What Is an SEO Consultant? Do You Need One?

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An SEO advisor assists businesses successful improving their websites’ visibility successful hunt engines similar Google.

In this post, I’ll locomotion you done what SEO consultants do, whether your concern needs one, and the astir important questions to inquire earlier hiring them.

What does an SEO advisor do?

An SEO advisor provides respective SEO services to amended your website’s online visibility. Here are a fewer examples of the astir communal services they provide.

  • Keyword probe – Find what your customers are searching for. 
  • Link gathering – Get links from different websites truthful you fertile higher.
  • SEO reporting – Give updates connected your website’s SEO advancement to refine your strategy.
  • On-page SEO – Improve your website internally to assistance it fertile better.
  • Technical SEO – Avoid method issues to support your website successful bully health.
  • Local SEO – Enable you to fertile for section keywords.

Sidenote.

This isn’t an exhaustive database of services, but these are immoderate of the astir fashionable services that astir SEO consultants volition connection to amended the visibility of your website successful the large hunt engines.

Do you request an SEO consultant?

To reply this question, you’ll request to see whether the pursuing scenarios use to your website. The much of these scenarios you reply “yes,” the much apt you’ll request an SEO advisor to assistance resoluteness these issues. 

Your integrated postulation has dropped (and you don’t know why)

If your Google ranking has dropped dramatically, your integrated postulation has plummeted, and you don’t cognize the reason, it could origin superior harm to your business.

To cheque for immoderate drops, it’s champion to spell to Google Search Console (GSC) and click connected the “Performance” tab. Set the day to the past 12 months.

Example of a driblet  successful  clicks, via Google Search Console

If you spot a steep driblet successful clicks, that whitethorn beryllium a motion you request to prosecute an SEO consultant—sooner alternatively than later. 

Sidenote.

Sometimes, integrated postulation drops tin beryllium caused by seasonal fluctuations. For example, the website supra relies connected the Christmas play for astir of its hunt traffic.

If you don’t person entree to GSC, you tin acceptable up a escaped Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account. With this account, you tin cheque your estimated integrated hunt traffic.

Here’s an example:

Checking estimated integrated  hunt  postulation   successful  Ahrefs' Site Explorer

Your website has method issues (and you don’t cognize what’s causing them)

Keeping your website successful bully method wellness is important successful SEO. If determination are superior issues, those tin often pb to a important nonaccomplishment successful integrated traffic.

If you privation to cheque your website, the champion spot to commencement is by moving a escaped audit utilizing Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

Once you’ve tally your audit, you’ll get a Health Score that indicates the presumption of your website’s health.

Here’s an illustration of what that looks like:

Health Score successful  Ahrefs' Site Audit

The Health Score of this website is 31, meaning determination could beryllium immoderate large method issues affecting this website’s performance. 

To hole these issues and get a higher score, you’d astir apt request to prosecute an SEO consultant.

Your competitors are getting much hunt postulation than you

If your competitors are outperforming you online, it’s apt you could get much integrated hunt postulation arsenic well—with the assistance of SEO.

The fastest mode to cheque a competitor’s integrated hunt postulation is to participate their domain into our free website postulation checker.

Ahrefs' escaped  website postulation   checker

Once you’ve entered your competitor, you’ll get a afloat breakdown of their integrated traffic, apical keywords, apical countries, and top pages.

Report generated by Ahrefs' escaped  website postulation   checker

You tin past bash the aforesaid for your website and comparison postulation numbers.

If you person aggregate competitors, you tin usage Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to presumption the Organic competitors report.

Organic competitors report, via Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

You privation to fertile higher for important keywords for your business

If you cognize a spot astir SEO, you’ll cognize the value of definite keywords for your business. 

To cheque wherever you’re ranking for these keywords, you tin usage our free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools.

To bash so, click the “Organic keywords” container successful your site’s task from the main dashboard.

"Organic keywords" container  connected  main   dashboard, via ahrefs.com

You’ll past beryllium taken to the Organic keywords report, wherever you tin cheque your keyword positions for antithetic keywords.

Organic keywords study  with positions highlighted, via Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

If you’re not ranking good for your keywords, past it’s astir apt a bully thought to see moving with an SEO consultant.

Seven questions to inquire erstwhile hiring an SEO consultant

If you answered “yes” to immoderate of the supra questions, it’s apt you’ll request to prosecute an SEO consultant.

But with truthful galore unscrupulous SEOs retired determination and truthful overmuch wealth connected the table, it’s important to vet imaginable SEO consultants thoroughly earlier you perpetrate to moving with them. This process often starts by asking the close questions. 

Here’s what to inquire your SEO advisor earlier hiring them:

1. How overmuch bash you charge?

It doesn’t substance however bully an SEO advisor is. If they’re retired of your fund range, you won’t beryllium capable to enactment with them—so it makes consciousness to inquire this question first.

Here are the astir communal rates SEO consultants complaint based connected the results from our survey:

  • Hourly: $101–$150
  • Per project: $2,501–$10,000
  • Retainer: $2,501–$5,000

Sidenote.

The pricing volition besides alteration depending connected the country. In the U.S. (and different countries with a precocious purchasing powerfulness parity), you should expect to wage astatine slightest $100 per hr to get a bully SEO consultant. To prosecute the champion English-speaking consultants, you tin expect to beryllium charged $200+ hourly rates.

