What Is an SEO Consultant & What Services Do They Offer?

Key Takeaways

SEO consultants handle audits, keyword research, on-page fixes, link building, and AI visibility across platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews.  Hire one when your traffic stalls, your rankings drop after a Google update, your in-house team is stretched, or you’re ready to scale.  Look for proven case studies, several years of experience, data-driven reporting, and a clear grasp of AI search.  Consultants cost less and work one-on-one. Agencies cost more but deliver faster with a full team behind your account.  In-house teams know your business best. Consultants bring deeper SEO expertise and faster results.

Need a little help improving your rankings? An SEO consultant could be the answer.

Chances are you already know the basics of SEO, but getting your desired results can be tough with everything else on your plate, especially with the changes AI is throwing into the mix.

That’s where SEO consulting services come in. These experts provide a range of services to boost your traditional and AI SEO results.

SEO consultant is a multifaceted role that requires a range of skills. They wear many hats, and for businesses struggling to rank, they can be a perfect fit.

By the end of this post, you’ll know all about what an SEO consultant is and what they do.

What Does an SEO Consultant Do?

The primary role is to provide a range of SEO consulting services to clients to help them achieve better rankings. They implement various strategies and best practices, including:

SEO audits. An SEO audit is an in-depth analysis of a website’s ability to rank in search engines. It looks at your site’s content, technical SEO, backlinks, and competitor performance, among other factors. An SEO audit also highlights ways a site can improve its SEO and provides a strategy for achieving those improvements. Keyword research. Keyword research means finding relevant keywords that a website should aim to rank for. If a business hasn’t done any SEO before, it may not target any keywords. Even if they have worked with an SEO specialist in the past, it may not be targeting the best keywords. On-page SEO. On-page SEO means optimizing the site’s content and HTML elements of individual pages to meet Google’s best practices. This can include refining page content, optimizing title tags and metadata, structuring headers, and improving internal linking. Technical SEO. Technical SEO focuses on the behind-the-scenes elements that help search engines crawl, index, and understand a website. This can include improving site speed, strengthening site security, fixing crawl errors, optimizing site architecture, and ensuring mobile-friendliness. Link building. The more and better quality links a website has, the easier it is to rank for high-competition keywords. If a site’s authority is low, an SEO consultant may create one or more link-building campaigns to improve the site’s backlink profile. AI or generative engine optimization (GEO). While traditional SEO still makes a significant impact, SEO consultants also need to understand GEO. That means knowing how long-tail, question-based keywords affect visibility within AI elements of traditional search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google’s AI Overviews. It also means knowing how to earn citations across major AI platforms like ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. 

In addition to these services, SEO consultants also typically provide monthly reporting services to clients. The report covers current rankings, the consultant’s work completed, and recommendations for actions they can take to improve results.

SEO Consulting Types

Countless factors affect your Google ranking, so before you begin, clarify exactly what you need help with.

An easy way to find that out is to ask, “Which part of my business brings the most sales?”

Got the answer? Good. From there, you can match your situation to one of these common SEO consulting service specializations:

Local SEO consultants help businesses rank in map packs and location-based searches. They’re a good fit if you have a brick-and-mortar store or serve a specific geographic area. Ecommerce SEO consultants specialize in product page optimization, category structure, and the technical challenges that come with a large product catalog. Content-focused SEO consultants specialize in topical authority, editorial strategy, and ranking through high-quality, in-depth content. They’re a strong fit for publishers and brands competing on expertise. Technical SEO consultants dig into crawlability, site speed, schema, and infrastructure. They’re most useful when your content is solid but the site itself is holding rankings back. Enterprise SEO consultants work with large sites that have complex architectures and significant existing traffic to protect.

Signs You Need an SEO Consultant

It’s usually pretty obvious when you need an SEO consultant. If your website isn’t generating leads or conversions from organic traffic and search engines and AI platforms are an important part of your marketing strategy, then working with an SEO consultant is a good idea.

Here are some other signs it’s time to consult a professional:

Your Website Traffic is Flatlining

Search engine traffic is the most basic indicator of whether an SEO strategy is working. If your traffic isn’t increasing (or decreasing) over time, you need to work with an SEO consultant or replace your existing one.

