If you’re running a business, it’s important to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to optimise your site for search engines. That’s where an SEO consultant comes in.
An SEO consultant can help you identify and correct any issues that are preventing your site from ranking higher in search results. They can also provide advice on how to improve your content and overall online marketing strategy.
Contents
The A to Z of SEO Consultant Job Responsibilities
Competition analysis
An SEO consultant will analyse the competition in your market. What are their strengths? What about weaknesses? What opportunities do you have to strengthen yourself against them and come out on top as a result?
A good analysis of this type can help ensure that you’re targeting keywords that aren’t already saturated with too much competition, which could lead to frustration when it comes time for Google’s algorithm to decide who ranks where.
Content strategy
SEO is all about creating quality content that will rank well in search engines. Your SEO consultant should be able to help you create a content strategy that targets the right keywords and results in high-quality content that will keep people coming back for more.
Once you’ve created high-quality content, you need to make sure that people can find it!
An SEO consultant can help with this by promoting your site across social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well as via Reddit and other popular platforms where your target audience can be found.
They’ll also create links to boost search engine visibility, with the type and number of links required found in the competition analysis responsibilities.
Create high-quality content
It’s all about the quality, not the quantity. A good strategy will mean creating content that is relevant and engaging to your audience – it should be obvious why readers would want to keep coming back for more.
Copywriting skills
An SEO consultant can have copywriting skills to write enticing titles, meta descriptions, and other snippets that will make people want to click through to your website and take an action on your website.
Your consultant should also be able to help with editing and proofreading content to ensure that it is of the best quality before publishing.
Formatting
Being able to format content correctly for the web is another of an SEO consultant’s key skills. This includes using the correct header tags, text formatting, and images.
They should also be able to help you set up rich snippets so that your content stands out in search engine results pages (SERPs).
CRO optimisation
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is a relatively new concept that is becoming increasingly popular. What it means in practice is testing out different versions of your content to see what works best and then implementing these changes if they’re successful.
A/B testing is a common way of doing this. A/B testing involves setting up several different versions – A and B in this case, but it could be as many as necessary depending on how much information you have to test.
Then you split your traffic between the two (or more) versions and measure how each one performs. The winning content is then implemented as the new “A” version for further testing or made permanent if it’s successful.
An SEO consultant should be able to help with all of this, from creating different versions of your content to setting up A/B tests and analysing the results.
Duplicate and thin content
Duplicate and thin content can be a big issue for websites. Duplicate content is simply are pages on a website that have the same text or target the same keywords. It can be caused by various factors, such as having the same or very similar titles on different pages, using the same or similar meta descriptions, copying and pasting large amounts of text, and more.
Thin content is a page that doesn’t have enough valuable information to be considered worthwhile by Google’s algorithm and can bring down a website’s overall quality score.
An SEO consultant will help you identify any instances of duplicate or thin content on your website and take steps to rectify the situation.
eCommerce SEO strategy
If you’re running an online store, it’s important to have a solid eCommerce SEO strategy in place. This will involve targeting the right keywords, creating high-quality product pages, and building links to where they are required. An SEO consultant can help implement the best practices.
Featured snippets
Featured snippets are a relatively new feature of Google. What they mean is that if you search for something specific, your site could come up in the results with an answer displayed directly on the SERP rather than having to click through to a page where that information is provided.
A featured snippet can be based on different types of content, such as a text snippet, an image, or even a table. An SEO consultant will be able to help you identify if your website has any chance of appearing in featured snippets and, if so, how to go about trying to achieve that.
Fixing crawl errors
Crawl errors are found by a website’s webmaster or SEO consultant and then fixed. What they mean is that, while Googlebot was crawling your site, it came across an error and aborted the crawl as a result of this.
There are two main reasons why these may be present: broken links on your live website (the page itself is fine but links to it from other pages have been deleted or changed in a way that makes the page hard for Googlebot to access) and server timeouts.
