SEO Consulting Services – Senior Strategy for In-House Teams
For teams who can execute perfectly well but want a senior read on whether they are executing the right thing.
What advisory actually changes
Three stages. The value is usually in what gets stopped rather than in what gets added.
-
Your team is already working
Content is shipping, the tooling is in place, and everybody is busy.
-
Nobody can say if it is the right work
Effort is spread thinly across everything, so it is impossible to tell what is producing the results.
-
The direction gets decided
A ranked view of what matters, what to stop, and what to measure, so the same team produces more from the same effort.
Sometimes you do not want an agency running your SEO. You want someone senior to tell you what is actually wrong, what to do about it, and in what order, so your team can execute it.
That is consulting rather than delivery, and it suits a specific kind of client: one with people who can do the work but no one who knows what the work should be.
When Consulting Beats Done-For-You
- You have developers and writers already, and need direction rather than hands.
- You are about to redesign or migrate and want it not to destroy your traffic.
- Traffic dropped and nobody can explain why.
- You are paying an agency and want an independent read on whether the work is any good.
- You need to choose a platform, a structure or a strategy before committing budget.
If you would rather someone just did it, organic growth or a full overhaul is the better fit.
What Consulting Looks Like
Diagnosis
A proper look at the site, the market and the competitors, and a plain explanation of what is holding you back. Not a 60-page automated audit.
Prioritised roadmap
What to do, in what order, with effort against likely return. Most SEO plans fail because everything is listed as important.
Working with your team
Briefing developers, writers and marketers in language they can act on, and reviewing what comes back.
Migration planning
The single highest-risk moment in a site’s life. Redirect mapping, structure planning and post-launch checks so you keep what you have earned.
Second opinion
An independent review of work you are already paying for. Occasionally the answer is that your agency is doing fine, and that is a useful thing to know too.
What You Get in Writing
Advisory work is worth little if it lives only in a call recording.
A diagnosis
What is actually holding the site back, in order of impact, with the reasoning shown so your team can argue with it rather than take it on faith.
A ranked roadmap
What to do, in what order, and what to stop doing. The stop list is usually the more valuable half.
Decision criteria
How to judge the next thing, so your team does not need me for the following decision. Advisory that creates dependency is bad advisory.
What to measure
The two or three numbers that actually indicate progress for your situation, and which of your current metrics are noise.
When You Need Delivery, Not Advice
Consulting only works if somebody can act on it.
If you have no in-house capacity, a roadmap becomes a document nobody executes, and you will have paid for a plan rather than an outcome. In that situation done-for-you work is the correct purchase, whether that is a one-time overhaul or monthly work.
The test I use: is there somebody who owns organic growth as part of their job, and can they ship a change within a fortnight of deciding to? If yes, consulting is the higher-leverage spend, because your team knows your business better than any external ever will. If no, buy delivery.
I will ask that question on the call, and the answer sometimes means recommending you do not hire me for this.
The Honest Version: When Consulting Wastes Your Money
Every consultant will tell you when to hire them.
Almost none will tell you when not to.
So here is that part first, because it saves us both a bad engagement.
You have nobody to do the work
Consulting produces a plan. A plan needs hands.
If your team is already at capacity, or there is no team, the plan sits in a folder and you have paid for a document. I have watched this happen more than once. It is the most common way consulting money gets wasted, and it takes one honest conversation to avoid.
If that is your situation, you want someone doing the work instead.
You already know what is wrong
Some people book a call to hear a second opinion they have already formed. That is fine, and sometimes worth the money for the confidence alone. But if you can already name the problem, the fix, and the order to do it in, you do not need me. You need time.
You want someone to agree with you
This one is uncomfortable, so I will be direct about it.
Occasionally a founder wants an expert to bless a decision that has already been made. I will not do that. If I think the plan is wrong, I will say so on the call, and you will have paid for an answer you did not want to hear.
Some clients find that the most valuable hour they have bought all year. Some do not. Better you know which one you are before you book.
Who Actually Gets Value From This
Consulting lands well with a specific kind of team. Here is where it works.
In-house teams that are stuck
You have a marketer. Maybe two. They are good at their job. They have simply hit the ceiling of what anyone can work out from blog posts that contradict each other. One senior opinion unblocks months of second-guessing.
Agencies who need a specialist
You own the client and the delivery. You bring me in for the semantic and AI-search layer you do not have in-house. White label if you want. I have no interest in your client list and no plans to go around you.
Founders about to spend a lot
You are weeks away from a rebuild, a migration, or a serious content budget. One hour before that decision is worth more than a year of reporting after it. This is the highest-value call I take, and the one people book too late.
Teams who inherited a mess
Someone left. The SEO was half-done by three people with three different theories, and none of them wrote anything down. You need somebody to look at it and say what to keep, what to kill, and what to fix first.
Businesses burned by an agency
You paid for twelve months and still cannot tell what you got. I will read the reports, look at what actually changed on the site, and tell you plainly whether you were served or simply billed.
People who want to learn it
Some clients do not want a supplier at all. They want to understand this well enough to run it themselves. That is a completely legitimate use of these sessions, and I will teach rather than protect the mystery.
Why Me
Fifteen years. That is the short version.
I started in 2009. Which means I have watched three or four “everything has changed” moments arrive, get panicked about, and settle. Keyword stuffing worked, then died. Guest posting worked, then died. Now it is AI search.
That history is useful for exactly one reason: it makes me slow to chase things. When somebody tells you a tactic is essential, the only question worth asking is whether it will still be true in eighteen months. You can only answer that if you were around for the last few cycles.
And you get me. Not an account manager relaying your question to someone offshore and returning with an answer neither of them understands. The person on the call is the person who has done the work.
Pricing
What you need |
Starting at |
|---|---|
Consulting engagement |
Scoped on a call |
One-time audit & roadmap |
$999 |
Ongoing advisory |
From $199/month |
Common Questions
What do I actually receive?
A clear diagnosis, a prioritised roadmap your team can execute, and access to me while they do it. Not a PDF you never open again.
Do you work with in-house teams?
That is most of this work. Briefing your people is usually faster and cheaper than replacing them.
Will you tell me if I do not need you?
Yes. It happens on calls fairly regularly, and it costs me less than a bad engagement costs both of us.
How much of your time do I get?
Scoped to the engagement. Typically a diagnosis phase, then scheduled sessions with your team, then availability for decisions between them.
Will you review work my agency has done?
Yes, and I will tell you if it is good. A second opinion that always finds fault is not a second opinion, it is a sales pitch.
Can you help us hire?
I can tell you what to test for and which claims in an interview should worry you. Google published a framework for evaluating SEO advice that is genuinely useful here.
Want a second opinion on your roadmap?
A 20 minute call. I will tell you honestly whether your current plan is the right one.