There are plenty of misconceptions floating around about SEO. One common belief is that you should first launch your website, and then worry about making SEO tweaks later.

However, this can cause a business a lot of headaches after launch.

In our experience launching and relaunching hundreds of websites over the years, the better prepared you are, the more likely you are to rank in search results.

While it takes extra work upfront, here are five benefits of designing your website for SEO ahead of launching:

1) Google Takes Time to Rank New Domains

If you are setting up a new website, this is crucial to know before launch.

Domain age is a ranking factor. Google places new sites into something SEO experts refer to as a ‘sandbox’ for around two months after launch.

Some people frame this as Google ‘punishing’ new domains, however, it’s the time spent deciding whether or not they can trust your site.

Performing quality SEO work before and during the launch period will ensure your website starts off on the right foot and grow their domain authority when Google initially crawls your site.

2) Save Time and Money in the Long Run

Building a high-quality website is an expensive process, but also one of the most important things a company has to do if they want to grow.

If there is a need to re-design portions of the site for SEO after launch, then it will cost the site owner more money. As well as this, it will take longer to see traffic results.

Ideally, you want a web development agency with SEO experience working on your site. In this way, the developers and designers are given instruction on keywords, titles, meta descriptions, and more.

Theis pre-launch website optimization can help save you time and money over the long term as your site begins to rank for your relevant keywords and topics.

3) Good Design Helps Good Rankings

Poorly designed websites don’t just make visitors want to leave. They also make Google’s crawlers less likely to go through your whole site.

A poor design that is not linear and easy to navigate can make ranking for SEO a difficult task. Often to improve SEO, there can be a need to completely re-design the website.

Consider UX design and speed of the page. If you are looking at AMP as a potential option for your new site, you will likely be rewarded with better search results as more of the web becomes mobile.

4) SEO Helps Build Your Brand

At its core, you can think of good SEO similar to having good branding.

If Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo all understand that your company is a leader in a specific product or service, then they will deliver that result to searchers more often.

Bringing people to your site organically builds legitimacy and trust. This is because choosing the right keywords takes an innate knowledge of your targeted customer base and what they’re looking for.

Building this SEO-friendly information into your site early makes this an easier process both for the Google crawlers and your new site visitors.

5) Build Up Organic Traffic from the Start

Even though it can be difficult to rank on Google directly after launch, it’s important to build up as much organic traffic as soon as possible.

As Google indexes your pages, making a good first impression can go a long way.

By ensuring quality user experience, correct title tags, accurate meta descriptions, relevant keywords will increase user retention rates as well as the average amount of time spent on your site. The sooner this starts to happen the better Google will rank the site well.

Sometimes it can make sense to boost traffic through ad spends, but over the long run building, an organic blueprint will result in steady growth over time.

In conclusion, if you are going to invest time and money into developing a new website, it makes sense to give it the best chance for SEO success. SEO optimization is one of the best ways to be prepared to launch your site so it is easy to find, and visited by your prospects.

Want to grow your ranking for SEO for your new website? Brandastic is a Digital Marketing Agency with offices in Orange County, Los Angeles, and Austin. We specialize in creating websites that are optimized for SEO, that can rank higher in the search engines, and attract more customers to your business. Get your FREE marketing audit to discover ways we can support and help your business innovate.