SEO for a new website starts before launch.

Plan SEO for a new website before the visual design is finished. It is easier to decide which pages you need, what each should explain and where visitors should go next. Leaving all the writing until launch often produces generic service descriptions that miss customers’ questions.

The sequence below works for a new business website or for improving an existing one. It is a plan for the work, not a promise of a particular Google ranking.

Give each page a specific customer question

List your main services and the questions people ask before buying. For a hotel, these might cover parking, pets, breakfast and direct booking. For a software business, they could involve maintenance costs, integrations and how a system can grow.

Decide where the answers belong. A service page should help someone assess the offering, a guide can explain a broader problem, and a glossary can define a term. Every variation of a search phrase does not need its own page. If two planned pages would answer the same question with almost identical content, one thorough resource is usually more useful.

Google’s SEO starter guide discusses useful, readable content and a logical site structure. Start with a practical check: can someone unfamiliar with your business understand the offer without calling for basic details?

Write content that helps people make a decision

On a service page, explain the scope, intended customer, process and information someone needs before contacting you. Instead of “a personalised approach”, show which choices a customer can make and what you will agree together. Explain meaningful limitations as well.

A guide should lead to a usable answer. An article about preparing for a photo session could include a packing checklist. A hotel booking guide might explain how a date change works. Choose topics from your services and real questions rather than from a need to fill a blog.

Plan the next step too. Link to a relevant service, example or definition where it helps the reader. Someone reading a guide may not be ready to order. A related explanation can be more helpful than repeating a contact form in every section.

Use the website as a customer would

Open it on a phone. Find a price or the requirements for a quote, proceed to booking and send a test enquiry. Watch for slow images, moving page elements and buttons covered by overlays.

Core Web Vitals cover main content loading, responsiveness to interaction and layout stability. Use them to investigate problems. A single laboratory result does not represent every visit, device and connection. A site with little traffic may also lack real user measurements.

Write down specific issues. “The form does not identify the missing field” is a more actionable task than “the site needs better UX”. Test your most important journey from beginning to end, including the confirmation message.

Check indexing and old addresses at launch

Ask your developer to check server responses, canonical URLs, the sitemap and indexing settings. If you are replacing a website, list its old URLs and their equivalents in the new structure. An established service page should lead to the current version of that service, rather than sending every visitor to the homepage.

After launch, use URL Inspection in Search Console. It provides indexing information and lets you test whether Google can access a page. Requesting indexing does not guarantee inclusion in search results or a particular completion date.

Measure enquiries and actions that matter to the business

Before launch, decide what counts as a useful contact. It might be a submitted form, a booking or a phone call. A click on a telephone link indicates an intention to call, but does not prove a conversation happened.

After launch, compare the searches bringing people in with your actual services. If visitors repeatedly arrive with a question the page does not answer, improve the content. If they read but do not proceed, check whether the next step is clear and appropriate. Be cautious about drawing conclusions from a very small number of visits.

Keep a simple record of what changed and when. It helps you distinguish a new service description from a seasonal change in demand or a campaign that brought in a different audience.

What about visibility in AI answers?

Provide clear service descriptions, business information and answers to specific questions. Use examples and cite sources for data and factual claims. These choices also help people reading the page directly.

Google’s documentation for AI features says there is no separate required markup or special file that ensures inclusion in these answers. SEO fundamentals still apply, and meeting the requirements does not guarantee visibility. Other search engines and assistants can have different rules.

If you are still planning the project, start with a website brief. Content, implementation and ongoing work can be coordinated within a website project that includes SEO, with responsibilities agreed from the start.

Already have a website? Our marketing and SEO services explain the scope of an audit, content work, local visibility and campaigns, along with how we work together.