That of the SEO consultant , in the vast world of web marketing, represents an important figure who can make an online business leap in quality. As beautiful and functional as a website or an eCommerce can be, conversions and the 먹튀 achievement of marketing objectives are at the fore for obtaining target traffic .
A website that does not make traffic is like an iceberg adrift in the immense world of the web. In order to buy a product, or request a service, target users must first learn about it. The purpose of SEO is precisely to ensure that a project gains visibility through search engines .
A clarification: generally speaking of SEO the attention falls exclusively on Google , but some clarifications must be made. In the Western market, especially in Italy, Google occupies a completely preponderant market share among search engines. Any SEO visibility strategy cannot therefore ignore the Mountain View search engine (indeed often any strategy begins and ends with Google).
In the image below you can see the market shares of the various search engines for Italy in the last 12 months. The great power of Google is not in question at the moment ( market share over 96% ).
A different speech, however, must be made if we look at the rest of the world. In the United States, Bing ‘s market shares are more consistent (although still negligible compared to Google). However, the speech becomes interesting when we move to analyze countries such as Russia and especially China .
In Russia, Google divides its market shares about in half with the Russian engine Yandex . In China, however, the role of the search engine founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin is currently marginal. In fact, in the country of the dragon the bulk of the market shares are occupied by the “local” Baidu engine .
Having made this clarification on the fact that SEO, at least internationally , is not just Google, let’s go back to focusing on the figure of the SEO consultant. So let’s see who he is, what he does, what skills he should have and how to choose the best consultant for your business.
To learn more see also: SEO prices .
Table of Contents
Who is the SEO Consultant
The SEO consultant is the figure who plans and implements the SEO activities necessary for a website to gain visibility in organic searches on Google . The skills of the SEO consultant, strictly speaking, do not include advertising on search engines (for example Google ADS , the old AdWords).
The purpose of the SEO activities is therefore to make the customer’s site appear as high as possible in the targeted organic searches. The game for visibility is inevitably played at least on the first page of Google (it is difficult for users to “venture” to the second page, except for niches and special cases). Even on many SERPs being on the front page is not enough, as the bulk of the traffic is played in the upper part of the results .
Today SEO has changed a lot compared to the past. In the first years of Google’s dizzying growth, SEO positioning was certainly “easier”. There was much less competition and the engine was based on less refined algorithms than today. Manipulating the search results was therefore certainly easier. The first SEOs were actually developers or webmasters who, along the way, understood how the search engine worked and how to exploit its specific characteristics to their advantage.
In recent years, the debate on the “death” of SEO has raged and therefore on how effective it can still be to invest in it today. As long as search engines exist, it will always be necessary to optimize a project for them. However, today’s SEO has become more complex, crossing technical and infrastructural aspects of a web project, with elements related to marketing and human interactions.
The “perfect” SEO consultant today should therefore possess transversal skills , both technical and marketing, compensating for any gaps with the help of other figures. But let’s see what are the specific activities of an Agenzia SEO consultant .
What an SEO Consultant does
The activities carried out by the consultant are those specific to SEO positioning which, generally, are divided into two macro groups: On-Site and Off-Site activities .
On-Site SEO Activities
Among these we have:
- SEO Audit , then the complete check up of a website on the SEO side.
- Optimization of the infrastructure, code and crawling paths of the site itself. This is the activity that is typically included in the definition of technical SEO .
- Keyword Research , or the search for keywords in today’s SEO is increasingly important and concerns a much wider field than the mere use of search terms. The aspects related to the specific search intent behind each keyword are in fact increasingly preponderant.
- Content optimization , starting from the identified keywords (the so-called SEO copywriting).
- Optimization of the aspects related to the User Experience . The ways in which users interact with websites (especially from mobile devices ) also have consequences on SEO positioning. Today Google has numerous UX – related metrics and uses them to improve their SERPs. So the SEO consultant cannot ignore it when optimizing a website. To learn more, see also Core Web Vitals .
Off-Site SEO Activities
Wanting to give an immediate definition, the Off-Site SEO activities aim to increase the authority of a project, through the way in which the web interacts with it. It therefore includes:
- Link building and link earning : building or earning backlinks is an essential piece of positioning. Even today, even though SEO has changed a lot, getting to the top of Google’s results without backlinks , in competitive SERPs, is rather unlikely. The good consultant, however, also knows that today we must move wisely in the construction of effective backlink profiles, but also safe from penalties.
- Social Signs : at the time of writing, the majority SEO trend does not attribute a direct positioning value to social networks . Even if they may not directly help to grow in the ranking, social networks can have an indirect contribution. Visits, citations, excellent on-site UX metrics, are all elements that Google also uses on the SEO side. The good SEO consultant promotes and encourages all those activities that enhance the website that you would like to position.
- Other Off-Site activities : links and social networks do not exhaust the activities that can be carried out to increase the authority of a web project. Quotes, discussions in forums or question and answer sites, presence in aggregators, are all activities that in addition to being able to have positive effects on the SEO side, also increase the importance and notoriety of a brand (be it corporate, personal or otherwise gender).
The skills of an SEO consultant
What we have seen so far allows us to understand how the skills of the perfect SEO consultant are wide and varied . They range from so-called hard skills (such as computer skills) to soft skills (skills more related to human sciences). There is no “university for SEO”, generally the best SEOs come from different fields, some from the world of programming, others from that of the humanities.
But let’s see some of the skills that the SEO consultant should possess:
- Analytical skills : understanding what is wrong, especially when faced with penalties, is an element that can make a difference. Knowing how to read data and relate events (such as Google algorithm updates ) are essential skills in an SEO consultant. In this case, his role almost becomes that of a sort of “detective” of SEO optimization.
- Strategic skills : in the ultra competitive world that is today’s SEO, defining the best strategy to achieve the objectives should be the first gift of the SEO consultant. Realizing too late that you have ended up in a “lions’ den” (understood as an overly competitive niche) is certainly not a good prospect. The area where strategic skills are extremely important is certainly that of keyword research and the study of research intent.
- Technical knowledge : SEO is intimately linked to the way websites are built. The SEO consultant, even if he does not have to be a developer, must have at least basic knowledge of the rudiments of web development (HTML, CSS, Javascript , PHP).
- Marketing and editorial skills : Working well with content is a decisive aspect in today’s SEO. So the SEO consultant should have marketing and text writing skills designed for the web. Of course, SEO oriented writing is also part of this .
- Soft skills : among the skills of a good SEO consultant I would also put all those skills that are usually classified under the expression soft skills. Ability to organize work, to meet deadlines, to relate with the customer (sending a cold weekly report may often not be enough), to coordinate the work of other figures, are all skills that should not be underestimated.
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How to choose the “perfect” SEO consultant
Now that we know who he is and what he does, how do we choose the “perfect” SEO consultant? Here are some ideas to evaluate the figure to whom we will entrust the visibility of our web project (to learn more, see also: how to evaluate an SEO quote ).
- Promises : Be wary of those who promise specific placements. In SEO you cannot make promises, those who make them are either naive or crafty, therefore they are not a good consultant.
- Goals : Even if no promises can be made, the consultant must set goals. These must be clear, measurable and distributed also with specific rough times.
- Experience : SEO is not all the same, each SERP works with specific rules and approaches. Choosing the consultant based on previous experience (perhaps in the same niche of interest) is a forward-looking approach.
- Communication : This may seem minor, but ineffective communication can often be the primary cause of problems. Ask the consultant how often he will communicate and how these are essential questions for a good relationship, especially in the medium to long term.
