What is an SEO consultant?
An SEO consultant provides one-time or ongoing SEO support to improve a website’s visibility in search engines. SEO consultants provide broad or specialized SEO support, like full-service SEO or technical SEO services.
Whether you’re looking to hire an SEO consultant or become one, you’ll find everything you need in our guide to SEO consulting, from skills and costs to top agencies and hiring tips.
Explore our guide:
- What is an SEO Consultant?
- What Does an SEO Consultant Do?
- How Much Do SEO Consultants Cost?
- What Are the Types of SEO Consulting Services?
- When Should I Use SEO Consultations?
- How to Choose an SEO Consulting Firm
- Top 5 SEO Consulting Agencies
- FAQs
What is an SEO consultant?
An SEO consultant provides one-time or ongoing SEO support to improve a website’s visibility in search engines like Google and Bing. SEO consultants provide broad or specialized SEO support, like full-service SEO or technical SEO services.
What does an SEO consultant do?
An SEO consultant advises companies on how to achieve their search engine optimization goals, like improving organic rankings, traffic, or conversions. Depending on the service agreement, SEO consultants will also implement these recommendations.
In their role, SEO consultants leverage several skills, including:
- Analysis
- Research
- Reporting
- Project management
- Communication
In their day-to-day, you can find search engine optimization consultants:
- Setting up analytics software, like Google Analytics 4 or Google Search Console
- Conducting keyword research
- Auditing existing site content
- Optimizing existing site content
- Improving site navigation and user experience (UX)
- Reviewing SEO performance
- Meeting with stakeholders
- And more
Outside consulting, SEO consultants must stay up-to-date on SEO trends.
How much do SEO consultants cost?
An SEO consultant’s rates depend on multiple factors, including experience, project scope, and duration. Most consultants charge an hourly rate that ranges from $100 to $3,000 per hour.
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What are the types of SEO consulting services?
The most common types of SEO consulting services include:
- SEO audit services: Through SEO audits, consultants can uncover website issues that may negatively impact your SEO performance and identify areas of opportunity and improvement.
- Technical SEO services: SEO consultants can look at the technical aspects of your website’s SEO performance, including page speed, HTTP status, sitemaps, and more.
- National SEO services: With nationwide SEO services, your consultant focuses on improving your visibility for non-localized terms, helping you reach potential customers across the U.S.
- Local SEO services: Get help improving your visibility in localized search results, like ‘house painter las vegas nv’, with an SEO consultant that specializes in local listings management and on-page SEO for localized terms.
- Enterprise SEO services: Get support managing SEO across a large, multi-department organization — from consolidating duplicate content to aligning strategy across many stakeholders and business units.
- Competitor analysis: By looking at competitors’ SEO rankings, strategies, and more, SEO consultants can help clients identify opportunities to optimize their sites.
- SEO strategy: With experts by your side, search engine optimization consultants provide you with ongoing optimization assistance and actionable recommendations based on your unique SEO needs.
When should I use SEO consultations?
From our 30 years of experience as an SEO service provider, we’ve learned when businesses benefit most from getting SEO consultations, whether with a freelancer, contractor, or agency.
Here are our observations:
1. Your website isn’t ranking well
In our experience, the most common issue facing businesses hiring an SEO consultant is a lack of visibility in search engines for target keywords.
When businesses aren’t appearing on search engine results pages (SERPs) for important keywords related to their business, they’re not going to drive adequate organic traffic to their site or get enough online visibility. After all, what’s the point of a great website if no one sees it?
SEO companies can help businesses reverse that problem and start driving organic traffic to their site through technical, on- and off-page optimizations, and more.
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2. Your organic traffic isn’t converting
Landing a top spot on the SERPs is one thing, but getting site visitors to stay on your site and turn into customers is another challenge. Another common reason for hiring an SEO consultant is that businesses have trouble converting organic traffic into customers.
Low conversion rates can occur for several reasons, such as:
- Poor site design
- Slow page speeds
- Misleading title tags and meta descriptions
- Confusing site navigation
Whatever the case, partnering with an SEO consultant helps businesses that find themselves uttering “my website doesn’t convert” and fix causes for low conversion rates.
