Although Search Engine Optimization has been around for 20+ years, SEO hasn’t always been taught at colleges and universities. In fact, SEO has only recently been more broadly taught in universities but even in 2022 it still is not widely available.
Why is this important?
Whether you have an in-house SEO team, use an SEO vendor or have the luxury of being able to leverage both you likely can still benefit from an SEO consultant. Many search engine optimization professionals are highly skilled when it comes to performing day-to-day SEO tasks and understand how to build a long-term strategy.
However, most SEO people – not all, but most are a bit more introverted than some of our marketing peers.
SEO people are very good at communicating with other SEO’s and digital marketers because their peers understand the technical jargon they are speaking. Where SEO’s can struggle is presenting to people who might not understand SEO at their level. This can range from clients, CMO’s, the board or even the private equity firm that owns the company.
Hiring an SEO consultant can help with these communication problems whether that is being a liaison between the SEO team and leadership or personalized training a proven SEO consultant can help these tricky situations.
At the end of the day “value is perception, if your audience doesn’t feel compelled to understand then even world-class performance will go unnoticed” – Shane Hampson
Top Reasons SEO Consultants Are Hired
Communications and Validation
One of the top reasons Shane is hired as an SEO consultant is to validate and provide strategic thought leadership for in-house teams who are looking to get an SEO project approved by leadership.
SEO Consultants often times provide the necessary communication between the SEO team and non-seo leadership teams who approve budgets and projects.
In-House SEO Team’s Leverage SEO Consultants
- Bandwidth Management – enterprise businesses with in-house SEO teams often times run into bandwidth issues with their internal teams. Sometimes, it’s a simple case of too much work and not enough people but other times an SEO consultant can actually create processes, recommend tools or even restructure work streams to give everyone a more efficient day to day.
- Process Scaling – having worked at several of the top SEO companies in the world, investing a lot of money into various training programs and going to SEO conferences Shane has been able to see hundreds of different SEO methodologies and processes. As an SEO consultant, your SEO processes such as keyword research, technical audits, content strategy, website siloing, etc. all should be scalable to improve your teams efficiencies.
SEO Proposal Review
You are about to sign a contract and invest a considerable amount of money with an SEO agency. Let a professional SEO consultant who has over a decade of SEO agency experience review it with you to ensure you are setting up your business for success.
- Confirm you are making the correct decision with the SEO agency you are considering
Forensic SEO (Agency Double-Check)
One unfortunate thing that happens too often is a business will love what an SEO agency has to say during the sales process. The business will then hire said SEO agency to provide SEO services and the agency ends up not fulfilling what they said they were going to do whether intentional or not. An SEO consultant can help you determine how much of the SEO Scope of Work (SOW) was actually fulfilled. If you’re interested here is an article providing tips for picking the best SEO agency.
- Have an SEO consultant review your SEO Retainer.
- Did the SEO agency fulfill what they said they were going to do?
If you are in need of an experienced SEO consultant who will take the time to learn your business and key stakeholders instead of shooting from the hip. Please feel free to connect for a consultation.
