How much does an SEO consultant cost?

Audits and projects are a fixed fee agreed before anything starts, and ongoing work is a monthly fee based on the scope we agree. Pricing follows the size of the site and how much of the implementation I take on, never the hour. Tell me what the site is and what you need, and you will have a figure early rather than after three calls.

How long before SEO shows results?

Technical fixes that change what gets indexed can show in Search Console within two to six weeks. Work that depends on new content or earned authority usually takes several months. If someone promises to move a competitive commercial term in thirty days, ask what they intend to change.

Do you implement changes or only advise?

Both, and it is agreed per engagement. I can make the changes myself in the CMS, markup, structured data, content and on-page elements, give your developers and writers precise instructions, or split the work between us. What matters is that the recommendations actually go live.

Do you work alongside an existing agency or in-house team?

Often. I can lead the strategy while your team executes, take on the parts they do not cover, or work hands-on alongside them. Every recommendation has a clear owner so nothing sits unowned.

Do you do link building?

Yes, as part of the strategy rather than as a package. Outreach is planned from relevant, quality-checked sources, alongside the content that deserves the links. I never buy links by volume.

What do you need from us to start?

Read access to Search Console and analytics, and someone who can answer questions about the business and the platform. If I am implementing changes, access to the CMS or the relevant tools; if your team is, a contact who owns the work.

Services

SEO work that names the problem before it names the fix.

8 areas and three ways of working. In practice the areas overlap: a strategy that ignores a broken indexation setup will not produce results, and a technical audit that ignores what the business sells will optimise the wrong pages very thoroughly. Each service has its own page with the workflow and the results it can bring.

How the three engagements differ.

Technical SEO

Crawlability, indexation, site architecture, speed and everything between the server and the search result.

Most sites that underperform are not losing to better content. They are losing to duplicate URLs, crawl budget spent on parameters, pagination that hides half the catalogue, slow templates, or a rendering setup search engines quietly disagree with. I find the mechanism and fix it, either hands-on or with a precise specification for your team.

Typically includes

Crawl, index and log analysis
Indexation and canonicalization
Redirects and migrations
Site architecture and URL design
Core Web Vitals diagnosis and fixes
Structured data implementation

See the Technical SEO workflow How this worked on a large listing site

SEO Strategy

Where the opportunity actually is, what it is worth, and the order in which to go after it.

A keyword list is not a strategy. The useful work is deciding which searches are winnable at your current authority, which pages should exist to serve them, and what has to be true before any of it pays off. The output is a roadmap with a sequence and a reason attached to each step.

Typically includes

Keyword research and clustering
Competitor and SERP analysis
Search demand and value analysis
Page architecture and content map
Prioritised SEO roadmap

See the SEO Strategy workflow How a strategy took a site to 1,000+ top-three rankings

Content & On-Page SEO

Content strategy, information architecture and pages that match what the search actually wants.

On-page work decides whether a page is understood and whether it deserves to rank. That means the right page targeting the right intent, content that covers what the ranking pages cover and what they miss, headings that describe real structure, and an internal link graph that puts authority where it earns something.

Typically includes

Content audit and inventory
Hub-and-spoke content architecture
Content briefs and writing
Titles, headings and metadata
Internal linking strategy

See the Content & On-Page SEO workflow How content and structure grew rankings tenfold

AI Search Optimization

Visibility inside Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and the answers that replace a click.

AI answers are assembled from sources, and those sources are selected on the same signals that have always mattered: clear entities, structured information, trusted third-party mentions and pages that answer the question directly. I measure where a brand is and is not cited, and identify the pages and sources that close the gap.

Typically includes

AI citation and visibility measurement
Competitor share of voice
Source and listing strategy
Entity and structured data work
Answer-first content structure

See the AI Search Optimization workflow How AI visibility was measured across four assistants

E-commerce SEO

Category and product architecture, faceted navigation, product data and the templates that decide a whole catalogue.

E-commerce sites win or lose at template level. Filters that create thousands of near-duplicate URLs, category pages with no reason to rank, missing product and review data, and thin product pages copied from the manufacturer all multiply across the catalogue. Fixing the template fixes every page built on it.

Typically includes

Category and faceted navigation architecture
Product and category template optimisation
Product, offer and review structured data
Duplicate and thin content fixes
Internal linking across the catalogue

See the E-commerce SEO workflow How template fixes lifted thousands of pages at once

Authority & Link Building

Links and mentions earned from sites that matter in your market, planned as part of the strategy.

