SEO consultant: what they do, what they cost, how to choose the right one

What an SEO consultant does

“Consultant SEO” is searched 2,900 times a month in France, “consultant seo freelance” 880 times. Google itself describes the services that SEOs, agencies and consultants offer: a review of your site’s content or structure, technical advice (hosting, redirects, error pages, JavaScript), content development, management of online business development campaigns, keyword research, training, expertise in specific markets or regions, and now optimisation for generative AI.

For a small business, a serious engagement almost always follows the same course:

1. 1
   Audit: what stops Google from crawling, indexing and understanding the pages, and what drives visitors away.
2. 2
   Search map: your customers’ real queries, each one tied to an existing page or a page to create.
3. 3
   Technical fixes: indexing, speed, structured data, redirects, internal linking.
4. 4
   Content: rewrite the pages that sell, create the missing ones, from true facts.
5. 5
   Authority: earn deserved links and mentions, without buying any.
6. 6
   Measurement: a regular report on searches won, visits and, above all, enquiries or sales.

Do you really need one?

Google is frank on this point: if you run a small local business, you can probably handle most of the SEO yourself, starting with its starter guide. It adds that it helps to know the basics even if you hire a professional, so you can spot a discouraged technique.

According to Google, the best time to hire an SEO is when redesigning a site or launching a new one, as early as possible; but a good professional can also improve an existing site.

• You can do it yourself: Google Business Profile, Search Console, the title and H1 of your pages, a tappable phone number, review requests.
• A professional becomes useful when you need to produce pages regularly, fix complex technical issues (online shop, multilingual site, migration) or understand a traffic drop.

What drives an SEO consultant’s rates

There is no official rate and no reference scale. Services are generally sold in three forms: a one-off audit, days or hours of consulting, or a monthly retainer. The price depends mainly on the number of pages to work on, the competition in your trade and your city, the volume of content to produce and the share of technical work.

So compare deliverables, not amounts: how many pages rewritten or created per month, which technical fixes, what report, what access to your data. A quote that does not say what it delivers cannot be compared with anything.

Choosing a consultant: the questions Google recommends

Google advises interviewing the SEO and suggests the questions to ask:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share client references?
• Do you follow the Google Search Essentials?
• What results do you expect to achieve, in what timeframe, and how do you measure success?
• What is your experience in my industry, in my country or my city?
• How long have you been in business?
• How will we communicate? Will you tell me about every change you make to the site, and why?

Google adds three simple tests. Is the consultant interested in your business, your competitors and how your customers find you? If not, look for another one. Do their recommendations cite Google’s official documentation, including for the AI answer optimisation sold under the names AEO or GEO? And for an audit, give them read-only access to your Search Console only.

Finally, be wary of tools put forward as proof: Google points out that it does not evaluate or endorse any third-party SEO tool, and that none has access to its internal ranking data.

The warning signs, according to Google

Google’s page on choosing an SEO is also a list of warnings. Steer clear of:

• the promise of the top spot: nobody can guarantee it;
• a “special relationship” with Google or a priority indexing system;
• unsolicited emails announcing that your site does not appear in search engines;
• link exchanges presented as a method, or submission to “thousands of search engines”;
• a requirement to put a link to the SEO on your site;
• a refusal to explain what is being done, in the name of trade secrets.

Google reminds you that you are responsible for the actions of the contractors you hire: an SEO who creates misleading content or artificial links on your behalf can get your site demoted, or even removed from the index.

Consultant, agency or service: our offer

We are not a freelance consultant: FindMyCompany is an SEO service with a public price, designed for small businesses that want the results of ongoing support without managing a contractor. €990 excl. VAT for setup, then €499 excl. VAT a month, 3-month minimum. What is included:

• Full audit and clean-up plan (keep, merge, remove)
• Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster set up
• Instant indexing of every new page
• Pages ready for ChatGPT: answer in the first sentence, key facts, FAQ
• Your site improved every working day, every change checked
• New pages that sell every month, real sources only
• A clear monthly report: searches won, visitors, enquiries

A good freelance consultant remains the best choice for a one-off, highly technical need, a delicate migration or training your team. Google’s questions above apply to us as to any provider: we promise neither a position nor a ranking timeframe, and we show every change.