A good SEO consultant spends the month changing named pages on your website, fixing faults Google has flagged in your Search Console, keeping your Google Business Profile complete, and writing pages that answer the questions your customers type. Every one of those is a thing you can click on. If the monthly report cannot be turned into a list of pages changed and fixes made, with the Search Console numbers before and after, the month was billed and not worked. This article shows you what each month should contain and the five questions that find out.
What is an SEO consultant?
An SEO consultant is one person, usually self-employed, who you pay to get your business shown and chosen on Google for what you do and where you do it. SEO stands for search engine optimisation, which is the name for that work. The consultant differs from an agency in that you are buying one person's skill and attention, and from an in-house hire in that you are buying it part-time.
Plenty of people are looking for one. "seo consultant" gets 2,388 searches a month in the UK (2026 run-rate, Google Ads data), "seo expert" 908, "seo consultant uk" 445. The local versions are tiny: "seo consultant surrey" gets 16 and "seo expert surrey" 24. Owners search nationally for the person and locally for the agency, which tells you consultants are hired on reputation, not on the map. That is worth knowing, because it means the reference you take matters more than the office address.
What is a retainer that does nothing costing you?
A worked example, labelled as an example, for a podiatry clinic in Weybridge. The job values are verified: a podiatry visit is £50 to £148, and patients rebook every six to eight weeks, so a new patient is worth a year of visits, not one fee.
Say the clinic pays a consultant for six months and nothing changes, when a working consultant would have put the clinic in front of two more new patients a month from month three. Say each new patient stays a year and visits six times at the low end.
Months 3 to 6 = 4 months x 2 patients = 8 patients missed 8 x 6 visits x £50 = £2,400 (low end) 8 x 8 visits x £148 = £9,472 (high end) Plus six months of fees for the work not done
The fees are the smaller loss. The larger loss is the patients who went to the clinic that did the work, and they rebook there for a year. That is why checking the work monthly, not at the end of the contract, is the whole point of this article.
What the data says about who you are hiring (13 October 2026)
Consultants sit alongside agencies in the map pack. Search "seo agency" from Shepperton today and the ninth listing is a named individual, Lukasz Zelezny in Chertsey, with 4.9 stars and 83 reviews, among firms from Whitton, Kingston, Weybridge, London and Sheffield. One person with reviews can hold a place next to a company with a team. That is the shape of the market: skill and proof, not headcount.
The same pull shows what the map pack rewards. From Guildford, the "seo agency" search puts a listing with zero reviews at position three and a firm with 141 reviews at four. Category, address and the match to the words typed matter as much as reviews. When a consultant explains to you how they will move your map pack position, those are the three things they should name. If they only say "reviews", they have not looked.
What should each month contain?
This is what a working consultant does, in the order it should happen for a local business. The timings are what to expect, not promises; how long SEO takes explains why.
| Month | What good work looks like | What you should be able to see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gets access to Search Console and the Business Profile (in your accounts, not theirs). Records the baseline. Audits index status and the searches you are shown for but not clicked. Fixes the technical faults that stop pages being indexed. | A baseline document with your numbers. A list of fixes made. The not-indexed count in Search Console starting to fall. |
| 2 | Rewrites the pages that are shown and not clicked. Completes the profile: category, services, photos. Sets up a review routine with you. | Named pages changed, with before and after. Profile with nothing left to add. Review link in your hands. |
| 3 | Writes the missing town and service pages. Cuts or merges the pages earning nothing. First comparison against baseline. | New pages live. Dead pages gone. A report showing impressions and clicks against month one. |
| 4 to 6 | Writes one answer-first article a month on a real customer question. Earns links only where a page deserves one. Checks the map pack from your customer's town each month. | Articles live. Map pack position from a named town, each month. Calls and enquiries in the report. |
| Ongoing | Monthly check of Search Console for new faults, new questions worth answering, and pages slipping. Less work, not more. | A shorter report and a smaller invoice, or a plain reason why not. |
Notice the direction. The work front-loads. A consultant whose invoice is the same in month nine as in month one, with no new scope, is charging rent.
What must the monthly report contain?
- Queries and clicks from your Search Console, this month against last and against the baseline. Not a "visibility score" from the consultant's own tool.
- A list of pages changed and fixes made, each with a link you can click.
- The map pack position for your trade, searched from a named town you serve, with the three listings above or around you.