An SEO consultant will help you to identify any crawl errors on your website and take steps to fix them. This may involve repairing broken links, making sure your server can handle the load, or removing any content that’s hidden from search engines.
Fixing Index bloat
Index bloat is caused when a website has lots of pages that aren’t particularly high quality or relevant to users and Google sees this as an issue. What it means in practice is that there are too many low-quality, thin content, duplicate pages on the site for Googlebot to realistically crawl effectively.
An SEO consultant will help you identify and fix any index bloat issues on your website. This may involve removing low-quality pages, consolidating content, or implementing canonicalisation.
Fixing website errors
All websites will, at some point, experience errors. These can be caused by many things such as incorrect coding, broken links, or server issues. When Googlebot comes across an error on your website, it logs it in its search console and this information is used to help improve the quality of your site.
An SEO consultant will be able to identify and fix website errors on your site. What they will do depends on the exact nature of the error, but it may involve removing any broken links or replacing a faulty file with an updated version.
Google Analytics
What an SEO consultant may do for your website’s analytics is to help you with setting it up correctly to gain a better insight into how people interact with your site.
Google My Business optimisation
Google My Business is a free tool that allows businesses to manage their online presence across Google. This includes creating and editing business profiles, adding photos and videos, and responding to reviews. It’s an important part of SEO as it helps you to rank higher in local search results.
An SEO consultant can help you optimise your Google My Business listing, including adding important information and images to your company profile. What they do will depend on the size of your business as well as what you need help with.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool that provides businesses with information about how their website is performing in Google search. This includes data such as the number of impressions and clicks your site has received, which pages are being indexed, and any errors that have been encountered.
An SEO consultant will be able to help you set up Google Search Console for your website and monitor your site errors, queries, top-performing pages, opportunities, and clicks and impressions from Google searches plus much more.
Internal linking strategy
An internal linking strategy is an important part of SEO. What it means is that you link internally to other pages on your website from relevant pages to help users and Googlebot find and index them more easily.
An SEO consultant can help you develop an internal linking strategy for your website based on your individual needs. This may involve using a tool such as Google Webmaster Tools to see which pages on your website have the most internal links and then finding ways to link more of them together.
What they do will depend heavily on the size of your site, how much content you already have available, and what types of sites these are (e.g., e-commerce, blogs, news, etc.).
Keyword research
Keyword research is the process of identifying and targeting relevant keywords and phrases for your website. It’s an important part of SEO as it helps you to focus your efforts on the terms that are most likely to bring you traffic and leads.
An SEO consultant can help you carry out keyword research for your website. What they do will depend on your business and the keywords you want to target, but it may involve using a tool such as Google AdWords Keyword Planner or SEMrush.
Link building
- Outreach: Outreach is the process of contacting other websites and bloggers to get them to link to your website. It’s an important part of SEO as it helps you to build links from high-quality websites, which in turn helps to improve your ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Broken link building: Broken link building is the process of finding websites that have broken or outdated links and replacing them with your own. What this does is help you to build links to your website from other sites that previously linked to someone else’s – and get a high-quality backlink. What it also does is help to improve the user experience on those websites, as they now have working links.
- Citation building: Citation building is the process of adding your web site’s information to other websites, such as online directories and business listings. What this does is help to improve your website’s visibility and help to increase the chances of people finding it.
- High-quality link building: What it means to be a ‘high-quality’ backlink depends on the context. Generally speaking, though, a high-quality backlink is one from a website that has relevant content and good user engagement. What this does is help to improve your ranking in SERPs as it shows Google that your website is an authority on the subject matter.
International SEO strategy
An SEO consultant can help you develop an international SEO strategy for your site to ensure it ranks well in search engines outside of the UK. What they do will depend heavily on the country you want to target and what type of site it is.
What they do will depend on the size of your site, what type it is (e.g., e-commerce or blog), and how much content you already have available in that language. What an SEO consultant does for international SEO can be broken down into three main areas:
- Hreflang tags: Hreflang tags are HTML code that tells search engines which language a page is in. What they do is allow you to target multiple countries with your content and help Google understand where it should show your site in SERPs, based on the searcher’s location.