Most SEO consultants (71.43%) complaint monthly retainers, but a decent chunk of them (55.10%) connection per-project pricing too. Hourly outgo is little common, but astir a 3rd of consultants (34.69%) inactive complaint this way. 

If your SEO advisor quotes mode much oregon little than these numbers, inquire astir their experience. 

Our survey recovered that the longer a advisor has been successful business, the much they’re apt to complaint (which makes sense):

Line graph showing SEO hourly rates (by clip  successful  business)

2. What’s your specialization?

As SEO covers truthful galore antithetic industries, it’s astir intolerable to beryllium an adept successful each of them.

That’s wherefore it’s a bully thought to inquire an SEO advisor what industries they specialize successful to recognize wherever their strengths lie.

For example, an SEO advisor whitethorn person 10 years of e-commerce experience. This makes them a bully campaigner for an e-commerce concern but not the champion campaigner for a SaaS business.

When looking for an SEO consultant, it makes consciousness to find 1 who already has acquisition successful your manufacture oregon has worked with a akin concern before.

3. What’s your way record?

Most SEO consultants database a fewer clients connected their websites. But this accusation is not ever accompanied by testimonials oregon lawsuit studies reflecting their SEO performance. If you’re missing this information, it’s worthy asking them.

Another mode to cheque is to usage a instrumentality similar Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. You tin plug successful 1 of their client’s websites and cheque the estimated organic traffic successful the chart.

Overview 2.0, via Ahrefs' Site Explorer

From there, you’ll beryllium capable to spot whether they did a bully occupation or not.

If you spot an upward trend, past it’s a bully sign. But ever sermon a fewer cases with the advisor erstwhile you get successful interaction with them. They tin archer you the periods erstwhile they worked for a definite client.

Sometimes, you won’t spot overmuch maturation oregon whitethorn question the show successful different ways. Let the advisor warrant their results. SEO is simply a semipermanent game, and you seldom spot immoderate important changes successful integrated postulation successful the archetypal months of cooperation.

4. Do you warrant SEO results?

If an SEO advisor guarantees results, particularly first-page rankings for your keywordsrun. 

No substance however bully an SEO advisor is, they can’t “guarantee results” successful SEO. There are excessively galore variables and ranking factors involved. 

The world is that with Google’s algorithm updates, it’s hard for adjacent the astir experienced SEO consultants to foretell precisely what’s astir the country successful presumption of SEO. 

5. What SEO tools bash you use?

Industry canvass aft manufacture canvass reveals that astir SEOs usage Ahrefs, truthful you tin expect astir consultants to notation this tool.

Here’s a caller example:

Aira survey   showing astir   respondents choosing Ahrefs (if they could lone  prime   1  tool)

And another:

Matt Diggity's survey   showing astir   respondents selecting Ahrefs arsenic  their tract  audit instrumentality   of choice

And one more…

Proper SEO Group's survey   showing astir   respondents selecting Ahrefs arsenic  the astir   close  keyword tool

But Ahrefs can’t bash perfectly everything, truthful astir consultants usage different tools. Here are a fewer you tin expect:

  • Screaming Frog
  • BuzzStream
  • Pitchbox
  • Google Search Console (GSC)
  • Google Analytics (GA)
  • Google Looker Studio (GLS)
  • Surfer
  • Hunter

If a advisor doesn’t notation immoderate of these tools, it could beryllium a reddish flag. As SEO is focused connected tools, you should expect your SEO advisor to recognize astir of the tools mentioned.

6. What’s your attack to Google’s guidelines?

There’s nary close reply to this question. 

But leaning toward the extremes (doing everything/nothing according to Google) should beryllium treated with caution.

Many SEO consultants person had large occurrence speechmaking betwixt the lines of Google’s guidelines and person got astonishing results. Still, the sustainability of these methods is usually short-term and not perfect for a concern proprietor looking to turn their concern for the long term.

Breaking Google’s guidelines besides comes with a large woody of risk. At best, it could beryllium an algorithmic penalty. At worst, it could effect successful a manual penalty—usually spelling the extremity of a website.

The way you instrumentality present depends connected your hazard appetite. But my proposal successful astir cases is to spell with an SEO advisor who doesn’t effort to interruption Google’s guidelines. 

7. What bash you request to get started?

When you inquire the SEO advisor this question, the effect you’re looking for is for them to inquire if there’s been immoderate erstwhile SEO enactment done connected your site. 

The crushed for this is it’s a bully denotation of whether they’re consenting to complaint you again for enactment that mightiness person been done already.

Here are immoderate questions that they whitethorn ask you:

  • Has immoderate keyword probe been done?
  • Is determination a contented plan? 
  • Has an SEO audit been completed?
  • Have you done immoderate nexus building?
  • Are determination immoderate SEO reports?

Another happening that astir SEO consultants whitethorn inquire for is entree to Google Analytics and Google Search Console. 

These are industry-standard tools, and it’s adjuvant for the SEO advisor if they tin spot the authorities of the website (usually earlier moving on it). 

If an SEO advisor shows an involvement successful the enactment that’s been completed connected the website, it’s astir apt a bully motion that they’re efficient, thorough, and prepared to bash a good job.

Final thoughts

Finding a decent SEO advisor to amended your website’s integrated visibility is not ever easy. You whitethorn person to enactment with respective earlier you find a bully acceptable for your business.

Often, the champion mode to find a decent SEO advisor is to link with them connected LinkedIn oregon spell with a idiosyncratic proposal from different website owner. 

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