Scaling Programmatic SEO with a Flexible Headless CMS and Gatsby
- 30%
- more organic traffic in year one
- 3,000+
- programmatic SEO pages launched
Web Development Company
A website development company that builds sites your team can actually run.
Most business websites start clean and end up locked. A template gets stretched past what it was built for, or a developer becomes the only person who can publish a page. Either way, the site stops being an asset your team controls.
We build marketing sites, corporate sites, and content hubs on a CMS your own team can update, engineered for search and AI answer engines from the first sprint, not retrofitted after launch. Design and engineering come from one team, so the production site matches what was approved.
Content-managed pages your team can publish without a developer
Built for search and AI answer engines from sprint one, not bolted on after launch
Fixed project cost agreed before development starts
You own the code, the CMS, and the hosting
30% more organic traffic, year one RaftLabs.com4.9/5 on Clutch, 50+ reviews Trusted delivery track record
The problem
Sound familiar?
Marketing site still running the same template from two redesigns ago?
Every content change means opening a ticket and waiting on a developer?
Site looks fine on a laptop and falls apart on mobile or in a Lighthouse audit?
Short answer
A website development company builds and hosts a business's marketing, corporate, or content site on a content management system the client's own team can update, engineered for search and AI-answer-engine visibility from the first sprint. RaftLabs does this for funded startups, growing companies, and enterprise teams: marketing sites, corporate sites, and content hubs on headless or traditional CMS platforms, fixed-price, with design and engineering delivered by one team so the production site matches what was approved.
Key takeaways
- A website development company builds and hosts the site on a CMS the client's own team can run, not just designs it and hands off a static file.
- Websites built for search and AI answer engines from sprint one rank and get cited faster than sites retrofitted for SEO after launch.
- RaftLabs migrated its own site to a headless CMS and grew organic traffic 30% in year one while shipping 3,000+ programmatic pages with zero downtime.
- Every project is priced at a fixed cost agreed before development starts.
- Design and engineering come from one team, so the production site matches the approved design, no handoff gap.
Trusted by
The site that used to be easy to update.
Picture the version you actually want. Marketing wants to publish a new page, so they publish it. No ticket, no waiting on a developer's sprint capacity, no "we'll get to it next week."
Now the version most businesses end up with instead. A template site gets stretched past what it was built for: a custom section here, a workaround there, until only the person who built it can safely touch it. Or a developer owns every content change, so publishing a new page takes longer than writing it.
A website built on the right CMS, by a team that designs and builds in one pass, removes both problems. Your team publishes. The production site matches what was approved.
What is a website development company
A website development company designs, builds, and hosts a business's marketing site, corporate site, or content hub, on a content management system the client's own team can run, instead of handing over design files someone else has to build. The difference from a design-only studio is ownership of the full path from approved design to a live, editable, search-ready site.
Most business websites underperform for one reason: they were built to look right in a design review, not to be published to, searched for, or maintained after launch. According to a 2024 Forrester report on digital experience design, companies with strong web experience design see conversion rates between 200% and 400% higher than the category average, driven by information hierarchy and reduced friction, not visual polish alone. RaftLabs designs and builds websites for funded startups, growing companies, and enterprise teams, with design and engineering delivered by one team so the production site never drifts from what was approved.
What a website built right does
- 200-400%
- higher conversion rates for sites with strong web experience design vs. category average
- Forrester, 2024
- 30%
- more organic traffic in year one after RaftLabs migrated its own site to a headless CMS
- RaftLabs.com migration
- 0
- downtime migrating 3,000+ pages and 12,000+ monthly visitors to a new CMS
- RaftLabs.com migration
What you've probably already tried, and why it stalled
- Stretch the template further
- Works until the site needs a layout or interaction the theme was never built for. Every workaround on top of a template makes the next one riskier to add, and the site that once shipped fast starts costing more to touch.
- Let one developer own every content change
- Fast when that developer has spare capacity. A new page, a pricing update, or a typo fix now waits in the same queue as everything else engineering is shipping.