- Calls and enquiries, from the profile's Performance tab and from your own phone and form, with the consultant's honest view of which came from search.
- Next month's list, so you can check it against the next report.
Five items. If a report has rankings for fifty terms and none of these, it is the wrong report. How to judge a marketing invoice applies the same test to any marketing spend.
What are your three options?
Option 1: a consultant
What it means. One person, on a day rate or a light retainer, doing the table above and reporting to you directly.
How you know it works. The five-item report, every month, from your own accounts. The work is visible as named changes.
Where it falls down. One person has one set of strengths. A technical consultant may write flat pages; a writer may miss an indexing fault. If they are ill or busy, your work stops. Keep the logins so a quiet month is only a quiet month.
Who it is right for. A business in one to five towns with a defined problem: pages dropped, searches lost, a profile nobody has touched. Also the right first hire before any agency, because a consultant's audit tells you whether an agency is needed.
Option 2: an agency
What it means. A team: strategy, technical, writing, profile, reporting, with an account manager in front.
How you know it works. Exactly the same five-item report. The extra cost buys breadth and continuity, so check both: who writes the pages, and what happens when the account manager leaves.
Where it falls down. Templates. A "plumbers in Surrey" page from a template earns nothing for a plumber in Chertsey. And retainers grow; every quarter there is a reason to add a service, and the report rarely says "you can stop now".
Who it is right for. Several locations, a crowded trade in a large town, or a job value where one extra win a quarter pays for a year of fees.
Option 3: an in-house part-timer
What it means. Someone already in the office, or a part-time hire, given a day a week and the checklist in what local SEO actually involves.
How you know it works. The same report. The advantage is proximity: they know the customers, so the reviews come easier and the articles sound like you.
Where it falls down. The technical column. An in-house generalist can keep the profile and write the pages but should not be left to work out why Google dropped half the site. Budget for one fixed technical fix a year from outside.
Who it is right for. A business with an office manager who has the time and the interest, in one or two towns, where the map pack is most of the game.
Which should you choose?
Bottom line: hire a consultant for a defined problem and a front-loaded plan, an agency only when scale or job value justifies the overhead, and an in-house part-timer for the weekly habit in a one-town business, with a technical fix bought in once a year.
The reason is the shape of the work. Months one to three are skilled and heavy: audit, fixes, rewrites. After that the job is a habit plus a monthly check. Paying a specialist rate for a habit is the most common waste we see. Paying a generalist to diagnose an indexing fault is the second. Match the person to the month, and expect the invoice to fall as the table moves down.
Five questions that expose a retainer doing nothing
Ask these on the next call, in this order. Write down the answers.
- "Show me the list of pages you changed last month, with links." Done looks like: a list you can click through in two minutes. No list means no work.
- "Which search gained the most impressions since the baseline, and what did you do that caused it?" Done looks like: a query name, a number from Search Console, and a named page or fix. A rise they cannot explain is not their work.
- "What did you stop doing, and why?" Done looks like: a page cut, a tactic dropped, a term abandoned because nobody types it. A consultant who has never stopped anything is adding, not improving.
- "What is my map pack position for [trade] searched from [town] today, and who is above me?" Done looks like: an answer from a check made this week, with the three listings named and their category and review count. "I will find out" is fine once.
- "How many calls and enquiries came from search last month, and how do you know?" Done looks like: a number from the profile's Performance tab and your form, with the honest caveats. If the answer is only rankings, the report is measuring the wrong thing.
Two weak answers out of five and you should ask for next month's list in writing before paying the next invoice. Three and you should stop.
Mistakes we see
- Letting the consultant verify Search Console in their own account. They hold your baseline and your history. Verify it yourself, then add them as a user.
- Accepting a ranking report as a work report. Rankings are weather. Pages changed are work.
- A flat retainer with no scope. If month nine looks like month one on the invoice, ask what changed in the work.
- Judging by the consultant's own ranking. Being found for "seo consultant" proves they can rank a consultant. Ask for a client in a trade like yours.
- Paying for search while the phone goes unanswered. Every won search that rings out is money spent to lose the job faster.
The decision
Want me to read your consultant's last three reports and tell you, in one page, which of the five questions they would fail and what the next month should contain? Say yes and send the reports. Say no and ask the five questions yourself on the next call; they work without us. If you are hiring for the first time, this is what the first ninety days should look like before you sign anything.
