# What Does an SEO Consultant Do Day to Day? > What an SEO consultant does day to day: diagnosis, technical fixes, content planning, local work, reporting and communication, with a realistic weekly rhythm. URL: https://seoconsultantlondon.online/guides/what-does-an-seo-consultant-do/ Updated: 2026-10-24 ## Quick answer An SEO consultant diagnoses why a website is not found by the right customers, then prioritises and guides the fixes. Daily work mixes crawling and indexing checks, content and intent planning, internal linking, local profile work, developer briefs and reporting that ties organic search to enquiries and revenue. ## Key takeaways - An SEO consultant's core job is diagnosis and prioritisation: finding what stops the right people reaching your site and ranking the fixes by impact. - Most of the day is analysis, communication and briefing, not typing keywords into pages. - Work splits across technical health, content and search intent, site structure, local presence, authority and measurement. - A consultant advises and guides; developers, writers and designers usually make the changes, so collaboration is half the role. - Good consultants report outcomes such as qualified enquiries and sales, and are open about what the data cannot prove. ## What is an SEO consultant, in plain terms? An SEO consultant is a specialist who helps a business get found in search engines by the right people. SEO stands for search engine optimisation, the practice of making a website easier for search engines to find, understand and present, and more useful to the people who arrive. The word "consultant" matters. It signals advice, diagnosis and direction rather than bulk production. A consultant looks at your situation, decides what is holding you back, and sets out what to do about it, in what order and why. ### How does Google describe the work? [Google's SEO Starter Guide](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide) explains that search engine optimisation is about helping search engines understand your content and helping users decide whether to visit your site. The guide, last updated on 10 December 2025, covers how Google Search works, how long results take, how to help Google find content, how to organise a site, how to make content useful and how to promote it. Those headings are a good map of the consultant's job. Almost everything an SEO consultant does falls under one of them. #### Why the starter guide is worth reading first It is written by Google, it is free and it separates what matters from what does not. It also lists things Google believes you should not focus on, which protects you from some popular myths. ### What is the consultant not? An SEO consultant is not a guarantee of rankings, an advertising buyer or a developer, although they work alongside all three. They do not control Google, and a credible consultant says so. They influence the odds by improving what you can control: your site, your content, your reputation and your measurement. Understanding the boundaries makes the daily work easier to follow, because you can see which tasks belong to the consultant and which belong to others. ## What does the first week with a new client look like? The first week is mostly listening and looking. A consultant cannot prioritise fixes before understanding the business, so early days are spent gathering context and data. Expect questions about your customers, your services, your margins and your sales process, alongside requests for access to analytics and Search Console. ### How does a consultant learn the business? They start with a discovery call or workshop. The aim is to understand which services make money, which customers are most valuable, where you operate, who your competitors are and what you have tried before. Without that, SEO effort can drift toward traffic that does not matter. They will also ask about constraints: budget, developer time, brand rules, legal or regulatory limits and the approval process for content. Constraints shape what is possible in the first months. #### What a consultant needs from you Access to Search Console and analytics, a list of priority services and locations, past reports or agency work, a named person who can make decisions, and a developer contact. Having these ready saves days. ### What data do they collect first? The consultant pulls performance data from Google Search Console, traffic and conversion data from analytics, and a full crawl of the site using a crawler such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb. They also review the search results for your main terms to see what Google rewards and who competes. The crawl shows how the site is built. Search Console shows how Google sees it. Analytics shows what visitors do. Together they reveal gaps between what you think is happening and what is. #### Why baselines matter Recording the starting position of traffic, enquiries, indexed pages and key rankings makes later results measurable. Without a baseline, improvement is an opinion. ## What does a consultant do on technical SEO? Technical SEO ensures that search engines can reach, read and index your pages. It is often the first area of work because a technical fault can limit everything else. A consultant spends a meaningful share of time here during an audit and then returns to it after releases and migrations. ### How do they check crawling and indexing? They compare what exists on the site with what Google has indexed. In Search Console, the page indexing report shows which URLs are indexed and which are excluded, with reasons such as "crawled, currently not indexed" or "blocked by robots.txt". The