It’s not easy to build a successful SEO strategy.
That’s true even if you have decent domain authority and some SEO experience to start with.
That’s why search engine optimization (SEO) consultants exist.
These talented professionals often have years, if not decades of SEO experience – and the business acumen and communication skills to use that experience to transform organizations like yours.
There are consultants that serve different niches and offer different types of skills, and of course, each consultant has their own unique style and approach to bring to the table.
But when you’re searching for an SEO consultant, it’s sometimes hard to find the right fit.
Not only do you need to find someone with the right skills, the right industry familiarity, and the right price range, but you also need to find someone who will work well within the context of your organization.
That’s one reason why we came up with this list of underrated SEO consulting services in the search engine optimization industry in 2024.
It’s pretty easy to find the biggest names in the industry, but what about the talented and successful SEO consultants who fly under the radar?
Table of Contents
Why Hire an SEO Consultant?
Why should you hire an SEO consultant and not a full-fledged SEO company?
- Knowledge and expertise. Most individuals and organizations hire consultants for their knowledge and expertise. There are specific problems they don’t know how to solve or strategic elements they don’t know how to create – and a consultant with ample experience in the industry should be able to step in and resolve the issue. Even better, if your consultant has expertise in your specific niche, they can help you navigate the unique challenges of your industrial landscape and develop your business to be more competitively viable. This is also much cheaper and easier than trying to learn everything yourself, from scratch.
- Practice experience. Qualified SEO consultants have real experience helping businesses like yours achieve their SEO goals. They know how to recover from penalties, how to overcome growth plateaus, and how and when to change goals during the execution of your strategy – and they’ve learned from their past mistakes so they can help you avoid making similar mistakes in the future.
- Outside perspective. It’s valuable to hire an SEO consultant for their outside perspective as well. If you’re used to solving all your business’s problems from within, or exclusively relying on internal SEO teams, you could likely end up with blind spots that you don’t even recognize. An external, competent professional can help you identify those blind spots and work around them with new knowledge, insights, and recommendations.
- Cost savings. Some organizations are reluctant to hire SEO consultants because they don’t want to spend the money. But in the long term, SEO consultants have the power to save you money. You’ll get better results, faster by following their advice, and you might be able to forgo the need of hiring new internal staff members while doing it. Oftentimes, consultants more than pay for themselves.
- Better results. The primary driving factor for hiring an SEO consultant is the ambition to achieve better SEO results. For whatever reason, your current efforts just aren’t cutting it – and you need an amplifier to drive more organic traffic to your website.
What Makes an SEO Consultant Underrated?
For the purposes of this list, what criteria are we using to designate SEO consultants as underrated, specifically?
Generally, we want to find SEO consultants who are extremely good at what they do, and who we feel should have an even greater market share in social media marketing circles.
We want people with:
- Experience in the industry. As a prerequisite, we need SEO consultants who have meaningful experience in the industry. Ideally, we want people with decades of experience in both national and local SEO and general digital marketing, and preferably people with business management experience and leadership experience as well. The more, the better.
- Proven results. Simply being a search engine optimization (SEO) consultant, Google Ads manager or a digital marketer for several years doesn’t mean you know what you’re talking about or that you’ll be able to replicate your past success. That’s why we specifically focused on candidates with a long, proven track record of results. They’ve helped dozens of brands and clients achieve their strategic goals.
- Communication and support. Search engine optimization consulting isn’t just about sharing technical knowledge or forming high-level strategies; it’s also about communicating effectively and providing ongoing support. That’s why we also considered the working relationship that various SEO consultants have with their clients.
- Industry recognition. Finally, we needed to consider each consultant’s level of industry recognition. We wanted underrated consultants, so we specifically sought out candidates who were recognized as talented professionals, but without much online visibility, pomp and circumstance.
Top 13 Most Underrated SEO Consultants in 2024
With those criteria in mind, here are our most underrated SEO consultants in 2024:
1. Michael Cottam.
First, there’s Michael Cottam. Michael Cottam brings a host of skills to the table, including site architecture planning, SEO site auditing, programming, and business management and startup experience. He’s spoken at conferences like MozCon, SearchFest, and Innotech, and has been featured on too many podcasts, panels, and webinars to list here. With his evolving SEO expertise and unique approach, he can help you solve almost any SEO problem. Whether your issues include on-page SEO or off-page SEO, Michael has you covered.
2. Aaron Rains.
Aaron Rains is another SEO consultant with more than 15 years of experience – and a consulting firm that started as a one-man operation. His core services include keyword research, strategic guidance, on-page SEO, penalty recovery, technical SEO, and more – and he has lots of free educational resources on his website for anyone interested in teaching themselves the basics.
