What is an SEO Consultant and What Do They Do?

The goal of an SEO consultant is simple. Their job is to improve your website’s current ranking and increase leads/conversions through increased web traffic. A good SEO consultant will take the stress and workload off your shoulders and put it onto theirs, whilst delivering you exemplary results that generate your business revenue. 

Of course, this makes an SEO consultant sound like a one-dimensional job. This is not the case. In fact, they are responsible for:

  • Building trust with prospective consumers
  • Turning these prospects into paying customers
  • Boosting organic users to your website without the help of Paid Ads
  • Optimising landing pages which in turn benefits Paid Ads
  • Ultimately driving increased revenue through organic search

Why Do I Need an SEO Consultant?

It’s a good question, the best way to determine if your business would benefit from an SEO consultant is by assessing your current web performance and cross-examining with your aspirational targets. If your website currently sees minimal traffic from organic search, or you’re getting traffic but it isn’t converting, an SEO consultant could help you change your fortunes. 

What Does an SEO Consultant Do?

An SEO Consultant will be capable of all aspects of SEO, but will likely have specialist areas as well. When you hire an SEO consultant, you’re likely to only see certain aspects of SEO depending on what your business requires. Some SEO services a consultant may carry out include:

  • Audits – Site-wide, Technical & Content. This is likely to be the first thing your consultant will do. By auditing your site they will be able to understand what state your website is in after identifying strengths and weaknesses.
  • Strategy – The very core of your SEO effort should be based on a strategy. A good SEO consultant will undertake thorough research and craft a strategy that ticks all the boxes for your business. Of course, sometimes things don’t always work as effectively as we would like, which is why your consultant will also tweak your strategy throughout.
  • Keyword Research – Identifying your business’ target keywords as well as unearthing low-hanging fruit is the least you can expect from your keyword research. 
  • On-page Optimisation – These changes are what are going to add SEO value to your website. Good on-page optimisations should lead to positive movements in the SERPs.
  • Technical Fixes – While some of these may fall on the developer, your SEO consultant should be able to identify areas for improvement and make the appropriate technical fixes where applicable. 
  • Competitor Analysis – If you’re losing ground on your competitors, effective competitor analysis will get your website back on pace. Looking at keywords where you could potentially leapfrog your competitors is just one element of the analysis you can expect.

There are of course hundreds of small more intricate tasks involved with SEO, but the aforementioned are some of the most important.

Above all, an SEO consultant needs to have good analytical and problem-solving skills. In its simplest form, optimising a website for search can be boiled down to identifying a problem and then fixing it. Resilience is key to successful search engine optimisation.

4 Signs You Need an SEO Consultant for Your Business

If you’re completely new to SEO, you’re unlikely to know when you need a consultant. Getting them in when you’re just starting your focused organic effort could prove to be incredibly handy. 

With that being said, SEO isn’t a quick fix that will return instant results. It’s a channel that needs to be nurtured in order to deliver you long-term success. Here are 5 signs your business could do with hiring an SEO consultant.

You are Scaling Your Business

In periods of business growth, it is important to have the correct infrastructure to cope with increased levels of traffic and engagement. An SEO consultant would be able to help you prepare for increased traffic as well as use your position to target new markets. This is an aspect of consultancy that an eCommerce business could really benefit from. 

While you may think you don’t need to hire a consultant because your website is already generating good levels of traffic, this is not the case. By hiring a consultant, they will be able to make optimisations that improve navigability which ultimately will improve your conversion rate.

You Have a Working Knowledge of SEO

A basic understanding of SEO can get you ahead of your competitors if they are not taking advantage of it. But it is when you wish to truly push on and set yourself apart from your competitors that a basic understanding of SEO will not suffice. It is also worth considering that many businesses with working knowledge of SEO will typically neglect it as a channel as they do not have the time to grow it. 

Hiring an SEO consultant with the skills and experience to grow your business could prove to be one of the best decisions you make. 

You Have Revamped Your Website

When you begin to scale your business, it may call for a new website. Maybe when you first started you built your website with limited knowledge and features at your disposal. Now, you might have enlisted the help of a Web Developer to build you a much better-looking, and functioning, website. However, web devs are unlikely to optimise your site for SEO, which is why you will benefit from the help/advice of an SEO consultant. 

Your Website Conversion Rate is Poor

At the end of the day, conversions are what makes businesses tick. Whether it’s a new lead converting or another sale of your best-selling product, these are all conversions that keep the business running and prospering. An SEO consultant will be able to audit your site and identify any gaps that may be causing users to not complete the acquisition journey.

Almost half (49%) of marketers say organic search has the best ROI of all marketing channels.

(Search Engine Journal)

Advantages of Hiring an SEO Consultant

Still not convinced that an SEO consultant would be highly beneficial for your business? Read our guide on the advantages of having an SEO consultant at your disposal as well as how to effectively hire the right one. 
Looking for an SEO consultant for your business? Get in touch today and let’s chat! Whether you’re an eCommerce brand or a B2B business, we can help your website get the buzz it deserves, all while delivering you outstanding results. Send us an email or fill out our contact form and we’ll get back to you ASAP.