WHAT DOES AN SEO CONSULTANT DO?
As an SEO specialist I’ll be responsible for improving the visibility and ranking of your website in Search Engine results pages (SERPs). The goal is to drive more qualified organic (non-paid) traffic from Search Engines to your website by optimizing it and its content. I always pay particular attention to the content of each individual page of the site: this is often neglected or decontextualised in an attempt to achieve visibility of overly generic keywords that often do not generate conversions for the customer.
After conducting an SEO audit, categorizing issues into high, medium, and low priority based on their impact on the website’s performance, I will follow a series of steps to implement improvements based on the audit’s findings.
Typical checkpoints of an SEO project are: keywords research, on-page optimization, content improvements, off-page strategy, technical SEO enhancements, monitoring, testing, reporting.
HOW LONG DOES SEO TAKE?
This is the most recurring question from those who ask me for a quote, and rightly so. The answer is the most irritating: it depends. The explanation for this answer lies in a number of factors that must be taken into account at the beginning of the SEO project: the main ones are the competitiveness of the business industry in which the client operates and the outcome of the SEO Audit, which reports on the number and level of the critical issues to be resolved on the site.
It’s important to distinguish between the immediate boost from initial optimizations and the long-term growth from ongoing efforts. While the first improvements are noticeable, it’s the continuous SEO work that truly matters. You can leverage those early gains to build momentum and keep growing in the online world.
Please be aware of the fact that SEO is not a one-time task, so as a SEO consultant I will continue to monitor performance, make adjustments, and stay updated on industry trends to ensure your website remains competitive.
KEYWORD RESEARCH
Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing the words and phrases your potential customers are using in search engines when looking for products or services like yours. This task helps us identify the most relevant terms that people are actively searching for, so we can target them in your website content.
By focusing on the right keywords, we can drive more qualified traffic to your site, improve your search rankings, and increase visibility for the specific services or products you offer. Essentially, it’s about understanding your audience’s language and ensuring your website speaks it.
ON PAGE OPTIMIZATION
On-page optimization is all about improving the individual pages of your website so they rank higher in Search Engines and attract more relevant traffic. This involves adjusting key elements like:
CONTENT IMPROVEMENTS
Content improvements in an SEO project focus on enhancing the quality and relevance of the information on your website to attract more visitors and rank higher in search results. This involves aligning content with search intent, refreshing outdated content, enhancing readability, incorporating keywords naturally, creating valuable and engaging content.
OFF-PAGE STRATEGY
An off-page strategy in SEO focuses on activities outside of your website that help improve its authority and rankings. The key part of this is building backlinks, which are links from other reputable websites to yours (Search Engines see these as a vote of confidence, signaling that your site is trustworthy and valuable) but an important role is also played by social signals, brand mentions, collaborations and partnerships.
TECHNICAL SEO ENHANCEMENTS
Technical SEO enhancements involve optimizing specific elements of your website to ensure it runs smoothly, loads quickly, and is easily crawled by Search Engines’ spiders. This is essential for improving your site’s rankings and providing a better user experience.
MONITORING
Regularly checking key metrics such as keyword rankings, user behavior, website traffic, backlink profile, site speed and mobile performance, are the main tasks that every SEO Specialist perform when in charge of a SEO project.
TESTING
Testing helps fine-tune the strategy of any SEO project, ensuring that every change made is based on what actually drives better results, leading to sustained growth and visibility. Some of the testing tasks are A/B testing (to see which one performs better in terms of conversions, user engagement, or rankings), content testing, technical testing and user experience testing.
REPORTING
Reporting in an SEO project is about providing my Clients with clear, regular updates on the progress and results of our SEO efforts. It involves collecting and presenting key data that shows how the strategies are impacting your website’s visibility and performance