On an average, the Google search index caches over 130 trillion web pages (which is constantly growing), but only a few websites or pages rank on the search engine result pages. Among these, only 10-12 results rank on the first page of Google for a particular search query. But what if you rank on the second page of the Google search results; you will be surprised to know that only 0.78% of internet users click on the results that appear on the second page. More than 75% of users’ searches ended on the first page, and 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google. We are presenting these stats because we want to inform you that all the competition is for ranking on the first page. With various SEO optimization strategies, an SEO consultant can help you fix SEO mistakes and help improve website ranking on the SERPs.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most challenging jobs for most website owners. With knowledge and required expertise in the field of search engine optimization, SEO consultants can effectively optimize SEO campaigns for their clients in order to rank them on top of SERPs. In this blog, we will discuss the role & responsibilities of an SEO consultant and describe some tips on how you can become a professional SEO consultant and help others make their digital marketing campaign profitable by using your SEO skills.
What is the work of an SEO consultant?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process or practice of improving your website and its content in order to rank at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO is an ongoing process as Google or other search engines regularly update their search algorithm; therefore, you also have to optimize your SEO campaign to stay in the competition. Mainly SEO is of three types on-page SEO, off-site SEO, and technical SEO.
An SEO consultant can be an SEO expert or SEO specialist who deals with optimization strategies and provides SEO consulting services. An SEO consultant may be a person or company with SEO skills & expertise in SEO optimization offering various SEO services for their clients. These clients may be a website owner, startup, any business, brand, or company that wants to rank in the search results for their business-specific query.
An SEO consultant can work for a company or have a separate team that provides services for SEO campaigns. Like other professions, SEO consultants also have many pros and cons associated with their job. You can freely choose your clients and projects to work with, but at the same time, you have many responsibilities for the client’s SEO campaign. An SEO consultant or advisor can work freely with clients and with their team. They can actively work with a company as a support team and can work on boosting the company’s appearance across search engines. Here we will discuss both SEO consultants as an agency and individual SEO experts.
How important is SEO for businesses and what is the role of an SEO consultant?
With the help of the stats above, you can easily conclude that optimizing your website is a crucial part of SEO strategy to rank on the first page of Google. Ranking top on the SERPs can help you get more traffic on your website, and this leads to more organic clicks on your website, which increases your organic click-through rate. This ultimately enables you to achieve your website’s goals and get potential customers, which is the primary motive of most website owners.
Hiring an SEO consulting agency can boost your SEO strategy and save valuable time and effort, which can be used to improve the primary business model. Apart from these, many businesses cannot afford their own SEO team and resources. There are also chances that they do not have enough time to invest in SEO campaigns, or there may be financial barriers. By adjusting to clients’ requirements, you can create an urgency for the companies to hire an SEO consultant. As an SEO consulting service provider, you have to be ready to take up the responsibility for the success of the client’s SEO campaign and try to improve it if not going well.
How to become a great SEO consultant?
So far, we have discussed SEO consulting and the role & responsibilities associated with the SEO consultant. Now we are going to discuss some of the points that are essential for becoming a good SEO consultant apart from having good SEO skills and knowledge. We have divided this into two sections: technical skills and business skills for the reader’s convenience.
Technical skills
- Build your website – The first thing you have to do before starting your journey as an SEO consultant is to create your website, which has complete details of your SEO agency, the services you offer, your specialty, etc. You should highlight your skills and expertise on the website in accordance with clients’ needs to get recognition among SEO consulting agencies. This website is your first point of contact where clients reach you and opt for the services if they connect with it.
- Focus on promotion and marketing – As an SEO consultant, you must know the importance of branding and promotion in the world of digital marketing. You have to work on your website to rank in the SERPs, but despite this, you also need digital advertising for your newly created SEO agency. It can be a PPC campaign, content marketing campaign, and social media marketing but never leave any chance of personal branding. A client’s growth is indeed associated with your growth and vice versa. You should also be aware of your competitors in the market so that you can produce better than your competitors, which can be achieved with competitor analysis.
- Clear knowledge of Google products and services – Google dominates the search engine market with a 92% contribution worldwide, which includes 72% of the desktop and 92% of the mobile search engine market. Thus it becomes critical for any SEO consulting agency or SEO expert to know about the various Google products like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, etc., which are very helpful in building SEO strategy & campaigns and creating reports.
