SEO isn’t a single service, the type of SEO delivered depends on what’s happening with your website, what you’re trying to achieve and what’s already working.
Sometimes you need an ongoing SEO programme. Sometimes you just need someone to diagnose a problem, create a plan or help your existing team get things moving.
Here are some common situations where different types of SEO support can be useful.
An SEO audit is useful when you know there’s room for improvement but don’t yet know where the biggest opportunities lie.
It can look at technical SEO, content, site structure, internal linking, page performance, metadata, indexing and your current search visibility.
The outcome should be a prioritised list of actions, rather than a 100-page report nobody ever implements.
Useful when:
Sometimes the content is perfectly good, but technical problems are stopping search engines from finding, crawling or understanding it.
Technical SEO can cover everything from XML sitemaps and indexing through to redirects, canonical tags, structured data, Core Web Vitals and website architecture.
Useful when:
If lots of SEO activity is happening but nobody is quite sure why, it may be time to create a clearer strategy.
This means identifying the audiences, search terms, landing pages and content themes that actually support your business objectives, then agreeing what to prioritise.
Useful when:
Keyword research isn’t just about finding phrases with high search volumes. It helps you understand how potential customers describe their problems, what questions they ask and what they search for at different stages of the buying journey.
Useful when:
Creating more content isn’t always the answer.
Often there’s considerably more value in improving existing pages: making them more useful, adding missing expertise, answering common questions, strengthening internal links and aligning pages more closely with search intent.
Useful when:
For businesses serving particular towns, cities or regions, local SEO can be just as important as traditional organic search.
That can include optimising Google Business Profiles, location pages, reviews, local citations and locally relevant content.
Useful when:
SEO should be considered before a new website goes live, not afterwards.
Changing URLs, removing content or restructuring a website without a migration plan can quickly undo years of accumulated search visibility.
Useful when:
Typical work includes URL mapping, redirects, sitemap preparation, analytics configuration, Search Console checks and post-launch monitoring.
If organic performance suddenly declines, the first job is finding out why.
It could be technical changes, lost rankings, removed content, broken redirects, algorithm changes, increased competition or simply something accidentally preventing search engines from accessing the site.
Useful when:
SEO is rarely completely “finished”.
Competitors change, websites grow, search behaviour evolves and new opportunities emerge. Ongoing support allows you to keep improving rather than waiting until there’s a problem.
That doesn’t necessarily mean a large monthly retainer. For many businesses, a focused day or two each month can be enough to review performance, prioritise opportunities and keep activity moving.
Sometimes the best SEO support isn’t doing the work for you, but helping your team understand how to do more of it themselves.
SEO training can be tailored around your website, your CMS and the people actually responsible for creating or managing content. That might include keyword research, on-page optimisation, internal linking, writing for search, Google Search Console or understanding what good SEO looks like before publishing.
Useful when:
SEO reporting should do more than show rankings and traffic. It should help you understand what’s changing, what’s driving results and where to focus next.
Useful when:
Good reporting should turn data into clear actions, not just another dashboard.
Not every business needs an SEO agency or an ongoing retainer.
You may already have developers, marketers, copywriters or an internal team capable of doing the work. In that situation, an independent SEO consultant can provide an outside perspective, help prioritise activity and make sure everyone is working towards the same objectives.
Useful when:
The important thing is choosing the type and level of SEO support that matches the situation, rather than buying a standard package simply because it’s labelled “SEO”.
If you’re not sure what type of SEO help you need, I’m happy to take a look.
Get in touch to discuss what would be most useful for your website.