Are you a business owner trying to outrank your competitors on search engines? Why wouldn’t you! Higher SERP rankings can multiply organic traffic, discoverability, and ultimately, your conversion rate.
It’s simple—more search engine traffic equals more leads, which in turn, increases your sales numbers. That’s what a professional SEO consultant can do for you.
But what exactly is SEO consulting?
SEO consulting involves seeking expert advice to create a winning SEO strategy for your brand. Once you have a concrete strategy and fixed targets in place, you can work on executing this plan. This post will help you understand the nuances of SEO consulting, the role of an SEO consultant, and why is it essential for your company website.
What is SEO Consulting Services?
SEO consulting entails seeking the counsel of an expert SEO consultant to audit your website and create a feasible roadmap to achieve the desired results. It’s a complex process comprising detailed analysis of your website, competitors, and niche—that culminates into the SEO strategy development process. All of these efforts are aimed at improving your website’s ranking for relevant keywords.
Now that you know a little about what is SEO consulting, let’s get into depth of it and understand more. A professional SEO consultant will typically analyze the following aspects of your company:
- Website
- Blog
- Social media presence
- Digital marketing channels
- Advertisement strategy
- Keyword research practices
- Targeted traffic
- Current search engine rankings
In a nutshell, the consultant will review the ongoing SEO practices, spot the shortcomings, and create a blueprint to fill the gaps. This blueprint will spell out the digital marketing services that can help your search engine campaigns.
When Do You Need SEO Consulting Services?
Now that you have an idea of SEO consultant services, let’s dive deeper into why you need an SEO specialist.
You may have an online marketing game plan in place to build and improve your brand position. However, that’s not enough. SEO involves several technicalities that only a specialist can look into.
An SEO expert understands the intricacies of search engines and knows the functioning of algorithms that you might not be aware of. Check out a few instances when you need a professional SEO consultant for your business.
Low Search Engine Traffic
Has your website been experiencing low traffic lately—despite all your digital marketing efforts? Well, it’s not easy to beat the Google algorithm.
SEO specialists are well-versed with all the technical requirements of all major search engines. They’ll analyze your current online performance and formulate solid campaigns to maximize organic search traffic. It’s also cost-efficient since you don’t have to invest in paid advertising.
Website Redesign
If you’re planning to revamp your website, it’s an excellent time to understand what is SEO consulting and seek the services of a professional SEO consultant. The specialist will provide visual design assistance and deal with technical SEO issues—giving your new website the edge to easily beat your competitors and help you stay ahead in the SEO game.
Link Building
If you need quality backlinks to boost organic traffic, SEO specialists have you covered. These experts focus on quality over quantity—developing SEO campaigns to gain backlinks from the top websites. Planning these campaigns requires profound industry research and a concrete plan for building links.
SEO Auditing
An SEO specialist can also conduct a thorough website audit to help you level up your SEO effort. The process will include looking for off-page search engine optimization opportunities. Besides, it also covers on-page SEO practices like site structure, tags, and link building.
A professional SEO consultant will conduct an SEO audit to spot foundational issues and devise the required SEO strategies.
Competitor Analysis and Reporting
Believe it or not, your top competitors already have an all-inclusive SEO strategy in place. An SEO specialist can break down these strategies and ensure that your website ranks higher than theirs in SERP results.
By analyzing your competitors’ SEO approaches, a professional consultant can spot the gaps between your current and the required SEO practices. The specialist will then leverage this information to improve your site’s search engine rankings.
Search Engine Optimization for Mobile Devices
You’d be surprised to know that almost 58% of all Google searches come from mobile devices. So if your website does not already follow the search engine optimization rules for mobile devices, it’s time you reach out to an SEO company.
An SEO expert will create a tried-and-tested strategy to make your website mobile-friendly. You can then hire SEO services to bring proven techniques into practice.
What does the SEO Consultant Job Description look like?
So far, you’ve received an overview of the importance of a professional SEO consultant. Still, you may wonder about what is an SEO consultant and what are the core functions related to this role.
Do you think the job of an SEO specialist is limited to gaining backlinks and boosting your site search engine rankings? Yes, to a great extent, but there’s a lot of background work to this. From performing on-page technical SEO techniques such as optimizing the content, tags, site structure, etc., to off-page practices—there’s a lot. Let’s get to the core of it!
On-Page SEO
- Title Tags: Any professional SEO consultant will ensure your site has a well-optimized title tag. Including relevant keywords in the title tag will ensure your website ranks well in organic search.