- Modernized with the recent SEO updates and Google algorithmic changes – As we discussed earlier, SEO is an ongoing process. Google and other search engines always roll out new updates and features to provide users with the most relevant and accurate information. Google’s ranking algorithm gets updated from time to time in order to enhance user experience. As an SEO specialist, if you do not track recent SEO updates and changes, you will not be able to live up to the client’s expectations.
- Building SEO campaigns and framing SEO plans & strategies – A consultant should be an SEO expert in creating effective plans & strategies and building campaigns for their clients. Lead generation, quality content on the website, increased number of website visitors, making user experience, link building, fast page loading speed, crawl depth, etc., all are parts of an effective SEO strategy that needs to be optimized for a better outcome.
- Grow your network – SEO is a field where you have to keep learning and have the ability to grasp new things and experiment with them. For this, you must be well connected with people with similar interests or who are doing well in your field. Be active on social media, join groups of people who work in your field, and follow the SEO experts so that you get new ideas regularly. Grow your community so that you can always seek help from SEO specialists in case you are stuck at any point.
Business skills
- Be patient – Patience is key. You have to keep patience as SEO is a systematic process. Suddenly, you cannot get results for the efforts you put into optimizing the SEO campaign of your clients. In addition to these, as an SEO specialist, you must be more patient because you can only deal with clients and answer their questions. Working as an SEO consultant can be stressful as you have to be answerable to any irregularities in the campaign. Thus, managing stress and having a motivational nature is the requirement of your job.
- Financial and legal knowledge – SEO is one of the most vital factors for running a successful online business. Thus companies frame an SEO marketing campaign to gain high visibility across SERPs. But this does not mean that you spend your whole budget on SEO marketing. As an SEO consulting agency or service provider, you must tell your clients how much they should invest in executing SEO plans. You have the proper overall financial knowledge to manage your client’s budget and suggest tips and tricks gain maximum benefits in less investment, which is a higher return on investment (ROI). Every country or location has its own rules and regulations. As you are providing SEO consulting services to numerous clients, then you should have a good knowledge of the laws regarding your business to tackle any unexpected legal situations. Also, define your own rules & policies and follow them strictly so that you can save yourself and your clients from any legal problems.
- Ability to negotiate and market understanding – Proper understanding of the market regarding new technologies, news, pricing, competitors, and SEO specialists is vital as these analyses help you to define your services and features. Knowledge of the current market conditions is mandatory because you can only negotiate with your clients on financial matters, time issues, or any unexpected situations. But do not try to cheat your clients at any cost because honesty has unique benefits.
- Time management skills – As an SEO expert or SEO agency, managing your precious time to meet deadlines is the most fundamental factor that decides whether you will succeed in your business. You have to focus on and answer multiple clients, so if you are not managing your time, you cannot deal with all clients, which leads to an unsatisfied customer experience. Even you might come across situations where you have to deliver work before the emergency time; thus, you are advised to prepare a plan & strategy to deal with such emergency situations. Keep flexibility in your work and time and be ready to handle pressure as these are part of your profession.
- Communicate with clients – Any communication gap or miscommunication between you and your clients can ruin your hard work and clients’ SEO marketing campaign; thus, communicating with clients regularly is necessary to optimize SEO campaigns. Always contact clients and share every small detail related to their business and keep your working process transparent with clients to gain their trust and avoid working on assumptions. At the same time, you should also listen to the client’s queries and their business goals. Then, only you can point out necessary suggestions and focus on their weak areas.
Conclusion
SEO consultant is an admirable profession and full of opportunities. SEO is such a concept that many business owners do not understand or do not have enough time to spend building SEO marketing campaigns. Like every profession, becoming an SEO consultant also has some pros and some cons discussed above. You must quickly interact and set in the new environment to work with new people regardless of their location, experience, knowledge, etc. But the main focus of the SEO services provider is adding new skills and expanding their area of service, which can be SEO audit services, plan & strategy services, copywriting services, content marketing services, etc. Keep your learning mode on and identify, target & solve the problems in the market with your new ideas.