consultant investigates why important pages are missing and why unimportant pages are present. They also check robots.txt, XML sitemaps, canonical tags, redirects, status codes and internal links, since each affects how Google discovers and chooses pages. The difference between [crawling versus indexing](/guides/crawling-vs-indexing/) matters here, because a page can be fetched without ever being stored. #### What a typical technical finding looks like A service page might be canonicalised to a different URL by accident, causing Google to ignore it. The fix is small, but finding it needs systematic checking. ### What do they do about speed and rendering? Consultants review Core Web Vitals, which measure loading, interactivity and visual stability, and check that important content is visible to search engines when JavaScript is used. They rarely fix these issues themselves. Instead they identify the cause, estimate the impact and write a clear brief for developers. A good brief names the URL or template, shows the evidence, explains the expected benefit and defines how success will be checked. Poor briefs are one of the main reasons technical SEO stalls. #### Why developer briefs are a core skill A brief that a developer can act on without a meeting is a deliverable worth paying for. It turns analysis into change. ## What does a consultant do on content and search intent? Content work answers a simple question: for each thing your customers search for, do you have the right page, and is it good enough? The consultant spends a large part of the week on this because content is where most commercial opportunity lies. The work centres on search intent, meaning what a searcher is trying to do, which determines the kind of page that should rank. ### How do they plan topics and pages? They map keywords and questions to pages, grouping searches by the task behind them. A search such as "SEO audit cost" suggests a buyer comparing prices, while "how to run an SEO audit" suggests a learner. Each deserves a different page. The output is a plan that assigns one clear page to each intent, flags gaps, flags overlaps and sets a priority order. The method for [mapping keywords to URLs](/guides/keyword-intent-mapping/) works by giving each search intent exactly one page. #### What a content brief contains The target query and intent, the main questions to answer, the structure, the facts or sources to include, the internal links, the call to action and notes on tone. A writer can start from a good brief without further explanation. ### How do they handle existing content? Many sites already have pages that overlap, age or underperform. The consultant reviews what exists and decides whether to refresh, merge, redirect or remove each page. This often produces better results than publishing more. They also look for keyword cannibalisation, where several pages compete for the same search, and decide which page should win. The [guide to content refresh and consolidation](/guides/content-refresh-consolidation/) covers the decision process. #### Why quality and helpfulness matter Google's guidance emphasises creating content that is helpful and reliable and written for people. A consultant checks pages against that standard: does it answer the question, show real experience and make the next step clear? ## What does a consultant do on site structure and internal links? Site structure decides how authority and attention flow through a site. Even good pages struggle if nothing links to them or if the structure confuses both users and search engines. This is quieter work than content or technical fixes, but it often produces strong returns. ### How do they review architecture? They map the site's hierarchy, check how many clicks it takes to reach important pages and look for orphan pages with no internal links. They also look at navigation labels, breadcrumbs and category structure, asking whether a visitor and a crawler can understand what the site offers. A common outcome is a plan to group services into clear hubs, link supporting guides to those hubs and remove clutter that dilutes focus. Good [website architecture and internal links](/guides/website-architecture-internal-links/) make that structure visible to both users and crawlers. #### What good internal links look like Descriptive anchor text, placed where the reader would naturally want the next step, pointing to the most useful page. They help users first and search engines as a result. ### How do they connect pages to business goals? The consultant makes sure the pages that earn money get the most support. A service page that drives enquiries should be easy to reach from the homepage, linked from related guides and free of competing pages. This turns structure into a commercial decision rather than a technical one. ## What does a consultant do on local and offline signals? For businesses that serve a place, local search is often the highest-return channel. The consultant's work extends beyond the website to the business's presence on Google and elsewhere. This is where London businesses can gain or lose most, because competition for local map results is intense. ### What is involved in local SEO? The core assets are the Google Business Profile, the local landing pages, the business information across the web and customer reviews. The consultant checks that categories, services, hours and descriptions are accurate, that the website supports the same information and that listings elsewhere agree. They also advise on getting reviews in line with Google's policies and on responding to them. A [local SEO checklist for London businesses](/guides/local-seo-checklist-london/) puts