Get a strategist on the phone, not a sales rep.
Consulting engagements for operators who don't need a full retainer — just a senior eye on the strategy, audit findings, or a specific problem. Direct access, no AM layer.
Grab a time, 1:1 with Clint.
$200/hour of real strategist time. Pick a slot, tell us what you're working on, and we'll dig into your SEO live on the call — no sales rep, no slides.
What's included in seo consulting
Six deliverables. No mystery, no theater.
Every engagement ships these. Some scope to your situation, but the discipline doesn't change.
SEO strategy review
Sit down with what you're doing, what's working, what's not. Get a real opinion.
Audit + prioritized recommendations
Independent audit with specific, prioritized recommendations — no upsell.
In-house team coaching
Coach your existing team or agency on what they're missing.
Problem-specific deep-dives
Migrations, penalties, plateaus, technical edge cases.
Recorded strategy sessions
Every consult is recorded so your team can reference it later.
Direct strategist access
You talk to the strategist directly. Always.
How we deliver seo consulting
Same four steps. Strategist on every one.
Audit
Real audit by a strategist. Revenue leak map, not a template scan.
Strategy
Signed strategy doc. Named bets with explicit kill criteria.
Execute
Weekly shipping cadence. Real artifacts, not a roadmap Gantt.
Iterate
Monthly business review. Revenue, pipeline, what changes next month.
SEO consulting vs. a full-service SEO retainer
Most agencies don't run this service this way. We do.
Want a strategist running SEO Consultant for you?
Seo consulting reviews
What people actually say on Google.
Verified, attributed, public — pulled live from our Google Business Profile.
Related seo consulting & SEO services
One funnel. Four services.
Runs as one strategic system. Every service feeds the others.
Compare your seo consulting options
Honest trade-offs. No sales spin.
Weighing your options before you commit? These decision guides lay out the real trade-offs.
SEO consultant
SEO Consultant
Hiring an SEO consultant vs. an agency is a sequencing decision, not a price decision — the right answer depends on what you don’t yet know
An SEO consultant is the right hire when you have execution capacity (in-house team, content team, dev team) but don’t have the pattern-recognition to know what they should be doing. An SEO agency is the right hire when you have neither. Most businesses confuse these — they hire consultants when they need agencies, or hire agencies when they need consultants. The mismatch is where SEO budgets get wasted.
Three things that separate real SEO consulting from category theater
- Consultants compress your learning curve; agencies execute on it — Consulting is the right shape when you have hands but not direction. Six 90-minute strategy calls a month with a senior SEO consultant ($4-12K/month) outperforms a $7K/month agency-execution contract if you have a marketing manager + content writer + developer to direct. Without those hands, consulting is unimplemented advice.
- Consultants force decisions; agencies hide them — A good consultant ends every meeting with 3-5 named decisions you (the client) need to make in writing within 7 days. Agencies often present ‘recommendations’ designed to be approved as a package — which hides the underlying decisions and prevents the client from developing pattern recognition. Consulting is a transfer of judgment; agency-execution is a deferral of judgment.
- Consultants don’t scale; the value is in the discrimination, not the bandwidth — Real SEO consultants take 4-8 clients maximum because the work is high-decision-density, not high-task-density. If your consultant has 25+ clients and offers ‘unlimited Slack access,’ they’re operating a thin-margin agency that calls itself consulting. The math doesn’t work for genuine consulting at that scale.
Questions to ask before hiring an SEO consultant
Should I hire an SEO consultant or an SEO agency?
Consultant if you have execution capacity but need direction. Agency if you need both. Combined consultant + agency arrangements often underperform either alone — overlapping accountability without clear decision rights. Pick one, work with them for 12+ months, then evaluate whether to add the other layer.
What does an SEO consulting engagement look like?
Typically: 60-90 day deep audit (technical, content, competitive, link, conversion), then ongoing strategic calls (weekly or biweekly for first 6 months, biweekly or monthly after) plus decision-stage involvement in major content + migration + structural decisions. Your team executes; the consultant directs and reviews.
How much should an SEO consultant cost?
Senior independent consultants run $3-12K/month retainer or $250-650/hour for project engagements. Below $3K/month either it’s not a senior consultant or it’s not real consulting (volume disguised as consulting). Above $12K/month either it’s specialty work (M&A diligence, IPO-stage SEO) or you should be evaluating whether a fractional CMO is the right shape instead.
How long should I work with an SEO consultant?
Minimum 6 months to develop the shared context that makes recommendations sharp. 12-24 months is typical for ongoing strategic engagement. Beyond 24 months, evaluate whether the consultant is still pushing the program forward or whether the engagement has settled into routine deliverables — if routine, restructure or wind down.
Can SEO consultants work alongside in-house SEO teams?
Often the best arrangement. The consultant brings cross-industry pattern recognition, holds the in-house team accountable for execution velocity, and surfaces blind spots in-house teams develop after 18+ months of focused work. The in-house team brings institutional context and execution capacity. Clear decision rights matter — consultant recommends, in-house executes, leadership decides.
What SEO consulting actually looks like inside our engagements
- Deep diagnostic audit: technical-SEO, content quality, competitive position, link profile, conversion-rate, attribution accuracy
- Strategic roadmap with 90-day, 6-month, 12-month decision points and named owners for each work stream
- Ongoing strategy calls (biweekly or monthly) reviewing in-house execution velocity, surfacing decisions, transferring pattern recognition
- Decision-stage involvement: content investments, migration planning, structural redesigns, vendor selection (where consultants are not executing)
- Quarterly strategic reviews: what’s working, what’s not, what to deprioritize, what to invest in next
- Vendor + agency coordination (where the client uses multiple agencies for execution): clear decision rights, shared roadmap, conflict resolution
- Knowledge transfer artifacts: documentation of decision rationale, in-house playbooks, training for in-house team development
This isn’t for everyone. If you don’t have execution capacity (in-house team or contracted writers, developers, analysts), SEO consulting will produce unimplemented advice. Hire an agency that executes, or build the execution capacity first. Consulting without execution is the most expensive way to learn what you should have done.
Strategy call: 45 minutes, no slide deck, no pitch — just an honest read on whether SEO consulting fits your current execution capacity, or whether you need an agency instead. Book the call →
Done with agency theater?
Book a 30-minute strategy call with an experienced strategist — not a sales rep. Honest assessment, no obligation, no slide deck. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you who is.
- Experienced strategist on the first call — every time
- No contracts. No "let it work." No theater.
- Real audit + opinion within 5 business days
- If the fit is wrong, we'll say so plainly
Tell us which path you're on.
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