First: what SEO does for a business
To understand the consultant's job, it helps to be clear on what SEO itself is meant to achieve. SEO, short for search engine optimisation, aims to make a business visible in the unpaid search results when potential customers look for what it offers. Our guide What is SEO? covers the meaning and the mechanics.
In marketing terms, what SEO does is capture demand that already exists. People are searching for 'accountant for contractors', 'wedding venue Cotswolds' or 'how to appeal a business rates valuation' whether or not you are there. SEO decides whether they find you or a competitor. The consultant's job is to make that happen efficiently, safely and for the searches that are actually worth money to the business.
Google itself describes the useful services an SEO can provide, from reviewing content and structure to technical advice, keyword research and training, in its page Do you need an SEO?
The work, phase by phase
1. Discovery
A good consultant starts by asking about the business, not the website: which services matter most, who the ideal customers are, how sales happen, who the competitors are and what has been tried before. Google's own advice is that an SEO should ask what makes your business unique and how your customers find you. Someone who skips this step will optimise for the wrong things.
2. Diagnosis
Next comes a structured look at the site and the market: how well it can be crawled and indexed, how its content matches what people search for, how its authority compares with competitors, what Search Console and analytics data reveal. The output is a clear account of what limits the site, ranked by impact.
3. Strategy
The consultant turns the diagnosis and the business goals into decisions: which topics and searches to pursue, which pages to create, improve or merge, what technical work comes first, how authority will be earned and how success will be measured. Our guide to SEO strategy describes what that document should contain.
4. Implementation guidance
Much of the actual change is made by others: developers adjust templates and redirects, writers produce content, marketing secures mentions. The consultant writes clear specifications, briefs and acceptance criteria so the work is done right the first time.
5. Review
Before changes go live, the consultant checks them. This is where many expensive mistakes are prevented, particularly during redesigns and platform changes.
6. Measurement and adjustment
Finally, the consultant tracks results against the baseline, explains what moved and why, and adjusts the plan.
What a typical month looks like
Once the initial diagnosis and strategy are in place, the rhythm of the work becomes steadier. For an established company with an in-house team, a month might include:
- a review of Search Console for new indexing problems, ranking shifts and emerging queries;
- briefs for the next set of pages, agreed with the people who will provide the expertise;
- a review of draft content and technical changes before publication;
- a specification for a developer, such as redirects for retired pages or structured data for a new template;
- a call with the marketing lead to align SEO with campaigns, PR and product launches;
- a short report: what was done, what changed, what comes next.
The balance shifts with circumstances. Before a website migration, almost all the time goes on redirect mapping and pre-launch checks. After a sudden traffic drop, it goes on diagnosis, guided by Google's own advice on debugging drops in Search traffic.
Deliverables you should expect
Consulting is only valuable if it produces something your team can act on. These are the outputs you should be able to see, and how to recognise good ones.
| Deliverable | What it contains | Sign that it is good |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnostic findings | What limits the site, with evidence | Ranked by business impact, not a tool export of hundreds of warnings |
| SEO strategy | Goals, topic map, page plan, priorities, measures | Readable by a director in ten minutes; says what not to do |
| Technical specifications | Exact changes for developers | A developer can implement them without a follow-up meeting |
| Content briefs | Search, reader, angle, questions, links | A writer knows exactly what to produce and why |
| Pre-launch review | Checks on templates, redirects, indexing | Problems found before launch, not after |
| Progress report | Work done, results, next steps | Connects search performance to enquiries or revenue |
What an SEO consultant does not do
Clear boundaries prevent disappointment on both sides.
- Control Google. No consultant decides rankings. Google is explicit that nobody can promise a number one position, and that you should be wary of anyone who claims a special relationship with it.
- Replace your expertise. A consultant can structure and sharpen content, but the knowledge that makes it credible comes from your people.
- Do everything personally. Depending on the arrangement, a consultant may not write all the content or change code. Agree upfront who implements what.
- Work without access. Without Search Console, analytics and someone who can make changes, advice remains theoretical.
- Deliver instant results. Organic search builds over months. A consultant who promises fast, dramatic gains is either working on something very simple or taking risks with your site.
Related roles: strategist, specialist, technical SEO and writer
Job titles in SEO overlap, and different companies use them differently. A rough guide:
- SEO consultant: senior, independent judgement on what to do and in which order; often advises and reviews more than executes.
- SEO strategist: similar focus on planning and priorities, often within an agency team.
- SEO specialist: hands-on execution across areas, sometimes freelance. Our page on hiring an SEO specialist compares freelancer, consultant and agency options.
- Technical SEO: focused on crawling, indexing, rendering, speed and site architecture; see technical SEO.
- SEO content writer: produces pages and articles from briefs, ideally working with your subject experts.
In a small business, one person may cover several of these roles. What matters is that someone owns the overall direction.
Working well with an SEO consultant
The quality of the result depends almost as much on the client as on the consultant. You will get far more from the arrangement if you provide:
- access to Search Console, analytics and the content management system from day one;
- a named person who can make or approve changes;
- time from the people with expertise, for content input and review;
- honest information about commercial priorities, capacity and past SEO work, including anything that went wrong;
- a realistic horizon, typically at least six to twelve months for meaningful organic growth.
If you are weighing up whether to bring someone in, our SEO consultant page describes when senior advice pays off most.
How to judge the work over time
Judge a consultant at three moments.
After the first month: do you understand, in plain language, what limits your site and what will happen first? Vague findings and long lists without priorities are a warning sign.
After three to six months: have the agreed changes been implemented, and are the early indicators moving, such as indexing, impressions for target topics and positions for priority searches?
After twelve months: has organic search produced more enquiries, leads or sales than before, measured against the baseline?
Watch also for the red flags Google lists: promises of a top ranking, secrecy about methods, links from unrelated sites and unsolicited approaches. Cost is covered separately in our guide to SEO cost, and an independent SEO audit is one way to check work that has already been done.