3. Roy Hinkis.
Roy Hinkis has experience as an SEO and website traffic growth consultant for companies like Walmart, Waze, Robinhood, and multiple other Fortune 500 companies and tech startups. In addition to having in-depth technical knowledge that has transformed countless SEO strategies, Hinkis shares his wisdom regularly on social media marketing platforms like LinkedIn and X.
4. Chris Dreyer.
CEO and Founder of Rankings.io, Chris Dreyer’s SEO agency has made the Inc. 5000 list 5 years in a row. With diverse marketing experiences, including managing over 100 affiliate websites simultaneously, Dreyer brings knowledge, wisdom, and technical experience to the elite law firms his digital marketing agency primarily serves. Dreyer is also a member of the Forbes Agency Council, the Rolling Stone Culture Council, and multiple other professional organizations.
5. Lily Ray.
If you don’t know Lily Ray as an SEO consultant, you might know her as a musician or for any of her many diverse hobbies. She currently manages a team of more than 30 SEO professionals and dozens of clients across a host of different verticals. With more than 13 years of experience and an accomplished search engine marketing career, Ray continues to be a featured speaker at major SEO conferences around the world.
6. Everett Sizemore.
Everett Sizemore has more than 25 years of experience in SEO and a deep familiarity with technical SEO, content development, competitor analysis, and more. Primarily serving clients in industries like financial services, legal, professional services, and eCommerce, Sizemore operates out of Cincinnati, OH and has a long track record of improving search engine rankings for clients.
7. Geoff Kenyon.
There’s also Geoff Kenyon, who has been independently consulting on SEO matters since 2008. His approach includes integrating himself with client teams internally, functioning more like a new team member than an external consultant, and he’s adept at developing high-level strategic SEO efforts and initiatives.
8. Ann Smarty.
Ann Smarty is the co-founder of Smarty Marketing, an SEO agency in New York, and has more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing. She’s a master of strategic direction, content creation, technical SEO, and campaign optimization – and has hosted workshops and webinars for more than 1,000 professionals and other SEO agencies. You can also read her contributions at publications like Search Engine Journal, Moz, and Buzzsumo.
9. Ian Lurie.
Ian Lurie Consulting is a relatively small SEO consultancy, but it delivers big search engine results. Lurie himself offers consulting services for not just SEO, but also analytics, content, and general digital strategy. He’s been working as a digital marketer since 1995, and has 25 years of business experience launching and leading Portent, Inc.
10. John Doherty.
Offering search engine optimization (SEO), content, CRO, product, email, and PR consulting (among other services), John Doherty has helped countless brands achieve their digital marketing goals. He primarily serves industries like retail, eCommerce, tech, and software, and you can find great marketing news and updates on his X profile.
11. Luke Carthy.
Luke Carthy started out as an independent eBay seller and now helps startups and other brands generate millions of dollars in incremental eCommerce revenue. He offers consulting on matters including SEO, CRO, eCommerce transformation, and more – and serves a wide range of industries from his location in Birmingham, UK.
12. Stephan Spencer.
Stephan Spencer is an SEO expert who focuses on delivering “profitable, predictable, and sustainable results.” For more than 20 years, Spencer has served brands like Zappos, Sony Store, Quiksilver, Chanel, Bed Bath & Beyond, Volvo, Lazyboy, Best Buy and many more – and he does most of his consulting work totally independently.
13. Aleyda Solis.
Last but not least, we have Aleyda Solis, an SEO consultant, author, and speaker with honors like being recognized as one of the 10 Most Influential SEO Experts of 2022 by List Wire from USA Today. She’s been featured in more than 100 conferences in 20 different countries and writes the incredibly popular newsletter #SEOFOMO, which has more than 22,000 subscribers.
Choosing the Right Consultant
We’ve shared some of our favorite underrated SEO consultants, well we’ve only just scratched the surface of the SEO consultant pool.
There are literally hundreds of qualified SEO consultants who might be worth hiring for your organization.
Your responsibility is to find the right fit. By doing your due diligence, you can weed out candidates who aren’t a good fit, and you can narrow down the list to candidates with the right experience, mindset, availability, pricing, and support. From there, you can start conducting interviews and book an initial consultation to start pushing your strategy forward.
If you’re currently struggling with SEO or digital marketing, or if you need some agency help executing the work your consultants have introduced to you, contact us for a free consultation today!
As an expert SEO company, we’ve helped hundreds of businesses, from SMBs to Fortune 500 companies, achieve their SEO goals.
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