SEO Consultant: what it is and what it does

An SEO consultant is a professional whose mission is to accompany and advise their clients on the SEO positioning of their websites and online stores on search engines like Google. Therefore, their main function is to design the most appropriate SEO strategy to ensure that their clients achieve the best positions in search results and, by extension, better visibility to attract the maximum number of customers.

The SEO consultant is usually an external person to the client's company, preferably part of an SEO agency, and is the main person responsible for designing and planning theSEO strategy, beyond its implementation. It is usually a more strategic profile than technical, with in-depth and advanced knowledge of positioning techniques, although they are not typically accustomed to the practical implementation of these and usually take on more of a guiding role. This is why any SEO agency worth its salt combines the roles of consultant and SEO specialists.

What is the profile of an SEO consultant?

An SEO consultant, like any type of consultant, must have strong communication skills that allow them to understand the client's needs and communicate effectively with them and the SEO technicians. In short, they must specialize in team management, consulting for decision-making, always from a business perspective, and supervising the implementation of long-term optimization strategies.

On a technical level, they must have deep knowledge of web positioning combined with business strategy knowledge. They must understand the client's market, be able to research and detect opportunities, threats, and problems to offer effective and implementable diagnoses and solutions. Finally, they must accompany the entire implementation process from a guiding position.

Academically, there is no university degree specifically for becoming an SEO consultant, but in proximity, degrees in Business Administration and Management (ADE) or engineering with a specialization in web positioning would be the best options. In Spain, there is a good selection of advanced SEO master's programs.

What does an SEO consultant do on a daily basis?

The main function is to listen to the client. The consultant should immerse themselves in the workings of the company and the market and environment in which it operates. They must understand which services and products need to be positioned on Google and know the situation of their client and the competition. Applying classic strategic consulting techniques such as SWOT analyses, business canvases, scenario analysis, or benchmarking can help in this phase.

Once the consultant has a clear idea of which services and products to position, it is necessary to understand how potential clients search for them. To do this, a deep keyword study should be carried out to detect the search intent of the clients. Subsequently, the consultant will analyze how the competition ranks and agree with the company that hired them on which keywords should be worked on and prioritized.

Once the market has been analyzed, objectives have been clarified, and keywords defined, the SEO positioning strategy should be designed, the website optimization (known as SEO on-page), designing the content strategy, and a proper link-building strategy (SEO off-site) to strengthen the brand's online reputation. Normally, a technical SEO optimization expert will implement this phase, whom the consultant must guide and supervise.

Finally, the consultant must create analytics and follow-up reports on the implementation of the SEO strategy to present results to the client and refocus the positioning strategy based on new objectives and improved results. Some of the web positioning and analytics tools they typically use are Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Moz, Google Analytics, SEMrush, Looker Studio, Power BI, Keywordinsights, and other Artificial Intelligence tools.

Differences with SEO specialist or SEO expert

There are three types of SEO professionals: the expert, the technician, and the consultant. Although they are similar terms, their orientation and functions are different. An SEO expert usually works in-house, meaning directly in the client's company, being responsible for all SEO in the company. An SEO technician is a highly technical profile who typically implements the actual positioning. Finally, the SEO consultant must have a more strategic and adaptive vision, stay up to date, manage teams, and be responsible for designing and supervising the strategy to be implemented by the specialist and providing support in best practices for positioning. This is the theory, but typically in any SEO agency, you will encounter hybrid profiles combining the roles of specialist and consultant.