SEO consulting is a lot like fishing. Just because a tactic worked in one part of the river doesn’t mean it’ll work in a lake or the ocean, or even a mile further up that same river. And what worked last year doesn’t necessarily work this year. Guide Matt Carter (left) and me on the Lower Deschutes in June 2023.
The following is an outline of the typical process I go through with our clients, along with a rough estimate of how long each phase takes. In some situations, I’ll eliminate one or more of these steps–it depends on what the client has done already, and what the goals of the engagement are. For example, penalty recovery projects will often skip most of these phases.
Note that I have additional a la carte ongoing services available. Learn more.
When I begin the engagement with the client, I go through and re-estimate each of the phases based on the client’s needs and the size and complexity of their website or websites. Usually, this results in a much smaller estimate–the estimates below should be considered upper boundaries.
Phase 0: Understanding the Client
This is a detailed discussion or email survey on client’s existing business, internet strategies to date, successes/failures, etc. I have a client survey that I will either go through over the phone with the client, or email to the client to have them answer. The goal is to get a good, solid understanding of the client’s business, as well as what’s been done so far, and what the current state is of their internet marketing.
ESTIMATE: 1 hour conference call (billable), or if you prefer, you can just fill out my survey (free).
Phase 1: Keyword Research
I go through keyword idea generation brainstorming with the client; keyword idea generation from looking at competitors; keyword volume measurements via Moz’s keyword tool, and other tools, depending on the situation.
For each keyword, I assess the relevance to client’s offerings, i.e. what percent of searchers are really potential customers; assess types of results on page 1 of Google today (organic, local universal, local, shopping, news, image, video, etc.); find most likely opportunities for displacing one of the existing page 1 results with the client’s site, based on types of results, link metrics, review count, etc.
For many clients and some keywords, I also offer topical analysis, where I am looking at what other terms and subtopics for a given topic appear to be needed in your content in order to be a full and first-rate discussion of the topic on the page. This has become important for highly competitive terms. Topical analysis takes an hour or two per topic, so the cost here depends entirely on how many pages the client wishes to have us analyze.
ESTIMATE: 1 to 2 hours (without topical analysis)
Phase 2: Best Practices Site Audit
This is a checklist-based site audit, and looks at website configuration, overall navigation, existing backlinks, broken links, etc.
ESTIMATE: 1 to 2 hours
Phase 3: On-Page SEO/GEO Tuning
For major pages and major page templates, we provide recommendations for structure, content, page titles, meta descriptions, linking, etc. Any page layout issues or duplicate content issues will be addressed in this phase. This phase can vary in cost more than the other phases–mostly dependent upon how many different page classes need to be analyzed.
ESTIMATE: 1 to 4 hours
Phase 4: Local Search Configuration
Register the business in the major local business directories that are trusted by Google. This phase is highly recommended even for businesses without potential for showing in the local search results, simply because it’s an easy way to get about a dozen trusted domains to link to you. Includes configuration of Google Business Profiles.
ESTIMATE: 30 minutes to 1 hour
Phase 5: Social Media Coaching
Social media popularity signals impact rankings in Google, and in the AI answer engines. Here, I outline the process for creating new content for social media channels, and what to post when and where, plus where and how you might promote the new content on those channels.
ESTIMATE: 30 minutes
Phase 6: Link-Building Coaching
Brainstorming session on ways to get strong, trusted links. Includes discussion of how to get these from existing business partners and clients. Includes brainstorming on content creation, contests, loyalty programs, etc.
ESTIMATE: 30 minutes
Measurable Results
Rankings are worth looking at, but it’s just one factor in the chain that makes up your ROI. The overall metric to pay attention to is sales.
The core search marketing factors that affect sales are:
- choosing the correct target keywords
- rankings for those keywords + appearance in ChatGPT and AI Overviews responses
- conversion from showing in the SERPs to clicks through to your site
- conversion from site visitors to a sale/customer acquisition
Some changes will show effects pretty quickly (Google Business Profile changes and page title changes, for instance); many changes take several months to show an impact (link-building; internal linking structure; overall content improvements; etc.).
See my monthly reporting options.