- Redesign without changing the CMS
- The site looks new for a launch, then falls back into the same publishing bottleneck within a quarter, because the underlying problem was never the visual design.
- Wait and do nothing
- Every month on an aging template is a month of content debt: pages that don't reflect the current offer, a site structure search engines and AI answer engines can't parse cleanly, and a redesign that gets more expensive the longer it's deferred.
Custom website development pays off when a template is already the bottleneck.
Everything on the left should already be true for your business. Even one thing on the right, and a well-configured template or theme is the smarter spend right now.
A fit
01
A brand, content structure, or integration a template can't cleanly support anymore.
02
A marketing or content team that wants to publish without opening a developer ticket.
03
Budget for a project in the $15,000+ range, and a decision-maker who can approve the sitemap and content plan.
Not a fit
- A standard need a well-built Webflow or WordPress theme already covers well.
- Pre-revenue with no budget and messaging still forming.
- A site that actually needs logins, a database, and application logic behind it, not more pages.
What we build
Websites we build
- 01Marketing and brand websitesMulti-page sites built to explain the offer, show proof, and drive one clear action, designed for conversion first and visual polish second.
- 02Corporate and investor sitesSites that carry the weight of being a company's front door: leadership, governance, press, and investor communication, built to be credible and easy to keep current.
- 03Content hubs and resource centersBlogs, documentation, and resource libraries structured for programmatic SEO and AI answer engine citation, not just a paginated list of posts.
- 04Headless CMS-powered websitesContent decoupled from the frontend on Sanity, Contentful, or Strapi, so editors publish independently and engineering ships frontend changes without touching content.
- 05Campaign microsites and landing pagesFast-to-ship, fast-loading pages for a launch or campaign, built on the same design system as the main site so they don't look like a separate project.
- 06Multilingual and multi-region sitesLocalized content and region-specific pages structured with correct hreflang and canonical tags, so regional variants help search visibility instead of splitting it.
If your project needs a booking engine, a customer portal, or logged-in application logic behind the pages, that's web application development, not website development, see the FAQ below for how to tell the difference.
What's slowing down your team's ability to publish?
Tell us the problem. We'll scope the website and give you a fixed cost.
How it works
How we work
- Step 0101
Discovery and content architecture
We map the sitemap, content types, and who needs to publish what, before any design starts. You get a documented content model and a fixed-price scope.
Sitemap and information architecture
Content model and CMS field structure
SEO and AI-answer-engine keyword mapping
Fixed-cost quote with milestone delivery dates
- Step 0202
Design and CMS setup
We design pages against the real content model, not a placeholder-text mockup, and configure the CMS so editors can publish without developer help.
Page-template design in context of real content
CMS setup and editor training plan
Design system for consistent campaign pages later
- Step 0303
Build and performance optimization
We build the frontend, wire it to the CMS, and tune for Core Web Vitals and mobile performance before launch, not after a slow-loading site starts losing visitors.
Frontend build against the approved design
Performance budget and Core Web Vitals targets
Structured data and technical SEO implementation
- Step 0404
Launch, SEO handover, and training
We deploy, redirect old URLs so rankings carry over, and train your team to publish before we step back.
Production deployment and redirect mapping
Editor training on the live CMS
Documentation and credentials handover
Proof it works
Proof
Case studies
What clients say
What our clients say
Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.
Paula Castro
IrelandReservations Officer, City Break Apartments
Working with RaftLabs has been amazing. The team is super responsive and quick to address our needs and clear about what's realistic on timeline and budget.
01 / 02
Fair questions, straight answers
- "You'll build a pretty site I still can't update myself."
- Every site ships with a CMS your team is trained on before we step back. If your team can't publish a page without calling us, the handover isn't finished.
- "I'll get a template with a few tweaks, not a real build."
- We design against your actual content and brand, not a theme with swapped colors. The design system is built to extend to future campaign pages too.
- "This will look great and rank nowhere."
- Technical SEO and AI-answer-engine structure are built in from sprint one: URL structure, page hierarchy, and structured data, not a retrofit after launch.
- "Migrating will tank our existing rankings."