the work in a sensible order. #### What a consultant avoids in local work Fake reviews, keyword-stuffed business names and addresses where the business is not present. These risk suspension and damage trust. ### How do they handle reputation and authority? Search engines look at signals that show a business is known and trusted. The consultant helps identify genuine opportunities: mentions in industry press, partnerships, professional associations and useful assets that others want to cite. This is sometimes called digital PR. They do not buy links or run link schemes, which Google's spam policies prohibit. Authority is earned slowly, and the consultant's job is to point effort at what is both legitimate and likely to matter. ## What does a consultant do on measurement and reporting? Measurement closes the loop. Without it, nobody knows whether the work is helping, and the consultant cannot learn what to repeat. Reporting is not an afterthought. It is a regular part of the weekly rhythm. ### How do they set up measurement? They check that Google Analytics 4 records the actions that matter, such as form submissions, calls and purchases, and that spam and internal traffic are filtered. They connect Search Console to give a view of queries, clicks and impressions. They also decide which metrics represent success for your business. For a service firm that is usually qualified enquiries. For a shop it is revenue. Traffic and rankings are supporting indicators. Tracking works best when [organic leads are measured in GA4](/guides/ga4-organic-lead-tracking/) with clear key events. #### Why attribution has limits Organic search often influences customers who convert later through another channel. A careful consultant states what the data can and cannot show instead of claiming every conversion. ### What goes into a regular report? A useful report includes the work completed, the results with context, what is planned next, blockers and decisions needed. It compares against the baseline and notes external factors such as seasonality or a Google update. The best reports are short enough to read and honest enough to trust. Detailed dashboards can sit behind them for those who want more. #### What a consultant does when results are flat They investigate rather than hide it. Possible causes include slow indexing, a priority that was not delivered, a competitor's move or a data problem. The report names the likely cause and the next step. ## How does a consultant work with your team? Much of the day is communication. An SEO consultant rarely works alone, because the changes that matter involve developers, writers, designers, marketers and decision makers. Skill at working across these groups often separates a useful consultant from a clever one. ### How do they work with developers? By writing clear tickets, joining planning sessions when needed and testing changes in staging before release. They aim to reduce friction: giving the developer the evidence, the expected effect and the acceptance criteria. They also advise on SEO in new builds and redesigns, where early involvement avoids costly fixes later. A site launched without redirect planning, for example, can lose rankings that take months to recover. #### What a good ticket includes The problem, the affected URLs, the desired outcome, the steps to check, the priority and the owner. One ticket per change keeps work traceable. ### How do they work with writers and marketers? They provide briefs, review drafts for intent and structure, and give feedback on titles, headings and internal links. They also help marketing teams align SEO with campaigns, launches and seasonal peaks so that content is ready when demand rises. They aim to make SEO part of normal work, not a separate project. Training and short guidelines help teams apply the basics without waiting for the consultant. ## What does a realistic week look like? The shape of a week depends on the stage of the engagement, but a pattern emerges across most projects. Seeing it laid out helps set expectations about what you are paying for. The table below shows an illustrative split for a retained consultant working with a small business. It is a typical pattern, not a fixed rule. | Activity | Share of the week | What it involves | |---|---|---| | Monitoring and analysis | 20% | Search Console, analytics, rankings and indexing checks | | Technical work and briefs | 20% | Crawls, issue diagnosis, developer tickets, testing | | Content and intent planning | 25% | Briefs, reviews, refreshes, cannibalisation checks | | Local and authority work | 10% | Profile updates, reviews, citations, outreach ideas | | Communication and meetings | 15% | Calls, updates, stakeholder questions | | Reporting and learning | 10% | Reports, documentation, keeping up with Google changes | ### How does the rhythm change over time? In the first month the balance leans toward diagnosis and planning. Months two to four lean toward delivery as fixes ship and content is produced. After that, measurement, refinement and expansion take more time as the foundations hold. A consultant who is still doing the same activities in the same proportions a year in may not be adapting to what the data shows. #### What changes after a major event A migration, redesign or Google core update shifts the week toward monitoring and recovery. Expect more frequent checks and more communication during those periods. ### How should you judge whether the time is well spent? Look at outcomes and clarity, not hours. You should know what was done, why it mattered and what comes next. If you cannot answer those three questions