. Have you experienced this before?
Bryan Valentino 1:02
Personally.
Bryan Valentino 1:06
Since I have like a bit of an idea of how SEO works. Okay.
Bryan Valentino 1:14
With the sites where I had to do the design myself and then build it post. More of a WordPress development. I’m actually a WordPress developer. And most of. WordPress developers can do the, like the design on their own. Yeah.
Bryan Valentino 1:29
Like I, at least in my case, I tried to incorporate like the basics of SEO. Oh, And also like, As far as I know, WordPress already is somehow SEO friendly. So it helps a lot with the job, but I think like for some developers, like say the, the. The really the developers who really build websites from scratch, like Claribel developers, JavaScript developers, like what we talked about before.
Bryan Valentino 1:59
Some of them are just like focused on the coding stuff. Then they really don’t have.
Bryan Valentino 2:07
They might have like a new, but the SEO is not their priority. Basically.
Bryan Valentino 2:12
Yeah. And I think what. I mentioned earlier about
Bryan Valentino 2:18
having someone. In the team who knows. ICO or like an SEO basically. During the design process is. I think. Very good approach because. If you don’t do that. Then suppose like a developer builds a website already, and then some parts are. Not. So it doesn’t follow at least the basic rules of SEO. That you’re, you’re going to double the workload. Because you’d have to make the developer build the website again. So like for example, the above the fold, something is broken there. It’s ready to bail. And then an SEO comes in and says that. Now this part wouldn’t work right. Google’s perspective or like at least the SEO basic state, the developer would. Have two, basically. You build it. Might not be happy about it, but they definitely have to be rebuilding.
David Zimmerman 3:11
Yeah. There’s nothing more said. Then to receive a new client and their brand new website that they’re so proud of. And to the first thing you say to them is Google. Can’t read it.
David Zimmerman 3:27
I had a client one time, they were so excited to get started on their new website. But they didn’t want to start their SEO until it was built. So the waited, waited, they waited, they built it. They called us that week.
David Zimmerman 3:42
Said we’re ready to begin.
David Zimmerman 3:45
And I looked at Google’s cash of the website. The homepage even. And Google cache or the homepage said. Please enable JavaScript. To view this page. That’s only thing Google could see on the page.
David Zimmerman 4:04
And so it was like,
David Zimmerman 4:08
Oops.
David Zimmerman 4:10
But like you said, WordPress out of the box does most of this, right?
David Zimmerman 4:16
Right. Vast majority of what WordPress does. Out of the box is just great for SEO.
David Zimmerman 4:25
If it’s this case, they were building a website based on the early JavaScript framework. And they were trying to be bleeding edge technology, and their developers knew how to build a website and don’t have a script, but they didn’t know how to make a Google readable. And.
David Zimmerman 4:43
Yeah, but you know, as a WordPress developer like yourself, Brian it’s, you don’t have a lot to worry about.
David Zimmerman 4:51
It’ll mostly work. Yeah. I mean, there’s a couple little things. But. For the most part, if you build it, it’s going to be fine. That’s why WordPress is such a great platform for that.
Bryan Valentino 5:04
Yeah, but I think it’s even with. It’s still like, I’m still like, go with. That if he can have an SEO on board. During the suppose you’re here. Planning to have rebuild the website. So the, like, A good idea to have an SEO expert there. So that. No, you don’t waste time and money because websites are not cheap. Yeah, like making a developer word. Worked on a website it’s not cheap to. So like, like when I said earlier, You know, suppose you only hire a developer. The developer, holy. Like super basic idea, but. And SEO then, then like you, you decide because you know, you don’t rank well on Google, you decide to finally hire an SEO SEO expert. You’d have to spend double, I guess, you know, you’d have to work with the SEO, then you have to contact your developer again. They can work on the, like the. Code stuff on your website. So, yeah. It’s not that. Productive.
David Zimmerman 6:07
Well, I’m sure you have experienced too Brian, where. You as a developer with knowledge of SEO, know how to build a good site, but then the client comes in and says, but I want this. And I want that feature and don’t forget, I need. 10 page carousel each with five megabyte images on the home page. And you’re like, well, You know, that’s probably not a great idea. But they’re paying the bills, so you let them have it because they ask for it, even though
Bryan Valentino 6:40
it’s. It’s
David Zimmerman 6:41
going to hurt them. And so, you know, the other factor is clients, right? Is this, the clients are gonna sometimes. Insert their opinions. Not knowing this is a really bad idea.
Bryan Valentino 6:57
Yeah. Bye. They’re bites that I like that. The past. Yeah. But thankfully I have. They’ve they’ve they mostly like.
Bryan Valentino 7:09
He’s the one that’s like handling.
David Zimmerman 7:11
Yeah. I agree. It’s someone to say to the client. No, that’s a bad idea is worth a lot of money.
Bryan Valentino 7:18
Right, right. The client, a lot of money by saying that is a bad idea.