Search traffic won’t be important to some businesses, but that’s rare. Even if you don’t think search traffic is essential for your business, it probably is.

Although AIO and large language model optimization (LLMO) are changing where search happens, Google still accounts for almost 90 percent of the global search market. What’s also shifting is how these searchers interact with Google’s results.

With AI Overviews, customers are getting the information they need directly in the SERPs without clicking through to websites. That affects traffic numbers, but it doesn’t mean searchers are abandoning Google. Writing off traditional search means writing off a massive audience.

Source: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share

You’re Struggling After a Google Update

Have your rankings tanked after a Google core update? You may have been hit by a Google penalty for falling out of step with its best practices. These penalties are notoriously difficult to overcome without the help of a search professional, and there’s a risk you could do even more damage if you try to fix the problem yourself.

Your rankings can also decline without a formal penalty. You may not be breaking any Google rules outright, but ignoring SEO best practices can still drag down your rankings. Working with a consultant with in-depth industry knowledge can help you avoid unintended SEO consequences and penalties.

Google may notify you directly through the manual action report in Search Console. Users receive these reports when a human reviewer has determined that their site violates one or more of Google’s spam policies. Expand the notification, and you’ll see a message like this:

Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9044175?hl=en

More often, though, post-update drops are algorithmic. 

A good SEO consultant’s knowledge and guidance can be indispensable no matter the cause or scenario. They can help you navigate Google’s entire list of penalties and provide the most complete, efficient fixes available. 

Your In-House Team Needs Support

Some businesses try to build their own in-house SEO team or hire a marketing manager with experience across several areas of digital marketing. 

Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work out. An SEO consultant often brings more experience, and the engagement can cost less than a full-time hire. 

For example, Ahrefs puts the average SEO consultant engagement at about $3,250 per month, which is typically far below the total cost of salary and benefits for a full-time SEO role. That said, the cost can vary significantly depending on the type of SEO consultant and the level of service.

Even effective in-house teams can benefit from hiring an SEO consultant. You may even have some SEO experts on your in-house team. While they may have the knowledge, there’s no guarantee you’ll have time to implement strategies to improve your rankings. A consultant can also help you with unique strategies and spotting unforeseen challenges as you scale. 

SEO is an important marketing channel, but small teams can’t do it all. If you’re busy dealing with customers, suppliers, and shareholders, outsourcing the work to an SEO consultant is smart.

You Want to Grow Operations

Whatever business you’re in, there comes a time to level up.

You could market your business in several ways, like social media, newsletters, and sharing case studies. But it’s SEO that grows your online visibility and helps searchers find you.

While you could implement a strategy yourself, an SEO specialist has the knowledge you need to drive online discoverability. 

This is especially true given how search is evolving. We live in a “search everywhere” environment now. The customer journey is rapidly moving away from the traditional straight-down funnel approach, and businesses increasingly need to be visible everywhere.

What does that mean for you? You need to work with a professional who can not only get you ranking well in SERPs like Google but also understands how AI prompts and platforms play into your visibility. 

Sold on the idea of hiring an SEO consultant? Read on for some tips on how to find one.

Finding Your Next SEO Consultant

Finding an SEO consultant isn’t hard, but finding a good one is. First, let’s look at some of the most common ways to find an SEO consultant:

Ask your network. Speaking to people you know and trust is one of the best ways to find an SEO consultant. If a fellow business owner or manager knows of a great SEO consultant, they’re usually happy to recommend them. As a bonus, you’ll know they can deliver. Run a Google search. Unsurprisingly, Google is a great place to find an SEO consultant. If a consultant is ranking well on Google, there’s a good chance they know what they’re doing. However, this shouldn’t be the only factor you use in your decision. Just because they rank high on Google doesn’t mean they can do the same for your business. Use online directories. Several online directories collect reviews about SEO specialists. Clutch is a great place to start, but take these reviews with a pinch of salt. Just because a consultant is topping the rankings doesn’t mean they are the best for you. Like Google, they are a great way to get a shortlist of suitable candidates rather than pinpoint one.

