What Is an SEO Consultant and What Do They Do?

Do I need an SEO consultant? How can I find one, and how could they help me? Let’s clear up all the doubts about this profession.

If you work in the world of online marketing, you're likely aware of the importance of SEO. But it’s such a complex discipline that it’s common to need the services of a professional. And to ensure the best results, we first need to understand what it takes to be an SEO consultant and how this professional can help us improve the ranking of our websites.

What Are the Requirements for Being an SEO Consultant?

An SEO consultant is a professional whose job is to improve the ranking of a website, meaning making it appear at the top of Google and other search engines for the most relevant search terms to the brand.

Today, SEO is a highly complex and multidisciplinary area of online marketing, so SEO experts must meet several requirements to effectively carry out their work with guaranteed quality:

• A solid understanding of how search engines work: Naturally, an SEO consultant must understand how page crawling and indexing work and what factors influence page ranking. Moreover, it’s important to remember that search engine algorithms, like Google’s, are continuously updated, so this professional must regularly stay updated.
• A broad view of the different areas of SEO: Search engine optimization encompasses many different fields, from content creation to programming. While it’s difficult for one professional to be an expert in all areas of SEO (technical aspects, link building, content writing...), they should have a strong enough understanding of all these areas to maintain a good overall perspective.
• Programming knowledge: At the very least, an SEO consultant should be proficient in HTML to recognize and modify various tags that classify the content of a page for search engines.
• Content creation skills: Content is one of the key elements for a website’s ranking, so the consultant should be familiar with the content creation process and able to advise clients on producing quality content. Sometimes consultants have a more technical profile and focus on aspects like keyword repetition at the expense of natural flow, but this is a mistake.
• Keeping up with market changes: As mentioned earlier, search engine algorithms are frequently updated, so it’s essential to adapt to changes. Likewise, sometimes Google begins penalizing techniques that were once considered acceptable, making it crucial to stay informed.
• Realism: If an SEO consultant promises to get you to the top spot on Google in a very short time, it’s a red flag—they may not be able to deliver what they promise or could be using penalized techniques ("black hat" tactics). SEO should always be viewed as a long-term investment.

What Services Does an SEO Consultant Offer?

• Website audit: As a starting point, an SEO consultant typically performs a detailed analysis of on-page SEO: content optimization, domain, URLs, internal links, and much more. This helps us understand our starting point and identify areas for improvement. Sometimes, a few simple changes can quickly improve rankings.
• Keyword and competition analysis: No analysis would be complete without understanding which search terms are most relevant to our industry, how our website ranks for them, and what the competition is doing. Since SEO is naturally competitive, we can’t lose sight of other websites competing for the same keywords.
• Technical optimization of the website: Search engines “read” the code of our website, and many elements can either help or hinder this process. An SEO consultant can assist in improving these technical aspects, from the site’s architecture to the structure of its URLs.
• Content optimization: The famous phrase "content is king" also applies to SEO. A good consultant knows how to create quality content that balances ranking factors (like titles and headers, image optimization, keyword insertion...) with the naturalness and quality needed to engage website visitors.
• Link building strategy: An SEO consultant doesn’t just work on the internal aspects of the website but also helps enhance its reputation by acquiring backlinks from other sites. It’s important to let an expert guide us in this area since Google has strict policies for penalizing fraudulent link-building practices.
• Analysis and reporting: After conducting an initial optimization of the SEO strategy, it’s necessary to regularly measure results to see how well it’s working and what aspects can still be improved. This usually leads to a long-term relationship with the SEO consultant, who will send reports to the brand and suggest ongoing improvements.
• Maintenance: Creating new content, fixing broken links, adapting to new changes in Google’s algorithm... SEO should be a continuous part of online marketing efforts, and the SEO consultant can help guide and implement this work.
• SEM campaigns: As a complementary service, many SEO consultants also offer strategy and execution for Google Ads campaigns, since they share many elements with organic ranking. At the very least, even if handled by different professionals, SEO and SEM initiatives should be coordinated to fully leverage the synergies between them.