SEO programming at startup necessary?

**Daniel J. Bertelsen** · 12-08-2008 03:06 PM

As the topic says.
I am about to develop a website along with my webdesigner, and we are currently going through the entire programming process and contracts. The contract includes a URL-friendly/SEO friendly development process as well, which will cost an additional price for about 2 weeks additional work for my web designer and programmer - however, is SEO friendly programming necessary in the startup process of the website or is it something you should add later on after testing has been done and the website has been launched?

It is an additional price of nearly £ 700 , so it is not the end of the world when the entire project is estimated to cost around £ 5.000, or what would you say?

**pooja** · 12-08-2008 07:12 PM

£ 5000 sounds sky high. SEO friendly designing is a standard approach, and you shouldn't pay ANY thing extra for that. Why would someone take and additional 2 weeks for this ? I think you r being duped buddy. What kind of a site is this ? Can you give me full details ? I will ask one of our guys to prepare an actual costing for you. One more thing... SEO can be done even after your site has been designed but I wouldn't recommend that.

**jackfranklin** · 12-09-2008 01:18 AM

SEO can be done after designing of the website.However it is better to take some SEO factors into consideration while designing.

**Daniel J. Bertelsen** · 12-09-2008 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by pooja

£ 5000 sounds sky high. SEO friendly designing is a standard approach, and you shouldn't pay ANY thing extra for that. Why would someone take and additional 2 weeks for this ? I think you r being duped buddy. What kind of a site is this ? Can you give me full details ? I will ask one of our guys to prepare an actual costing for you. One more thing... SEO can be done even after your site has been designed but I wouldn't recommend that.

It is a rather big website with a certain target group in London. The main purpose of the website is user-created classifieds for a certain market in London which will fill out two scarcities in a specific market in London.

Full-size user registration, opportunities for users to create different types of classifieds by submitting multiple choices and values to cover match their classifieds, search function all together mixed and combined with a smooth and foolproof design.

Is 5000 pounds too much? It will take three months for 1 webdesigner and 1 programmer to create, including full testing and maintenance and support six months after launch.

I do not want to go too much into detail ofcourse, but that is pretty much the main theme of the website.

**flnazrael** · 12-09-2008 02:30 PM

That is not unreasonable at all. There are just a lot of people on this forum who have a very low regard for web developers and what they should be paid.

Also, do the SEF URLs before the site launches. Otherwise you'll have a huge mess of duplicate content and other problems if you implement them later. Though SEF aren't THAT hard, especially in a LAMP environment, so I'm not sure why they're charging 700 pounds for that.

**lifefulfilled** · 12-09-2008 05:55 PM

Hi Daniel,

SEO is essential. It is best to implement it from the beginning. I cannot comment precisely on the timeframe and costs because I am not familiar with your project. I will note ~$10k doesn't seem too unreasonable for a small-to-moderate sized project with a decent designer/developer.

**lifefulfilled** · 12-09-2008 06:01 PM

Originally Posted by Daniel J. Bertelsen

It is a rather big website with a certain target group in London. The main purpose of the website is user-created classifieds for a certain market in London which will fill out two scarcities in a specific market in London.

Full-size user registration, opportunities for users to create different types of classifieds by submitting multiple choices and values to cover match their classifieds, search function all together mixed and combined with a smooth and foolproof design.

Is 5000 pounds too much? It will take three months for 1 webdesigner and 1 programmer to create, including full testing and maintenance and support six months after launch.

I do not want to go too much into detail ofcourse, but that is pretty much the main theme of the website.

Are they adapting an/some open source project(s)? If so, this seems fairly reasonable. If not, then I would suggest you're getting a great deal here. It's not unheard for CMS-style projects running into $50k-100k for basic projects. Good luck with your project!

**pooja** · 12-09-2008 08:44 PM

I have a feeling here that this project can be done within a month with 1 designer and 1 programmer. That will include reports too. So I think 5000 pounds is too much. It is my personal opinion ... and I have a very high regard for web designers and their capabilities

**jackfranklin** · 12-10-2008 01:30 AM

I do not know the budget and time spent on the project and all the stuff.But I can give one suggestion, after launching your site whether it is related to some product promotion site or something in order to get traffic to your site you need support of SEO.

**DennisChang** · 12-10-2008 01:47 AM

Originally Posted by Daniel J. Bertelsen

It is a rather big website with a certain target group in London. The main purpose of the website is user-created classifieds for a certain market in London which will fill out two scarcities in a specific market in London.

Full-size user registration, opportunities for users to create different types of classifieds by submitting multiple choices and values to cover match their classifieds, search function all together mixed and combined with a smooth and foolproof design.

Is 5000 pounds too much? It will take three months for 1 webdesigner and 1 programmer to create, including full testing and maintenance and support six months after launch.

I do not want to go too much into detail ofcourse, but that is pretty much the main theme of the website.

Doesn't sound that complicated, at least not the programming part, unless there are more complicated details not listed there.

**Daniel J. Bertelsen** · 12-10-2008 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by DennisChang

Doesn't sound that complicated, at least not the programming part, unless there are more complicated details not listed there.

There is a lot more to it than reaches the eye, believe me. I would love to go into further detail, but I have done that before, and somebody ran off with the idea - cannot recommend that, not even to my worst enemy

**miketyson** · 12-26-2008 03:49 AM

Yes SEO friendly programming necessary in the startup process of the website if you want to do internet marketing, website promotion etc.

**linkbuildr** · 01-01-2009 04:19 PM

Sound a bit high to me. What in detail are they going to be doing for that extra amount?

**Qurratulain** · 01-02-2009 05:11 AM

Originally Posted by Daniel J. Bertelsen

As the topic says.
I am about to develop a website along with my webdesigner, and we are currently going through the entire programming process and contracts. The contract includes a URL-friendly/SEO friendly development process as well, which will cost an additional price for about 2 weeks additional work for my web designer and programmer - however, is SEO friendly programming necessary in the startup process of the website or is it something you should add later on after testing has been done and the website has been launched?

It is an additional price of nearly £ 700 , so it is not the end of the world when the entire project is estimated to cost around £ 5.000, or what would you say?

Yes, SEO friendliness at the time of development is far better than that of doing it later. It doesn't only save your cost, but also helps saving time. And, the deal you're getting also seems fine to me, I mean for a project of 5k, it's very reasonable.

Regards,

**355Media** · 01-19-2009 12:55 PM

SEO is essential from the start.

Some search engines index pages for longer than others and don't return to some inner pages for a long while. Your initial un-optimized pages may stay in the search engines longer than you hoped lowering your potential traffic and increasing the length of time required to see ROI on your SEO efforts when you do move forward on it.

This problem may be magnified if you have the URLs optimized from now but don't complete the METAs and Titles as the URL structure will be maintained in the search engine index and they may choose to not reindex that pages for a while.

Alternatively, If you update the URLs when you can offer a completely optimized site to the search engines, you may run the risk of duplicate content penalties in some search engines.

NOTE: In some search engines you may benefit from the old pages remaining in the index for a while until they are deleted effectively doubling your site's page count!