Why this doc exists
When Creative hands off a website design, about half the work is still ahead of us. The builder has to host the files, point the domain at them, tell search engines what to index, track what patients do, and embed the tools that make the site actually work (booking, chat, maps, analytics). This primer lists what a real website builder must cover and the decisions we need to make for each SGA practice.
1 · Infrastructure — Where the site lives
Hosting · Domain · DNS · SSL · CDNThe physical home of the files
Every page, image, and font has to sit on a server somewhere. Hosting decides speed, uptime, and cost.
- Static hosting (Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages) — fast and cheap, ideal for marketing sites.
- Managed WordPress (WP Engine, Kinsta) — if we need a CMS editor.
- Self-hosted (AWS, Railway) — full control, more engineering.
The address book of the internet
The domain (valdostafamilydental.com) is what patients type. DNS is the switchboard that routes that name to our hosting server's IP address.
- Registrar — where the domain is bought (GoDaddy, Cloudflare).
- Nameservers — who controls the DNS records.
- Records we manage: A / CNAME (website), MX (email), TXT (verification, SPF/DKIM).
The lock icon
An SSL certificate encrypts the connection. Without it, browsers show "Not Secure" — which tanks trust and kills conversion. Google also uses HTTPS as a ranking signal.
- Auto-renewed via Let's Encrypt through our host.
- Must cover the root domain and www subdomain.
- Mixed-content warnings (HTTP images on HTTPS pages) break the lock icon.
Copies of the site, closer to the patient
A Content Delivery Network caches our pages on servers around the country. A patient in Valdosta loads the site from Atlanta, not Virginia. Faster = higher conversion + better SEO.
- Usually bundled with modern hosts (Vercel, Cloudflare).
- Matters most for images and video.
2 · Site structure — How pages are organized for search
Sitemap · Robots · URL strategy · Homepage roleThe table of contents for Google
A machine-readable list of every page we want indexed. Google crawls this first to decide what to visit. A broken or missing sitemap is the #1 reason pages never rank.
- Auto-generated by the builder on every publish.
- Includes last modified date and priority.
- Submitted to Google Search Console once per domain.
The bouncer at the door
A tiny file at /robots.txt that tells crawlers where they can't go. Used to keep staging environments, admin pages, and thank-you pages out of Google.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /thank-you/
Sitemap: https://valdostafamilydental.com/sitemap.xml
Clean, predictable, keyword-rich
URLs are read by humans and search engines. Good URLs match the page's topic.
- ✅ /services/dental-implants-valdosta
- ❌ /page?id=4821&ref=nav
- Lowercase, hyphens not underscores, no trailing junk.
- Once published, never change a URL without a 301 redirect.
Trust hub, not a brochure
The homepage is the #1 entry point for branded search and the page Google trusts most. It should do three jobs, fast:
- Answer "am I in the right place?" in 2 seconds.
- Push patients to the next step (book, call, map).
- Link internally to every important service page (SEO authority flows downhill from here).
3 · Programmatic SEO — How we ship 500 pages from one template
Template × Data = PagesInstead of writing each page by hand, Creative designs one template per page type (e.g. "Service in City"). The builder merges that template with a data table (every service × every SGA city) to generate thousands of unique, indexable pages — each one targeting a real search like "dental implants in Thomasville GA."
Hero · Benefits · FAQs · CTA · NAP block · Map embed
Cities: Valdosta, Tifton, Thomasville, Moultrie…
implants-in-tifton
invisalign-in-thomasville
…(hundreds per practice)
4 · Analytics & tracking — Knowing what actually happens
GA4 · GTM · Conversion tracking · Call tracking| Tool | What it does | Where it lives | Who owns it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics 4 | Measures traffic, sources, and on-site behavior per page. | Single tag in site <head>. | Growth |
| Google Tag Manager | One container that loads every other tag (GA4, Meta Pixel, call tracking, etc.) without touching code. | Single script in site <head>. | Growth, with Creative brief |
| Meta Pixel | Tracks patients from Facebook/Instagram ads through to booking. | Fired via GTM. | Paid Media |
| Google Search Console | Shows what people searched to find each page, indexing issues, ranking positions. | Verified per domain via DNS record. | Growth |
| Call tracking (CallRail) | Swaps the phone number on page based on traffic source so we know which channel drove the call. | JS snippet via GTM. | Growth |
| Conversion events | Booking submitted · phone clicked · directions clicked · form submitted — all named and fired consistently across 68 sites. | GTM triggers. | Growth |
5 · Embeds & third-party tools
iframes · Widgets · ScriptsA window into another site
An iframe embeds a full external page inside ours — useful for Google Maps, YouTube, or a booking calendar hosted by a vendor.
- ✅ Good for: maps, video, third-party schedulers.
- ❌ Bad for: core content. Google can't index what's inside an iframe.
- Must be responsive (percentage width, not fixed pixels).
Dropped-in vendor tools
Chat bubbles, review carousels, booking buttons — usually a single script tag the vendor provides.
- Loaded via GTM so we can turn them on/off per practice.
- Each widget adds weight — we audit quarterly.
Patient data has rules
Any form that collects name + health info is potentially PHI. The backend decides where that data goes and whether we have a BAA with the vendor.
- No PHI in GA4 or Meta Pixel.
- Forms route to a HIPAA-compliant inbox or PMS integration.
6 · Publishing workflow — How a change goes live
Draft · Preview · Publish · Rollback- Draft / Staging
- Every change lives on a preview URL (e.g. staging.valdostafamilydental.com) that's blocked from Google via robots.txt and password-protected. Creative reviews here.
- Publish
- One-click promotion from staging to production. Sitemap regenerates automatically. Cache purges globally.
- Rollback
- Every publish is versioned. If something breaks, we revert to the last known-good build in under 60 seconds — no restoring from backups.
- Redirects
- When a URL changes or a page is retired, the builder writes a 301 redirect so old Google results and patient bookmarks don't die.
- Access control
- Creative can edit copy and images. Growth controls tags, redirects, and structural changes. Engineering controls hosting and DNS.
7 · The decisions we need from the builder
Launch checklist per practice- Where is it hosted? One platform across all 68 practices, or per-site?
- Who owns the domain & DNS? Consolidated under SGA, or inherited from the acquired practice?
- What's the URL structure for services, locations, and programmatic pages? Locked once, forever.
- Is sitemap.xml auto-generated on every publish, and is it submitted to Google Search Console?
- Is robots.txt keeping staging, admin, and thank-you pages out of the index?
- How does programmatic SEO consume our service × city data? Who owns the data table?
- Is there one GTM container per site with a standard event naming convention?
- Are forms HIPAA-compliant end-to-end, including where the data lands?
- What's the preview / publish / rollback flow for Creative edits?
- Who has which permissions — Creative, Growth, Engineering, practice manager?
If the builder answers these ten questions clearly, we can scale one design system across all 68 practices without Creative becoming the bottleneck on every site. If it can't — that's the real cost of a weak builder, and the conversation we need to have before we pick one.