3. Your market is competitive
Finally, many businesses turn to SEO consultations agencies because they lie within a highly competitive market, giving the need for an SEO strategy that outperforms competitors. For firms in industries like law, finance, or consulting, working with a professional services marketing agency gives them a strategy built for the trust-driven sales cycles those verticals require.
Even if you aren’t in a competitive industry, understanding how your competitors’ SEO strategies work can help you identify areas of opportunity for your website to surpass theirs in SERPs and attract more business.
4. Your time is booked
SEO consultants can provide critical, short-term support.
For example, if you or a team member is taking long-term leave (like maternity leave), an SEO consultant can provide essential support while you’re away.
In comparison, if you’re struggling to find the time to do SEO long-term, then it’s worth considering hiring an SEO agency to provide long-term, ongoing support.
5. Your budget is limited
For many businesses, SEO consulting provides an affordable option. SEO consultants offer a cost-effective alternative. You can hire a consultant for a few hours, for example, to tackle a project outside your skillset.
6. Your speciality isn’t SEO
Marketing is a broad area, from paid advertising to search engine optimization.
An SEO consultant can provide valuable insights for larger company initiatives. For example, if your business is completing a redesign, an SEO consultant can offer advice to ensure the redesign maintains your SEO efforts.
How to hire an SEO consultant
Choosing the right consultant agency for your business can take time and effort when faced with different options.
To narrow your search and zero in on the right agency for your business, ask the following questions:
- What is my budget?
- How will I measure the consultant’s success?
- What is the duration of the partnership?
- What does the consultant’s services include?
- Does this SEO consulting firm have experience in my industry?
- Does this consulting firm come with tools (such as ecommerce SEO tools) that can help me with SEO?
- Does this agency have case studies available? What about reviews and testimonials?
- How does this SEO consulting agency measure success? What key performance indicators (KPIs) do they use?
- How often does this agency report SEO results?
- Where is this agency located? Do I want to work with a consultant in person or remotely?
Asking these questions about each SEO consulting option can help you dig deeper into what each organization offers and how they align with what you want to accomplish with your SEO. As you research more agencies, you’ll develop additional questions to ask SEO agencies to help guide your decision-making process.
Also consider having this list of what to look for in an SEO company.
Who are the best SEO consultants?
There are tons of people offering consultations for SEO, so it’s challenging to know who’s the best option. That’s why we’ve created this shortlist of SEO consulting businesses you can partner with.
I’ve scored each agency based on important criteria like client experience, results, and pricing and put them in order by score.
Methodology
Every agency on this list is scored based these categories: Client experience, team, retention, agency size, performance tracking, pricing, asset ownership, client results. For each of these categories, the consultants are scored on a scale from 0-6. Then, the agencies are scored based on AI search readiness (0-25 score) and Adaptation (0-15). All of the points are added up for an out of 100 score.
The best SEO consultants include:
1. seoplus+
Pricing: $150-$199/hour
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Clutch rating: 4.9 with 53 reviews
Score: 94/100
First up, I have seoplus+ as my top SEO consultant. I think they’re a great option for anyone that wants an agency that’s staying on the cutting edge. They have a lot of messaging that’s focusing on optimizing for AI-generated answers, optimizing for AI Overviews, and more, which is a good sign of an adaptive agency (which you want).
Another reason they’re a good fit is they highlight flexibility with their packages — they allow you to tailor your SEO to your budget and needs. A flexible SEO agency is a good consultant to have because it means you can tailor your consultations to what you need help with most.
On top of that, seoplus+ has tons of rave reviews speaking to the quality of deliverables, the dependability of the team, and ethical approach to SEO.
2. The SEO Works
Pricing: $100-$149/hour
Location: Sheffield, U.K.
Clutch rating: 4.8 with 58 reviews
Score: 93/100
Getting SEO consultations from The SEO Works could be a great option for you. I put them on this list because they have a very thorough and detailed process for how they approach consultations.
