When building or re-deisgning a website your main goal should be to get it right the first time. That means having the correct design and development teams, and having a SEO professional all working together from the start. If you leave out a key ingredient like SEO you site will look great and function properly, but it is unlikely that many users will see it.
Your goal is to maximize sale and revenue, both require users to see and use your site. High organic search rankings can be achieved if SEO tactics are implemented early on. Trying to play catch up with SEO is a very long process - not to say that it can not be done, it just takes longer to achieve your goals.
A SEO consultant is not only around to place keywords in title tags. They will use the data of keyword research and analysis to understand your target user on a much deeper level. Once you understand what your customer truly needs and wants it will be simple for your design and development team to create the best site for you.
One of the biggest mistakes we see companies make is thinking that SEO is finished. SEO is constantly evolving, what worked in the past may no longer be best practice. Search engines are constantly updating thier algorithms, as these change your SEO stragey needs to change as well.
Having a well planned SEO stragey from the ground up is best. Start the race with the right conditioning and you are sure to finish strong.