Contents
Search engine optimization (SEO) consultants are often hired by businesses to make sure they rank high in search engines such as Google. They’ll help your company stand out from competitors and be found by potential customers online, which can mean the difference between success or failure for your business.
A search engine optimization (SEO) consultant is a digital marketing professional with expertise in optimizing websites for higher rankings on Google.
Their role is to implement a number of strategies in order for the company and its products or services be found by potential customers. They do this through targeting audiences that are looking online, which results with them coming across your website.
It takes a lot of planning, strategy and creativity to choose the right SEO specialist for your business. It’s important that you consider these responsibilities when looking at potential candidates so make sure they match up with what is needed to rank first in search engines.
Goals of an SEO Consultant
The goals of a SEO consultant will vary depending on the client. However, most typically look something like this:
Help get you found by your customers. What’s the point of investing time, resources and money into a website if no one can find you? An SEO expert will provide actionable recommendations to help increase visits from organic search.
Help you remain competitive online.
Think of SEO as a race.If you’re not using SEO, then your competitors are likely ahead of you. The longer your competition is doing SEO while you are not, the gap is getting wider. An SEO consultant can help you close that gap and even pass them.
Help you remain relevant online.
There is a joke within the SEO community: “Where is the best place to hide a dead body? The second page of Google”. Basically if you are not on the first page of Google or even in the top 5 searches, no one will find your business and they won’t know you exist. When was the last time (if ever) have you clicked past the first page of Google search results?
Help you make actionable next step business decisions.
Once your website starts to gain traction and ranks for keywords, more keywords will start to pop up. This is due to your website gaining strength.A monthly report is included in every one of my SEO consulting packages because I need to show clients the value of my work and what I think we should do next based on data. SEO strategies always should be based on data.
Curious about how your website is ranking? Get a free SEO Audit here.
Skills an SEO Consultant Should Have
There are different kinds of search engine optimization consultants where some are technical SEO consultants, while others try to specialize in one aspect such as content or UX (user experience).
Typically it’s best to go with a technical SEO as they will cover all aspects of SEO. If you work with a specialist in one area, you will most likely need other SEOs to cover the other aspects otherwise you won’t get ideal results. Regardless, there are usually a few skills they should have, which is as follows:
Keyword Research
Keyword research is probably one of the most important skills to have as an SEO consultant. Proper keyword research can set your website in the right direction. If you don’t properly do research you could be wasting time and resources.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is the fixing and editing elements directly on your website such as headline text, meta description, code, ect.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is the process of optimizing your url by giving Google signals that your domain is an authority. Off-page aspects include citations (business directories), link building, social signals and any other type of link pointed at your site.
Experience
It is vital to hire an SEO consultant that has experience. Search engine optimization is hard and has many factors as mentioned above. Ideally you want to hire someone who has experience because it’s more likely that they have seen more SEO scenarios.
Results
An SEO specialist should be able to provide proven results usually through case studies. Another thing you may want to take note of is the strength of their own site.
Custom strategies
While most websites are typically missing the same factors, it’s not a one size fits all plan. Your business is unique and requires custom strategies to that will get you in the SERP (search engine ranking page aka page 1 of Google).
What Now?
Now that you know more about what an SEO consultant is and the skills required, the next step is to find a SEO consultant. I highly recommend you talk to a few different SEO consultants to see which one works the best for you, including me 🙂
I have over 15 years of SEO experience and have seen and done a lot over the years.
If you have a question about SEO please reach out here. If you want to know the status of your website’s SEO, go to my SEO audit page and fill in your site’s details here. I’d love to hear from you!