- International link building: What an SEO consultant does for international link building will depend heavily on the type of site (e.g., e-commerce or blog) and the country you want to target. However, some of the things they may do include reaching out to other websites in that country for links, creating localised content, and targeting relevant keywords and phrases.
- Multilingual SEO: Multilingual SEO is the process of optimising a website for multiple languages. What an SEO consultant does for multilingual SEO will depend heavily on the size of your site, how much content you already have available in that language, and what type it is (e.g., e-commerce or blog). However, some of the things they may do include creating localised versions of existing pages, optimising titles and descriptions for relevant keywords and phrases, writing unique content for those pages, and translating the site into that language.
Link profile analysis
An SEO consultant can also help you to analyse your website’s link profile and identify any potential issues. What they do will depend on the size of your site, how many links you have, and what type of links they are (e.g., dofollow or nofollow). What an SEO consultant may do for link profile analysis includes:
- Identifying any toxic or spammy links
- Investigating the sources of those links
- Assessing the impact they are having on your website’s ranking
- Offering advice on how to remove them or disavow them
Local SEO strategy
A local SEO strategy is a process of optimising your website to rank well in search results for a particular location. What an SEO consultant may do for you will depend on what type of site it is (e.g., e-commerce or blog), how much content you already have available, and where that content ranks. What they may do for you can be broken down into three main areas:
- Local link building: What an SEO consultant does for local link building will depend heavily on the type of site (e.g., e-commerce or blog) and where it is based. However, some of the things they may do include reaching out to other businesses in that area who are likely to have websites with links to yours, creating localised content, and targeting relevant keywords and phrases.
- Local on-page optimisation: What an SEO consultant may do for local on-page optimisation will also depend heavily on the type of site (e.g., e-commerce or blog) and where it is based. However, some of the things they may do include:
- Creating localised versions of existing pages: An SEO consultant can help you to create localised versions of existing pages that rank, optimising the title and description for relevant keywords or phrases.
Mobile SEO strategy
What an SEO consultant may do for your website’s mobile-friendliness will depend heavily on the type of site it is. Some things they can help you with include creating a responsive design if necessary and optimising content for smaller screens.
National SEO strategy
A national SEO strategy is a process of optimising your website to rank well in search results for a particular country. What an SEO consultant may do for you will depend on what type of site it is (e.g., e-commerce or blog), how much content you already have available, and where that content ranks. What they may do for you can be broken down into these areas:
- National link building: What an SEO consultant does for national link building will depend heavily on the type of site (e.g., e-commerce or blog) and where it is based. However, some of the things they may do include reaching out to other websites in that country that are likely to have links to yours, targeting relevant keywords and phrases in that country, writing unique content for those pages, and translating it into the local language.
- National on-page optimisation: What an SEO consultant may do for national on-page optimisation will also depend heavily on the type of site (e.g., e-commerce or blog) and where it is based. However, they will be optimised for a national search.
Onpage optimisation
Title tags
What an SEO consultant may do for title tags is to make sure that they are relevant, as well as optimising them for their targetted keyword(s).
Meta descriptions
What an SEO consultant may do for meta descriptions is to optimise them for their targetted keyword(s) and make sure that they are relevant.
Headings
What an SEO consultant may do for headings is to make sure that they are optimised for their targetted keyword(s) and that they are relevant and used for maximum ranking benefits.
Body content
What an SEO consultant may do for your website’s body content is to make sure that it is optimised for their targetted keyword(s), as well as making sure that it is of a high quality and will engage the reader. They can also help to increase the word count if necessary.
Image optimisation
An SEO consultant may do for image optimisation is to make sure that the alt text on all images used are relevant and contain their targetted keyword(s) where possible.