Source: https://clutch.co/seo-firms/consultants

Look through SEO blogs. Popular SEO blogs like Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, and The Moz Blog can be a great source of potential SEO consultants. They don’t just host journalists’ opinions; SEO strategists also routinely write how-tos and thought pieces on these sites. Post on job boards. Job boards like Upwork, AngelList, and Dynamite Jobs are great places to post ads. The beauty of this method is that SEO consultants will come to you, meaning all you have to do is interview them. Moreover, many of these job boards vet applicants before they can even apply.

Source: https://www.upwork.com/hire/seo-experts/

Traits of a Good SEO Consultant

Want to know what a great SEO strategist is?

Several traits set great SEO consultants apart from the rest. I recommend you look for the following attributes when interviewing potential candidates.

Several years of experience. You don’t want a rookie SEO as your consultant. The more experience an SEO consultant has in the industry, the better. They’ll have worked on more sites, better understand what’s effective, and have more case studies to back up their success. Proven resuts. Any SEO consultant worth their salt will have many case studies to support their work. They can show exactly what they did to improve a previous client’s rankings and the impact they had. They should also be happy to put you in contact with previous clients. Here are some examples from my agency, NP Digital: A long-term vision. You want an SEO consultant who’s in it for the long haul, not someone who is going to leave you for a new client after a couple of months; choose a consultant who explains the long-term benefits of SEO to your business and has a roadmap of how you can achieve them. Sees the bigger picture. SEO is just one part of a holistic marketing strategy, and a good SEO consultant will appreciate that. They should help you fold your SEO strategy into other marketing initiatives and be willing to work with other team members and departments in your company to improve your broader marketing goals. A data-driven business model. The consultant you work with should be focused on data. They should be providing regular reporting on how strategies are working, as well as ways to improve those that aren’t, grounded in factual numbers.  Understands AI visibility. A good SEO consultant needs to understand AI visibility in today’s market. They should have knowledge of prompting and which strategies work well on these platforms, both on- and off-page.  Certifications. Just remember that certifications aren’t everything; practical experience is equally important in SEO.

SEO Consultants vs. SEO Agencies

So far, we’ve talked about SEO consultants in broad strokes. However, there’s a meaningful distinction worth drawing before you start looking for one. Both consultants and agencies often offer consulting services, but they operate very differently.

Many SEO consultants consist of an independent professional or a small team. They work directly with you, usually wearing multiple hats while focusing on strategy and high-leverage execution. 

An SEO agency is a larger organization, sometimes with dozens or hundreds of employees, structured to execute at scale across many clients simultaneously.

Both can get you results. The right choice depends on what you actually need.

SEO Consultants May Require Your Help. SEO Agencies Won’t.

If you choose to work with an SEO consultant, you might be looking for a personal, one-to-one service. What you might not realize is that they will likely need your help to improve your rankings, too.

SEO consultants often have specific niches and work independently, so they may not have the resources to provide comprehensive services. That means they could ask your team to write additional content, change your website, or perform other SEO-related tasks.

That’s very different from an SEO agency that often can perform every SEO task in-house.

Agencies Cost More, but You Get More for Your Money

Agencies will usually charge more for their time than SEO consultants. That’s because they have staff to pay and overheads to cover, whereas SEO consultants typically work from home. For smaller businesses, that may mean an SEO consultant is the way to go.

Other businesses may want to pay more for a top-tier SEO agency because they know they’ll get more bang for their buck. That’s because an agency gives you access to dozens of experts rather than just one. 

Having more people working on your project also means you get work delivered more quickly. There’s a good chance you’ll see results faster, too.

At the end of the day, if you choose a good SEO consultant or SEO agency, you’ll still be receiving excellent advice. Most consultants and agencies are dedicated to their craft, attend the right conferences, and test cutting-edge tactics. 

You may get access to a few more experts when you work with an SEO agency, but that doesn’t make an SEO consultant any less professional.

SEO Consultants vs. In-House Teams

For many companies, deciding whether to go with an in-house team or work with external SEO consultants is a challenge. As you’d expect, there are pros and cons to both options.