With their consultations, they will:
- Identify your goals and learn about your business
- Audit the core areas of your website to address any issues
- Create a bespoke strategy with timeline to ensure you grow consistently over time
- Give you transparent reporting about your optimizations
- Provide ongoing reviews and recommendations for improvement
Their detailed process, coupled with their glowing reviews and over 15 years of experience, makes them a great option for search engine optimization consultations.
3. WebFX
Pricing: $3,000+/month
Location: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Clutch rating: 4.9 with 450 reviews
Score: 92/100
I have to put WebFX on the list not just because it’s the agency behind SEO.com, but because it’s worthy of being on the list. As an agency with 30 years of experience in the SEO space, you get some of the most experienced and skilled marketers working on your campaign.
WebFX is the type of agency that stays on the cutting-edge and keeps up with trends to ensure your search strategy works for the current search landscape. There are 450 reviews that prove the agency behind SEO.com is one that can be trusted and will deliver.
As your SEO consultant, you’ll get the support you need to empower your SEO strategy.
4. Delante
Pricing: $50-$99/hour
Location: Düsseldorf, Germany
Clutch rating: 5.0 with 120 reviews
Score: 91/100
I put Delante on this list of search engine optimization consultants because they’re a skilled agency that specializes in just SEM and AI search. They’re a good option if you’re looking for an agency that focuses only on improving search performance — 80% of the people working at their agency are SEO experts.
One thing that really makes Delante stand out is that they don’t just provide a list of improvements and say “here you go.” Instead, they’ll implement them for you to ensure it’s done right. Best of all? It frees up time in your day to worry about other pressing marketing tasks.
Delante provides support for businesses across the globe, making them a great search consultant no matter where you’re located.
5. Funnel Boost Media
Pricing: $1,500–$2,000/month
Location: San Antonio, TX
Clutch Rating: 4.9 with 118 reviews
Score: 91/100
The last agency I’ll recommend for consulting on SEO is Funnel Boost Media. They have over 115 reviews that highlight their collaborative nature, quality of services, and ability to deliver on-time. Funnel Boost Media is another agency that stays on the cutting edge with their SEO services, offering AI search support.
Funnel Boost Media is also a great option because they provide a clear roadmap on how they tackle your SEO and break it down into phases to ensure all bases are covered.
This agency is a good option if you’re looking to get help with improving your performance in the current search landscape.
FAQs on SEO consultants
Get your questions answered with these FAQs:
What’s the difference between an SEO consultant and an SEO agency?
I think it’s important to understand that not every SEO consultant is an agency, but any agency can be an SEO consultant (kind of like not all fingers are thumbs, but all thumbs are fingers).
An SEO consultant can be an independent expert, like one you’d find on Fiverr, or it can be an SEO agency that offers consultations.
There are quite a few differences between hiring a consultant and hiring an agency:
- A consultant typically charges per hour, while an agency typically charges monthly
- An SEO consultant focuses on specific SEO tasks within your strategy, while an agency focuses on the entirety of your strategy
- A search engine optimization consultant may only help as needed, while an agency continually works on your site.
How do SEO consultants charge?
Most consultants will charge per hour, as you typically use them when you need them. Occasionally, consultants may charge you monthly and offer a certain number of consultations per month.
Can I do SEO myself instead of hiring a consultant?
You most certainly can do SEO yourself, but a consultant can be a good middle ground between doing SEO yourself and hiring an agency.
Think of a consultant as an extra member of your team that has a little more time to dedicate to your strategy. They can offer you advanced support and help keep your SEO strategy in check.
Get started with SEO consultations
Help your business resolve its SEO issues with WebFX, the award-winning team behind SEO.com. Whether you’re looking for SEO consultation services to grow your organic revenue or an affordable SEO tool to troubleshoot your traffic, we can help!
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SEO Services That Aren’t Cookie Cutter
Get an SEO strategy that’s tailored for your business, industry, and revenue goals.
SEO Services That Aren’t Cookie Cutter
Get an SEO strategy that’s tailored for your business, industry, and revenue goals.
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