We all have a role to play in the building of a website.
Designers create beautiful and interactive interfaces. Copywriters create messaging that gets visitors to take notice and action. Developers bring it all together with code.

But there’s one piece of the puzzle that can’t be handed off to just one person. And that’s SEO.

If you’re building websites for clients and they’re expecting impressive outcomes in the end (i.e. high conversion rates), SEO has to be part of your process. You can’t just leave it in the hands of your writer or a dedicated SEO and assume that’s enough.

Google is a demanding overlord and we must appease it if we want our websites to reach the top of the search. And what that means is taking a well-rounded approach to SEO throughout the lifecycle of the website design and development process.

If you haven’t accounted for this already or you want to make sure you’ve covered all the bases in what you currently do, this post is for you. I’m going to run through when and how SEO needs to enter the picture in your workflow. In addition, I’ve included an SEO checklist at the bottom of this post that you and your team can adapt to your workflow.