David Zimmerman 7:24
Like I’m, I know you want to pay me for this, but I’m going to save you money and say no. That’s not a good idea. And here’s why, and this is why it’s going to save you money. Cause we’re going to build it. And then we’re gonna have to remove it. Because it’s going to hurt your SEO. And then. You got to pay for both of them. Or whatever. Yeah.
Bryan Valentino 7:45
Right. And then I think this is something that I, I learned from. I think both you and Dave said. I think most, most people forget that a. Actually one of the main purposes of building a website is not really for. Maybe if you’re a blogger, but it’s basically, it’s basically your. Your main pointers. Your audience put. But to get people to look at your website. Right. You’re not just building a website. You just have a website through that. Any purpose. So if like, you know, if you, if you do poorly on your S a website, SEO, Then, you know, you. Like decide on doing stuff that would hurt your SEO. It will be good. For your business overall. So like what.
Bryan Valentino 8:38
Yeah. Saying no to a client sometimes would save them a lot of money. It would be more beneficial to them.
David Zimmerman 8:47
We’ve talked about this before, but it’s the idea that when you ask a client and opinion, So they will give it to you. Even if they don’t know. The right answer. Because you’ve asked them. And it sounds polite to say, would you rather have this or that? But in reality, they are not the informed one to make that decision. So sometimes you kind of tell the client what they need. They can say, and they can disagree. They’re the client, but. We kind of need to push back sometimes on clients for their own good. Google used to have this certification called the mobile website certification. Super super certification, but one of the highlights of that. Was the idea that the fastest web, the fast. Fastest element to load on any webpage. Is the element you don’t include.
David Zimmerman 9:39
It’s it’s when you keep adding stuff to pages that makes websites slow.
David Zimmerman 9:45
But if you ask yourself, okay. Do we really need that feature?
David Zimmerman 9:52
And if you can remove that feature, the website’s going to look faster because it’s a lot less complicated. So. Encouraging clients to say, okay, I know you would like to have a five. Slide carousel. Is that essential? Is that really essential? And, and as they consider it, they might. It felt anyway.
youssef chaoui 10:16
David. I have something to add. Yeah. So, so about. Having an SEO chicken, your website before lunch. So this is preferable, but how much do does this person need? I mean, how. Often an expert. Does he need to be because I’m sure some people. Can be. Can have knowledge about eco, but.
youssef chaoui 10:44
I think. You need to be in a little bit advanced, too. To know. If. Like this, if Google can detect this table or this feature or not.
David Zimmerman 10:59
So that’s a great question because there’s different aspects to SEO. You know, you’re a specialist in the link building ax act. Aspect of SEL, right? Yeah. And, and Brian is pretty knowledgeable about tech, what we call technical SEO, which is the, how Google can read a website.
David Zimmerman 11:21
And so when you’re launching a website, you need someone with experience with experience. In the technical SEL. So they can make sure the website launches correctly.
David Zimmerman 11:34
What I recommend clients do is if they are planning to launch a website. In light of SEL that they hire a full service SEO person. At the same time as their developer.
David Zimmerman 11:49
And the reason is, is because number one, if you hire me. With the developer. I can work with the developer to make sure it’s done once and done correctly rather than two steps forward. One step back, two steps forward. One step back. But there’s a lot of things we can do. To help a website. That will launch. Today. So let’s say we’re going to have six months to launch a website. If I start working on your SEO campaign today. One of the things I’m going to do in that six months to launch a website and that’s a long website. Very large website. But if it’s six months. All of the things I’m going to do is check in and make sure the developers are building it right. The other thing I’m going to be doing is linked buildings. Because.
David Zimmerman 12:42
The links when the new website launches will still help the new website.
youssef chaoui 12:48
That’s it.
David Zimmerman 12:50
Yeah, index it, but, but the links will help the new website to rank. Because it has authority.
David Zimmerman 12:59
So. You know, we always say that when you launch new website, it’s going to take one to two months before. Of a traffic dip before it recovers. And then hopefully at the end of the two, one or two months, we’ll start to see it increase. The dip comes from the DIA indexing and re indexing of the site. So we can shorten that dip. By doing certain things like. Making sure all the URLs are the same.
David Zimmerman 13:27
Making sure all your redirects are in place. Making sure your co you have a content strategy that makes your content. Makes its way from the old site to the new site. These are things that will shorten that dip. But one thing that will also help shorten the dip is if you’re building links to that site. Even if you’re building links to the homepage, only when the new site launches all those links and all that authority will help the new site website recover much quicker. So whenever someone hires me in this capacity, That’s primarily what I’m focusing on. Link-building and technical, not a lot of, we might get some content pre-written. To launch with the new site. Right.
youssef chaoui 14:14
Yeah.
David Zimmerman 14:15
But most of what we’re doing is link-building and technical SEO. To make sure that when the new site. Well, it just, everything, everything goes quick because we’re still going to see a dip. As Google takes old pages out of the index. And then starts re indexing and then hopefully they start to grow again. That’s the goal, right? But there, there are certain things we could do to increase the odds of that happening. And the time and decrease the timeframe, which would have.
youssef chaoui 14:44
Yeah, but I guess most people will only hire Eco’s after they published a website. So how do you exactly right. It hurts
David Zimmerman 14:54
me.