after a month, ask for a clearer account. The formal scope is usually set out as [SEO consulting deliverables](/seo-consulting-deliverables/) such as audits, roadmaps, briefs and dashboards. ## How do you know whether you need a consultant? Not every business needs one. Google's own guidance says small local businesses can often do much of the work themselves, starting with the SEO Starter Guide. A consultant adds most value where the problem is complex, the stakes are high or internal time is limited. Matching the need to the support avoids both under-investing and overpaying. ### When does hiring a consultant make sense? It makes sense when you are planning a migration or redesign, when traffic has fallen without a clear cause, when pages are not being indexed, when you compete in a crowded local market or when you lack the in-house skills to build a plan. It also makes sense when you want a second opinion on an agency's work. A short engagement, such as an audit and roadmap, can be enough to give an in-house team direction. #### What to try first if budget is tight Work through the SEO Starter Guide, set up Search Console and analytics, fix obvious technical and content gaps and claim your business profile. Then bring in a consultant for the parts that need expertise. ### When is it better to wait? If your site is not ready to convert visitors, because the offer is unclear or the contact route is broken, fix that first. Traffic that cannot convert is wasted. Likewise, if there is no one to implement recommendations, plan for that before paying for advice. A sensible next step is learning how to [choose an SEO consultant in London](/guides/choose-seo-consultant-london/) and how an [SEO consulting process](/seo-consulting-process/) moves from discovery to delivery. ## Which tools does an SEO consultant use every day? Tools support the work but do not replace judgement. A consultant typically relies on a small core set, chosen because each answers a distinct question, and treats the output of any single tool as a lead to investigate rather than a verdict. Knowing the toolkit also helps you judge proposals. A consultant who lists twenty subscriptions but cannot explain what each one is for may be padding the offer. ### What are the free tools from Google? Google Search Console is the most important. It shows which queries bring impressions and clicks, which pages are indexed, which have errors and how the site performs on Core Web Vitals. Because the data comes from Google, it carries more weight than estimates from third parties. Google Analytics 4 records what visitors do after they arrive: which pages they view, which actions they take and which channels brought them. Together these two tools answer the questions that matter most, which are whether Google can find the pages and whether the visits lead to results. PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse add performance diagnostics, and the URL Inspection tool in Search Console shows how Google sees a single page. #### Why you should own these accounts Search Console and analytics hold your history. If they sit under a consultant's login and the relationship ends, you can lose years of data. Create them yourself and add the consultant as a user. ### What do paid tools add? Crawlers such as Screaming Frog and Sitebulb scan a site the way a search engine would, revealing broken links, redirect chains, duplicate titles, missing canonicals and orphan pages. Suites such as Ahrefs and Semrush estimate keyword demand, competitor visibility and backlinks. Rank trackers record positions over time for chosen terms and locations. Google states that third-party tools do not have access to its internal ranking data, so their numbers are estimates produced by their own models. A careful consultant uses them to find candidates and then confirms important findings in Search Console or by direct inspection. #### How to ask about the toolkit Ask which tools the consultant uses, what each is for, which are included in the fee and which you would need to buy. A clear answer shows a considered workflow. ### Where does spreadsheet and script work fit? A great deal of consulting work happens in spreadsheets: keyword maps, redirect maps, content inventories, audit logs and priority scoring. Some consultants also use scripts or the Search Console API to analyse large sites at scale. The tool matters less than the discipline of recording decisions in a form you can read and reuse. Ask for these working documents. They are part of what you pay for, and they let your team or a future provider pick up the work without starting again. ## How does the day-to-day change by type of business? The principles stay constant, but the daily mix changes with the business. A local dentist, an online shop and a software company all need SEO, and a good consultant adjusts the work to the way each one gets customers. Seeing the differences helps you decide what to expect from your own engagement. ### What is different for a local service business? The week leans toward Google Business Profile, local landing pages, reviews and tracking of calls and direction requests. Technical work is lighter, because sites are small, but accuracy matters: consistent business details, clear service pages and a contact route that works on mobile. The consultant also watches local competitors in the map results and keeps an eye on the review profile, since both affect visibility. For London businesses, competition can differ sharply between neighbouring areas. #### What success looks like here More calls, direction requests and enquiry forms from people searching for a service