FactorSEO ConsultantIn-House Team

SEO expertise	Brings established knowledge from day one	Needs time to build skills and stay current
Business knowledge	Learns your company from the outside	Knows your customers, products, and market
Speed to results	Skips the learning curve	Requires training before output ramps up
Resources	Access to agency tools and a wider team	Limited to what you can hire or buy
Communication	Works through scheduled touchpoints	Allows quick, informal updates and meetings
Control & flexibility	You guide the strategy at arm’s length	You manage the work directly, day to day
Focus	Frees your staff for core business tasks	Keeps SEO tied to broader operations
Best fit for	Small teams or businesses scaling fast	Companies with the budget to build long-term

The most obvious benefit of working with an SEO consulting service is avoiding the steep learning curve of search engine optimization.

If you run a small business and know it will take time before your staff can get up to speed with SEO complexities, you can save yourself time (and headaches) by outsourcing. Agency staff can lean on their expertise and resources to stand up effective strategies right away.

You could also use an agency to focus on growing your business. While your team focuses on the day-to-day tasks, SEO consulting experts can create a strategy that delivers results.

Doing SEO in-house has its advantages, too.

The most obvious benefit of going in-house is that the staff knows the business better than an outside consultant. They know the customers, the market, and what appeals to them.

You may also find it easier to collaborate and communicate when you keep your SEO in-house. Team meetings, sharing updates, and changing course when needed can all be a lot easier.

Then, of course, there’s the greater control and flexibility. After all, you’re working on your own terms.

The Top 3 Options for SEO Consulting

Detailed below are three of the top SEO companies for consulting.

<h3>1. NP Digital for the Best Blog and Website SEO Consulting</h3>

I can’t write an article about SEO consulting without mentioning the award-winning NP Digital agency.

It recently won the AdAge Performance Marketing Agency of the Year award. Pretty awesome, right?

NP Digital has also received recognition for the impressive ROI it delivers to clients, its paid search, and its ability to boost your visibility across platforms, including AI or GEO search results.

I could go on, but I don’t like to boast.

Since the start, NP Digital has offered a proven system to get your readers coming back for more content while also converting a high percentage of them.

Book a call with NP Digital today if you’re looking to outgrow your competitors and work with a well-established SEO consulting firm that brings consistent results.

<h3>2. Louder.Online for Dedicated Sales Funnel SEO Consulting</h3>

Source: https://louder.online/

Are you more into sales funnels?

Do you want to optimize your sales pages for SEO while maintaining high conversion rates?

Then you should speak with an SEO consulting company that specializes in delivering consistent, trackable results for your sales funnels.

In our experience, Louder.Online has been an atomic weapon.

Its SEO consulting experts have years of experience, and more importantly, they get results.

If you’re looking to optimize your sales pages, you should check out what Louder.Online has to offer.

Coalition Technologies for Ecommerce SEO Consulting

Source: https://coalitiontechnologies.com/ecommerce-seo

If your focus is ecommerce SEO, consider Coalition Technologies. With more than 530 ecommerce projects translating into over 20 million ecommerce transactions, Coalition Technologies has the track record to back its standing as a top-tier SEO consultant.

It offers services like web design, paid advertising, traditional SEO, and AI SEO. Its niche services include social media and forum marketing, platforms essential for converting online sales today. 

Coalition boasts more than 500 SEO case studies. These success stories come from clients in a broad range of industries, from fashion to legal. 

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Conclusion

SEO consultants can deliver incredible results to small businesses, helping them improve every facet of SEO. A good SEO consultant offers a wide range of services and has the proof and industry knowledge to back up their promises.

You’ll want to make sure you choose a consultant that uses hard data as their guiding light and knows how to navigate modern search. Google is still critical, but the use of AI is rapidly changing how SERPs function and how users behave.

You’ll also need to decide whether an SEO consultant or agency is the best fit for your goals. For some businesses, working with an SEO agency is a better choice. If you have the budget, an SEO agency will help you get more done in less time, supercharging your results in the process.

Whether you’re hiring an SEO consultant or an SEO agency, you can look in many of the same places and search for similar traits. Or you can ask my agency for help.