Search intent optimisation
What an SEO consultant may do for your website’s search intent optimisation is to make sure that it is catering to the needs of the searcher. This includes making sure that all content targets either navigational, informational, or transactional search intent.
Page load speeds
What an SEO consultant may do for your website’s page load speeds is to advise on how to optimise it, such as by compressing images and ensuring that its size doesn’t exceed the recommended limit.
PPC
What an SEO consultant may do for PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising management will depend on how much experience they have in that area. However, some of their roles can include: managing the campaign, optimising the ads for maximum relevance and click-through rate (CTR), analysing results and making recommendations, as well as managing bids.
Schema markup
What an SEO consultant may do for schema markup is to ensure that it is implemented correctly on your website, as well as helping you to choose the right type of markup for your site.
Structured data
An SEO consultant can help with implementing structured data onto your website so that Google can better understand what it is about. This can result in enhanced search results for your site.
SEO audits
An SEO audit is a process of reviewing a website to identify any areas where improvements can be made to optimise it for search engines. Typically, an SEO audit will cover on-page and off-page elements, as well as competitor analysis. It is often carried out by an SEO consultant as part of their wider services.
Social media marketing strategy
An SEO consultant may do for your website’s social media marketing strategy is to help you with implementing it, monitoring, and analysing the results.
Technical SEO knowledge
301 redirects
What an SEO consultant may do for 301 redirects is to set them up correctly on your website, as well as helping you to determine which pages should be redirected and why.
XML sitemaps
An SEO consultant may do for your website’s XML sitemaps is to ensure that they are up to date and optimised.
Canonical tags
What an SEO consultant may do for canonical tags is to ensure that they are implemented correctly on your website and that the correct version of a page is being used.
Site architecture
What an SEO consultant may do for your website’s site architecture is to help you identify the best way of structuring it and how to go about doing that. What they will then do is assist in implementing this structure on your website as well as making sure that search engines are aware of its navigational hierarchy.
Logfile analysis
An SEO consultant may do for logfile analysis is to review it and extract any useful data that can be used to improve the website’s search engine rankings. This data can include information on search engine crawlers, user engagement, 404 errors, and more.
Web design
What an SEO consultant may do for your website’s web design is to help you with choosing the right template/theme, as well as ensuring that it is optimised for search engines. They can also guide how to make use of available tools and features to improve rankings.
Web development
An SEO consultant may do for your website’s web development is to help you with choosing the right technologies and tools, as well as working alongside developers so that their recommendations are implemented.
SEO Consultant FAQ
What are the benefits of hiring an SEO consultant?
There are many benefits to hiring an SEO consultant, including:
- They can help you identify and correct any areas of your website that are preventing it from ranking well in search engines.
- They have extensive knowledge and experience in optimising websites for search engines, which can result in improved rankings and more traffic.
- They can help you develop an SEO strategy and implement it on your website.
- They can provide regular reporting on the progress of your SEO campaign, as well as recommendations for how to improve your results.
What should I look for when hiring an SEO consultant?
When hiring an SEO consultant, there are a few things you should keep in mind:
- What kind of services do they offer?
- What is the cost involved and what will you get for your money?
- What references can they provide about their work with previous clients, if any?
What are some examples of an SEO consultant’s service packages/pricing structure?
SEO consultants typically have a standard package that they offer, which may include services such as website audits, keyword research, competitor analysis, and more. The cost for these services can vary depending on the consultant’s rates and the size of your business. Some consultants also offer a la carte services, so you can choose only those that you need.
Can an SEO consultant help me with link building and content creation?
This depends on the consultant’s experience, services offered, and budget. What some consultants do is provide recommendations for link building or content creation opportunities that you can take advantage of yourself. What others may be able to help with is setting up processes in which they work alongside several freelancers who then carry out the actual work for you.
Conclusion
If you want to rank better in search engines and drive more traffic, an SEO consultant may be able to help. What they can do is identify any areas of your website that are preventing it from ranking well with the search engine crawlers and make recommendations for how these issues can be fixed.