near them, tracked with a clear method rather than assumed. ### What is different for an ecommerce store? The week leans toward site structure, category and product pages, faceted navigation, duplicate URLs and crawl efficiency. Large catalogues create technical complexity that small sites never meet, so a consultant spends more time on indexing control and template-level fixes. Content work focuses on category copy, buying guides and comparison pages, with product data kept accurate and structured. Reporting centres on organic revenue and the pages that drive it. Work on [ecommerce category page SEO](/guides/ecommerce-category-page-seo/) shows how this looks in detail. #### What success looks like here More organic revenue and a larger share of indexed pages that are worth indexing, with fewer wasted crawls on filter and parameter URLs. ### What is different for a software or B2B company? The week leans toward content that supports a longer buying cycle: product pages, use-case pages, comparison pages and educational guides. The consultant works closely with product and sales teams to find the questions buyers actually ask and to measure pipeline rather than raw traffic. Because sales cycles are long, reporting connects organic visits to demo requests and qualified leads, and acknowledges the delay between first visit and conversion. ## What does a consultant do when something goes wrong? Plans meet reality. A migration breaks redirects, a core update changes the results, or an enquiry form stops working without anyone noticing. Part of what you pay a consultant for is calm, structured diagnosis when this happens. Their first move is almost never to change things. It is to establish what actually happened. ### How do they diagnose a sudden drop? They check measurement first, because many apparent drops are tracking faults. Then they compare the affected pages and queries in Search Console, look for site changes in the change log, check indexing and server errors, and compare timing against known Google updates, which Google records on the Search Status Dashboard. Only when the cause is understood do they propose a fix. A consultant who reacts to every dip with a burst of changes can make a small problem larger, so patience is part of the skill. The sequence for [diagnosing an organic traffic drop](/guides/organic-traffic-drop/) starts with measurement, then indexing, then site changes. #### What to expect in the first 48 hours A short written update saying what is known, what is being checked and when the next update will arrive. Clear communication matters as much as the fix. ### How do they prevent repeat problems? After the fix, they add safeguards: monitoring for indexing and error spikes, a pre-launch SEO checklist for developers, redirect testing for site changes and a note in the change log. Prevention is cheaper than recovery, and it is one of the lasting benefits of working with someone who has seen the same fault elsewhere. Where the issue was serious, they may write a short review covering cause, impact, fix and prevention, so that the lesson stays with your team. #### Why this belongs in the day-to-day Much of a consultant's value is invisible when it works. Problems that never reach customers, because someone checked a launch before it went live, are the quiet return on the engagement. ### What do they do between crises? Most of the time, nothing dramatic happens, and the steady work compounds: improving pages that nearly rank, tidying structure, adding useful content and refining measurement. This is where the real gains accumulate, even though the work is less visible than a rescue. That steady work usually follows a structured [SEO consulting process](/seo-consulting-process/) of discovery, diagnosis, delivery and review. #### How to keep the engagement from stalling Revisit the roadmap each quarter, retire tasks that no longer matter and bring forward those that data now supports. A living plan keeps daily work aligned with outcomes. ## Frequently asked questions ### What does an SEO consultant do in a typical week? A typical week mixes checks of Search Console and analytics, review of crawl and indexing data, planning or reviewing content, writing tickets for developers, meetings with the client team and a short report. The balance shifts by stage: more diagnosis early on, more delivery and measurement later. ### Does an SEO consultant write content? Sometimes, but usually they plan it. A consultant defines which topics and pages are needed, the search intent behind each and the structure of a brief. Writers or subject experts then produce the copy. Some consultants edit or write key pages, depending on the agreement. ### Does an SEO consultant make changes on my website? It depends on the scope. Many consultants recommend changes and brief your developers, while others work directly in the content management system with your approval. Whatever the arrangement, every change should be documented, explained and reversible. ### How is an SEO consultant different from an agency? A consultant is typically one senior person who advises and directs the work, while an agency usually supplies a team that executes it. Consultants suit focused strategy and diagnosis. Agencies suit large volumes of production. Some businesses combine both. ### What skills should an SEO consultant have? Core skills include technical understanding of crawling and indexing, search intent and content strategy, analytics and Search Console, clear communication and project management. Judgement matters most: knowing which of many possible fixes will matter for your business and saying no to the rest.