SEO consulting gives you an outside view of your website and a ranked list of fixes, for businesses that do their own SEO work or have a developer or writer who can. Instead of handing all the work over, you get a second opinion on what's holding your site back and the reasons behind each recommendation.
Web designer or agency? Our white label SEO service lets you offer SEO to your own clients under your brand.
SEO Expert Marketing is a new agency that concentrates on small businesses and WordPress websites, working remotely with clients in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia. The easiest first step is our free website review, with no obligation.
What SEO consulting is, and how it differs from done-for-you SEO
An SEO consultant advises you on how to earn more visits from Google's unpaid results, with specific recommendations tied to your goals and market: which pages to change, what to do first and why. Your team does the work; with done-for-you SEO, the agency does it, usually month after month.
| At a glance | Consulting | Done-for-you monthly SEO |
|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | You, your marketer, developer or writer | The agency |
| What you get | Advice and a prioritized plan | Ongoing tasks, keyword tracking and regular reports |
| Suits you if | You have people to make changes but want expert direction | Nobody on your side has time for SEO |
If the last column sounds more like you, see our monthly SEO plans.
What our SEO consulting can cover
It starts from your goals, not a fixed checklist, and can include:
- Understanding your business: what you sell, to whom, against which competitors.
- Reviewing your site: structure, content and technical health, enough to see which problems matter most.
- Choosing priorities: which searches matter to your business and which page should answer each one, drawing on keyword research where needed.
- Local search: advice on your Google Business Profile and service-area pages; for hands-on help, see local SEO services.
- A prioritized plan: each task, why it matters, who on your side should do it and how to check it worked.
- Checking progress: reading Google Search Console (Google's free search performance tool) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to decide what comes next.
Here's one line from an example plan (illustrative, not a real client's). It targets the page's SEO title, which Google's SEO Starter Guide lists among the sources Google uses for the headline of a search result.
Want to see the main issues before deciding? Start with the free website review. If you later choose a monthly plan, the work begins with an initial SEO audit.
Who it's for
Owners who want to understand what to do
Maybe you built your own WordPress site or are tired of paying for work you can't see. SEO consulting explains what matters in plain English, so you can make the changes yourself or brief someone else. Good SEO advice should leave you understanding your site better, not more dependent on us.
In-house marketers
If you already handle content and social media, a consultant can check your priorities, spot gaps and help you explain the plan to whoever approves the budget.
Developers and web designers
Many SEO problems start in the build: templates, redirects, page speed and internal links. SEO consulting gives developers clear requirements before launch, rather than fixes afterwards. For hands-on repairs on an existing site, see technical SEO.
When consulting is worth it, and when it isn't
SEO consulting tends to pay off when:
- You're planning a redesign or a new website. Google's guide to hiring an SEO calls this a great time to bring one in, and says the earlier, the better.
- You're moving to a new domain or changing URLs, which means planning redirects from old addresses.
- Your traffic or inquiries from Google have dropped and you don't know why.
- You have people to make changes, but nobody knows which matter most.
Consulting probably isn't the right fit if nobody on your side has time to act on the advice (a plan that sits in a folder changes nothing), or if you're after tricks such as buying links, which Google's spam policies treat as link spam.
How much SEO consulting costs
SEO consultants commonly charge by the hour, per project or as a monthly retainer. In Ahrefs' survey of 439 SEO providers (last updated August 2024), these were the most common rates among consultants:
| Format | Suits | Most common consultant rate |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly | One question, such as checking a redirect plan before launch | $100–$150 an hour |
| Per project | A defined job, such as planning a redesign | $5,001–$10,000 |
| Monthly retainer | Ongoing questions and progress checks | $2,501–$5,000 a month |
Whatever the format, ask exactly what the price includes and what it doesn't. We don't publish a fixed SEO consulting price: your written proposal confirms the format, scope and price in USD before you commit.
If you'd rather hand the work over, our done-for-you SEO plans run from SEO Starter ($395/month) to SEO Authority ($1,495/month). SEO Growth ($795/month) is the closest match to consulting's planning work, adding keyword research and mapping, internal linking and competitor analysis.
How long until you see results
Advice alone doesn't move rankings; your team's changes do, so the timeline depends on how fast the plan is carried out. Google's SEO Starter Guide notes that one change might be reflected within hours while another takes several months, and it suggests giving your work a few weeks before you assess whether it helped.
Keep a dated list of each change, so you can compare the affected page's Search Console data before and after. Judge progress by what matters to your business, such as calls, form inquiries and bookings from Google, not by rankings alone.
7 red flags when hiring an SEO consultant (and what to ask)
Google's Do you need an SEO? page suggests interviewing a consultant before you hire. Based on that page, be wary of any SEO consultant who:
- Promises a first-place ranking on Google. Google says no one can promise that.
- Claims a "special relationship" with Google, offers a "priority submit" or says their tools are "approved" by Google.
- Won't clearly explain what they plan to do to your site.
- Talks about link schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines.
- Contacted you out of the blue by email.
- Asks you to link to their own website.
- Asks for write access to your Search Console just to audit the site. Google advises granting read access only at that stage.
Questions worth asking include:
- Do you follow Google Search Essentials (Google's core guidelines for websites)?
- How will we communicate, and how often?
- Will you share every change you recommend, and the reasoning behind it?
- Do you cite official Google documentation to support your recommendations?
- If you advise on Google's AI answers (sometimes sold as "AEO" or "GEO"), does that advice match Google's own guidance?
A good consultant will also ask about your business, competitors and customers first, and should be able to give you one sample recommendation for your site, with its reasoning. With us, the free website review is that sample: the main issues we see and where we'd start.
Get a second opinion first: a free website review
Still deciding between SEO consulting and done-for-you help? When you send your site and goals through the free website review form, tell us who will make the changes: you, a developer or a writer. We'll email you the main problems we find and where your team could start, and you're free to stop there. Have a question before you send it? Contact us.