Competitors' link profiles show which sites will link to a business like yours, but most of what competitors have is not worth copying. I build outreach lists from sources that pass a quality check, and plan the authority work alongside the content that needs it, not as a separate package.

Typically includes

Backlink profile and gap analysis
Quality-checked outreach target list
Outreach planning and supervision
Linkable asset recommendations
Trust and E-E-A-T signals

See the Authority & Link Building workflow How authority was built alongside content

SEO Audits

A diagnosis with a ranked list of what to change, not a 200-issue export nobody will act on.

An audit is only worth what gets implemented. Mine separate the findings that can move search visibility from the ones that merely appear in a crawler. Each item states the evidence, the priority, and whether I implement it or your team does.

Typically includes

Technical and on-page audit
Content and search visibility review
Competitive benchmarking
AI search visibility check
Prioritised action plan
Implementation or handover session

See the SEO Audits workflow What a two-month audit and fix delivered

Local & International SEO

Location pages that deserve to exist, and multi-market sites that do not compete with themselves.

Geographic SEO fails in two familiar ways: near-duplicate location pages that read as templates, and international sites where hreflang, canonicals and market targeting contradict each other. Both are architecture problems before they are content problems.

Typically includes

Google Business Profile optimisation
Location page architecture
hreflang and international targeting
Market and domain structure decisions
Multi-market content planning

See the Local & International SEO workflow How country-by-country pages ranked

Engagements

How the work is structured.

Three shapes, and most engagements start with the first. In each one we agree up front whether I implement the work, your team does, or we split it. Fees follow the scope and are agreed in writing before anything begins.

SEO audit and strategy

Start here

Fixed fee · agreed up front

A diagnosis and a plan, ranked, with the evidence behind each item.

The usual starting point. Technical, content, keyword, competitor, authority and AI search analysis merged into one action plan ordered by impact. Then we decide together who implements what: me, your team, or both.

Technical and content analysis at page level
Keyword, competitor and AI search research
One prioritised action plan
Implementation by me, or a handover session with your team

Ongoing SEO

Monthly · scope agreed together

Hands-on SEO, guidance, or a mix of both, month to month.

For businesses that want SEO run continuously. Depending on what we agree, I implement the changes myself, direct your developers and writers, or combine the two, with measurement and a clear plan for what comes next.

A roadmap maintained rather than delivered once
Hands-on implementation where agreed
Guidance and review for your team where they execute
Rankings, traffic and AI citation tracking
Direct access, not a ticket queue

Scoped project

Scoped and quoted per project

One defined problem with an end date.

A migration or redesign, a traffic drop, an international rollout, a content programme, a structured data implementation or an AI visibility study. Scoped and quoted once the problem is understood, which usually takes one conversation.

Migration planning, or recovery after one
Traffic and ranking loss diagnosis
Architecture and URL design
Content or AI search programmes
Structured data implementation

Common questions

The questions that decide an engagement.

Answered here rather than on a call, because the answers do not change depending on who is asking.

How much does an SEO consultant cost?: Audits and projects are a fixed fee agreed before anything starts, and ongoing work is a monthly fee based on the scope we agree. Pricing follows the size of the site and how much of the implementation I take on, never the hour. Tell me what the site is and what you need, and you will have a figure early rather than after three calls.
How long before SEO shows results?: Technical fixes that change what gets indexed can show in Search Console within two to six weeks. Work that depends on new content or earned authority usually takes several months. If someone promises to move a competitive commercial term in thirty days, ask what they intend to change.
Do you implement changes or only advise?: Both, and it is agreed per engagement. I can make the changes myself in the CMS, markup, structured data, content and on-page elements, give your developers and writers precise instructions, or split the work between us. What matters is that the recommendations actually go live.
Do you work alongside an existing agency or in-house team?: Often. I can lead the strategy while your team executes, take on the parts they do not cover, or work hands-on alongside them. Every recommendation has a clear owner so nothing sits unowned.
Do you do link building?: Yes, as part of the strategy rather than as a package. Outreach is planned from relevant, quality-checked sources, alongside the content that deserves the links. I never buy links by volume.
What do you need from us to start?: Read access to Search Console and analytics, and someone who can answer questions about the business and the platform. If I am implementing changes, access to the CMS or the relevant tools; if your team is, a contact who owns the work.

What any of this looks like in practice is easier to see in the case studies, or in the detail of how I work.

Not sure which of these you need?

That is a normal place to start. Describe the symptom — traffic that dropped, pages that will not index, a category you cannot break into — and I will tell you which kind of work it calls for, and what it would cost.

Discuss Your Project

Or email directly

hello@ivanseo.com