David Zimmerman 14:56
And really I, every time I get off and get this.
youssef chaoui 15:00
And
David Zimmerman 15:01
I’m like, please. I know, I know. I sound like I’m making a sales pitch. Like I know I have a vested interest in you buying the service from me. But I’m giving you my best recommendation. The best thing you can do right now is hire me before we web launch the website.
David Zimmerman 15:19
And like Brian was saying, if we launched the website, we might have to undo things and that is more expensive. And more frustrating. And I hate making the developers look bad. I don’t, I’m not, they didn’t do anything wrong. They did what they were told. They built a good website that works. But.
David Zimmerman 15:40
And I hate coming back later and saying, making you the client think that their websites were terrible. And what does that was not terrible. It just, wasn’t built in a lot of Google.
David Zimmerman 15:52
And it’s not the quality of the developer. They just. They don’t know. They don’t their job isn’t to know. Right. Hopefully they know a little bit, right.
youssef chaoui 16:03
Yeah.
youssef chaoui 16:06
So we do. Go ahead. Sorry.
youssef chaoui 16:13
Okay. So what can we do to convince them? Like to change. This thinking of hiring an SEO after launching the website.
David Zimmerman 16:26
That’s the million dollar question. I really wish I could figure that out. I think the challenge is that people are spending so much in a website. They don’t want to spend more.
David Zimmerman 16:38
For it. I have tried to work out partnerships with what development companies to say. Hey, let. Put me in the price of the website launch. Add my service. Inside the, so when you’re giving the client a price to the website, It includes a certain amount for buy time to do the SEO. Check-ins. To do the link building to pre-write the content. So like one of the things I love doing is having 10 blog posts. Ready to go upon launch the website. And launching a blog post every day for the next 10 days.
David Zimmerman 17:20
To give Google that incentive to keep coming back. To the website and having this brand new content. On the website. Like I it’s great. But I got to prepare that. And, you know, I, I, it’s really hard to, I it’s really hard to convince people.
David Zimmerman 17:42
What were you going to ask Brian?
Bryan Valentino 17:46
But it was supposed to say it was. I always like. I’m not sure if my analogy is correct. Let me say it’s like the difference between an SEO and.
Bryan Valentino 17:56
A good example for DSCO in. Developer. But this, like, I’m not sure how it works in the us. But here, here in our country, like when. You won. A somewhat, like when you want to build a house. Can I actually just.
Bryan Valentino 18:11
Hire a, either an engineer or like a. Carpenter in our case. Basically to build the house that you want. But it’s different when you hire like an architect. To design it. Yes. Architects would have, would know like what’s aesthetically. Nice. But makes sense. Like how to maximize space and all that. Like, For some carpenters or engineers. Our case, then we just like, build your house out. Like what. I had mentioned earlier, like how you specified it. Do you like. I get that. Now I want a guide in here. It’s like a bad spot. So when you put, like, when you build the house, Properly like. The right process, you should. Like get an architect to make sure that the Makerspace. Maximize. It’s not an eyesore, like your house. Wouldn’t be a nicer lighting would be good. Something like that. I think some of. Like one thing that. I think most people. I don’t or don’t know yet about. SEO, as far as I know, like, I, I didn’t understand it at first because like, I think for most people, when they hear about SEOD. The only thing about ranking on searches and all that. But that should be what comes with SEO is also the, this is based on experience with working with like SEOs and like sling to your day. David. It also includes the. The user experience. Yeah. Like. You know, like, like you said, not building carousels. For us developers. If you tell them to build a carousel.
Bryan Valentino 19:50
Would most likely push that back. Because it’s not. They have. Different. Expertise that would help.
Bryan Valentino 20:01
Help be your website, visitors. Because that’s the ultimate goal to get attention to your website and not make people leave your website. Sure it looks nice for you, but for most people. And SEO’s would understand that that’s the purpose of why you guys should get. Like an SEO person.
David Zimmerman 20:19
I like that analogy because. If I’m an architect that doesn’t necessarily know mean, I know how to put wood together to build a house.
David Zimmerman 20:30
I don’t have a head architect. Doesn’t have a hammer. It doesn’t have nails. It doesn’t necessarily know how to build it, but he knows. The right way to build it. I don’t know how to build a website. Right. I know enough to communicate to a developer to say, okay, when you’re doing it. Don’t use would use metal. I don’t use. You know this for the siding, use that. Right. But I can’t build a house myself in the same way. I can’t build. I can’t build a website, but I know how to talk to developer about how to build a website. So I like the architect analogy.
David Zimmerman 21:11
You need both people, you need an architect and a developer and a contractor that’s who we’ve hired. And call the contract, the contractor hires the people like the carpenters and the cement people. And stuff
Bryan Valentino 21:22
like that. Yeah.
David Zimmerman 21:24
Right. And so that’s, that’s the project manager in the web development world. Right. But yeah, that’s a good analogy.