- Meta Tags: These tags provide short descriptions of your website to search engines and individuals searching for keywords relevant to your site.
- Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI): It is a process wherein the search engines’ bots scan the LSI keywords to understand the content present on your webpage. The bots will then rank your page according to relevancy.
- HTML Markup: Apart from the meta and title tags, an SEO specialist will add other HTML tags like the alt tag for images, graph tags, etc. These will help the pictures and graphs rank well for the keyword.
- Quality Website Content: Apart from the technical aspects, a professional SEO consultant will also ensure your website content meets the quality standards. It must be original, relevant to the topic, and value-packed.
- Local SEO: If you have a physical office space, your hired SEO consultancy will ensure your company site ranks for the location. The SEO specialist will ensure your office appears on Google Maps, add keywords relevant to local business, and create content around local events.
Off-Site SEO
- Link Building: It refers to getting backlinks from authoritative websites. It’s a crucial SEO technique to improve your ranking as search engines will consider your site more credible if it has backlinks. An SEO expert will ensure your website gets links only from reputed sites.
- Content Marketing: While traditional internet marketing practices are slowly dying, content marketing is here to save the day. Your SEO specialist will create a solid digital marketing strategy with content that is attractive and useful enough to convert leads into prospects.
- Social Media: Are you posting enough content on your company social media handles? A professional SEO consultant will incorporate this aspect as a prime SEO and digital marketing practice. The more engagement your content gets, the higher traffic your website attracts.
Other Responsibilities
- Keyword Research: It is a process of finding the relevant keywords that individuals may enter to find products or services offered by your company. An SEO specialist will perform in-depth keyword research to optimize your company website.
- SEO Tools: A professional SEO consultant will have in-depth knowledge about SEO tools. The expert will enlist the necessary ones to ensure a smooth search engine optimization process.
- Marketing Analysis: SEO specialists use the top strategies and tools like Google Analytics to conduct meticulous SEO and marketing research. It will help you gain business insights into the current SEO standing of your site and that of your competitor’s.
How to Find A Good SEO Consultant?
After having decent knowledge about what is SEO consulting, it is now crucial to understand more about finding a good SEO consultant. Whether you own eCommerce websites or other products and services sites, a professional SEO consultant got you covered. However, how to find a good one and what to ask SEO consultants? You can start with important questions like how much experience they have and how vast their SEO skills and knowledge are.
Demonstrated Expertise
While you may come across plenty of SEO specialists, not all of them will be well-equipped for the role. When looking for a professional SEO consultant, ensure they have 1-3 years of hands-on experience and a set of SEO projects with proven results.
Ability to Analyze and Make Long-term Plans
An important skill that every SEO specialist must possess is expertise in analytics and planning. These include understanding Google Analytics, Google Ads, and its likes. Additionally, SEO specialists must create a long-term SEO campaign for your business.
Customized Strategies
SEO does not have a one-size-fits-all strategy. Your business is unique and requires an SEO approach tailored to your product or service offerings. An expert SEO specialist will know how to create a custom strategy that suits your business model instead of following a preset template.
Profound Search Engine Optimization Knowledge
Another skill that you must look for in SEO specialists is comprehensive SEO knowledge. This includes know-how about SEO tools, technical SEO aspects, and other intricate information. Mere keyword research and optimization are not enough.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, search engine optimization refers to the process of increasing the organic traffic of your website. It requires conducting a thorough analysis and implementing multiple strategies that only an SEO expert can perform.
SEO consulting is a process where expert SEO consultants create an all-inclusive SEO plan for your business to rank well on the major search engines. For this, they conduct a detailed assessment of your existing practices and develop a long-term customized plan for your website.
Now that you are well aware of what is SEO consultant services, what’s the hold? Hire a professional SEO consultancy to ensure your website is not hidden on the second page of search engine results.
FAQs
1. How to become an SEO consultant?
One of the best ways to become an SEO consultant is by taking an all-inclusive SEO training course. Such training courses include explicit SEO knowledge like analytics, rankings, keyword research, and link building, among others.
2. Is SEO a good career?
If you wish to become an SEO specialist, know that it’s an excellent career for 2022. With every business owner looking for expert SEO services, you can easily secure high-paying clients and work from home. Moreover, you can also optimize your own website for search engines.
3. How much do SEO consultants make in the UK?
The average salary of a professional SEO consultant in the UK is around £32,000. However, it may vary according to the location and responsibility set. For example, an SEO trainee can earn about £18,000 while SEO specialists at executive positions can earn up to £50,000.
