An SEO agency works in a very similar way to Mr SEO Consultant. They provide an Account Director (I was an Account Director at an SEO agency before starting Mr SEO Consultant), the Account Director plans the campaign and then oversees delivery by a team of specialists. The only real difference is that agencies are more expensive, and they have teams of specialists in-house, it means you could end up with the best account director but not the best team.

Over the years working at agencies, I’ve seen clients have the wrong people for the job, the job was done but, in most cases, there was someone better somewhere in the world, but that someone better wasn’t considered when we had inhouse teams to provide work for. When I established Mr SEO Consultant, I decided not to have a fixed team so I could always find the best person required for the activity and my clients, no matter where that person was located.

An SEO consultant identifies how a brand can increase its search visibility and determines which ranking factors it will need to improve to achieve them based on its competitors, region, and market. Some SEO consultants, including myself, can oversee deliver of an SEO campaign.

SEO is a competitive activity that’s often split into off page and on page SEO and within those areas technical, content and authority. Within each area you have SEO ranking factors. If you want to know more about SEO ranking factors one of the best visual descriptions in existence is Search Engine Land’s period table of SEO ranking factors,

There’s no official right way to do SEO, there are guidelines like Google’s webmaster guidelines and there are even free phone ins with search engines (like the Google Office Hours Hangout where anyone can live troubleshoot SEO problems with Google’s Head Webmaster) but Google and other search engines are always vague in their guidelines and answers and they never answer a question yes or no. An SEO expert decides what is best based on their experience and the same guidelines everyone in the world has access to so when it comes to SEO consultants, experience means a lot.

I’ve worked for a cybersecurity brand that was competing with Microsoft and Proton Mail and I’ve worked for a local plumber who wanted to improve their location keyword and map ranks. The approach, cost and team of specialists required for each job was significantly different. It’s important to hire an SEO consultant with a research-led approach based around competitor research.

First, I’ll do a small amount of keyword research so I can analyse your market and SEO competitors to define what areas of SEO you should be competing in more than others. This means we can develop a plan that focuses on SEO activity that is relevant to your market and has an impact on your performance.

When I’ve researched your market, I’ll know what type of keywords and search positions you could achieve now with on page improvements (for example content and technical SEO) and what you could achieve in the future with off page improvements (for example backlinks, citations and reputation) that usually take longer to achieve as they are off page and therefore less within a brand’s control.

After I’ve scoped your market and identified short, medium, and long-term potential I create a keyword strategy to ensure we’re targeting keywords to deliver impact in the short, medium, and long term.

Before creating the full keyword strategy I’ll research your typical customer journeys, the places they spend time online, their sources of influence and the things they search for at different stages of their buyer journey. The result is a keyword strategy that targets search engine rankings for keywords at every stage of a brand’s customer journey and provides an insight into the authoritative sources your market uses that we can target for backlinks.

My goal is that our clients are found in search engines when their prospective customers are defining their requirements, when they’re searching for providers and when they’re deciding on who to buy from.

Costs start at £60+VAT per hour, there is no minimum usage, no long-term commitment and complete transparency on what I’m doing with your time. I explain everything I do, why I’m doing it and the expected impact on your brand.

I offer a free one-hour consultancy. Choose an appointment now with my online calendar.

If you need me to source, recruit and manage specialists (or your in-house team’s role in SEO) I don’t add hidden fees, I charge you for the time it takes me to do it.