- We map every existing URL to its new destination with redirects before launch. Our own migration moved 3,000+ pages and 12,000+ monthly visitors with zero downtime and no traffic loss.
- "How is this priced, really?"
- A marketing site with custom design, development, and CMS runs $15,000-$50,000. You get a fixed number after scoping, before you commit.
What it costs
Fixed scope. Starting at $15,000. Yours to keep.
A defined sitemap, a timeline, and a number, agreed before development starts.
Starts at $15,000
Most engagements are a marketing site with custom design, development, and a CMS. Priced by project, not by the hour. You own the code, the content, and the hosting from day one.
Start with the pages that matter most at launch. Add content hubs, campaign microsites, and multi-region pages once the core site is live.
Ownership
You own the code, the CMS content, the domain, and the hosting account at the end of the engagement. No proprietary templates, no lock-in.
No hourly billing
Once we scope your sitemap and content model, that price is locked in writing. No surprise invoices for pages that were already in scope.
Related services
- 01
Web Application Development
For sites that need a booking engine, customer portal, or application logic behind the pages.
- 02
Custom Software Development
For the operational software a website alone can't cover.
- 03
UX/UI Design
For brand and product design work ahead of a build.
- 04
Headless CMS Development
For content infrastructure that needs to feed more than one frontend.
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Read moreFrequently asked questions
A website development company designs, builds, and hosts a business's marketing site, corporate site, or content hub on a content management system, rather than handing over a set of design files someone else has to build. It covers information architecture, CMS setup, frontend build, performance, and SEO foundations, so the site that ships is the one that was approved, and the client's own team can publish to it without a developer.
A website is primarily informational: pages that explain what you do, show proof, and drive a call, a booking, or a form fill. A web application is interactive: users log in, create data, and take actions that persist to a database. A website can be built on a CMS in a few weeks to a couple of months. A web application needs a database schema, an API layer, authentication, and often real-time features. If your project needs a booking engine, a customer portal, or a members area behind the site, see web application development instead.
A marketing site with custom design, development, and CMS typically runs $15,000-$50,000, depending on page count, custom functionality, and whether a headless CMS is included. A larger corporate site or content hub with programmatic SEO pages, multi-region content, or a design system runs higher. The main cost drivers are the number of unique page templates, whether the CMS is headless or traditional, and how much content migration is involved. We scope every project and agree a fixed price before development starts.
A focused marketing site with custom design, a CMS, and 5-10 page templates typically takes 8-12 weeks from kickoff to launch. A larger corporate site or content hub with programmatic pages and content migration takes 12-20 weeks. The biggest variable is content readiness: a client with copy, imagery, and a clear sitemap ready at kickoff ships faster than one still deciding on messaging mid-build.
We build on headless CMS platforms (Sanity, Contentful, Strapi) when a business needs the frontend and content decoupled for speed and flexibility, and on traditional CMS platforms (WordPress, Webflow) when a simpler, widely-supported editing experience fits the job better. The choice depends on your team's technical comfort, how much custom frontend behavior the site needs, and whether content has to feed other channels beyond the website itself.
Yes. Every site we build gets a technical SEO foundation from sprint one, not a retrofit after launch: clean URL structure, page hierarchy, structured data, and Core Web Vitals performance targets. We also structure key pages to answer questions directly, so the content is citable by AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, not just indexed by traditional search.
Yes. We audit the existing site's content, URL structure, and traffic before migrating, then map every URL to its new destination with redirects so rankings and backlinks carry over. Our own site migration from Webflow to a headless CMS moved 3,000+ pages and 12,000+ monthly visitors with zero downtime and no traffic loss, and organic traffic grew 30% in the following year.
Yes. You own the codebase, the CMS content, the domain, and the hosting account. We don't retain IP, use proprietary templates that lock you in, or create a dependency on us to publish content or make changes. When the project ends, the site and everything behind it is yours.
Work with us
Tell us what you need. We'll tell you what it would take.
We scope Website Development Services in 30 minutes. You walk away with a clear cost, timeline, and approach. No commitment required.
- Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
- Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
- Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
- 60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
- All conversations are NDA-protected.