Agencies and independent WordPress developers want to provide clients with high-quality websites that are optimized for SEO. They should also offer a clear SEO strategy and a roadmap of actions to be performed over time. Providing SEO services is a great way for developers or agencies to maintain contact with clients and ensure that they are satisfied with the performance of their website. In some cases, specialist SEO experts are hired to define and implement an SEO strategy.
But when we look at some of the websites of agencies and freelancers who offer SEO services, we are often reminded of the old saying “The cobbler’s children have no shoes” 😉
Ranking as an SEO Expert
It is ironic that many web professionals do not apply the same attention to their own sites as they do for their clients. We understand. Time is limited and your priority is working for clients and meeting deadlines. Like your customers, you may see writing posts and doing outreach to get links as an overhead you can’t afford. However, you should also be aware that the return on investment of a good SEO strategy is visibility and traffic from Google that can drive new business and help you increase your prices. It would be a great advertisement for your SEO services if you were ranked number one in Google for the search term “SEO expert”!
But here‘s the rub: doing SEO for SEO-related keywords turns out to be incredibly challenging because of fierce competition. The “winners” maybe using illicit (black hat) techniques to rank and we are not going to go into black hat strategies here (you can guess what these are by looking at Google spam policies). SEO is not the only subject with this level of competition and volatile results, you may also discover a similar scenario for subjects like insurance, astrology, loans, gambling and adult content.
Many SEO experts have a policy of not accepting work in these difficult niches. Some specialize in them. Working on an SEO strategy for your SEO services will therefore be challenging, but good experience. Even if you are not able to rank, your efforts should at least allow you to demonstrate that you can apply SEO best practices to your own site.
Step 1: Install SEOPress
As a pro you know that you need to buy an SEO plugin to successfully use WordPress for SEO. SEOPress PRO is often considered the best SEO plugin by agencies because of its Unlimited sites license. For $149 per year, you can add the SEOPress PRO plugin to an unlimited number of sites.
SEOPress is also top for features for developers. It works with any page builder (Elementor, Divi, etc.), it can be installed as a white label solution for end users, it does not add bloated code to the WordPress admin, developers can use hooks, filters and API to customize the tool.
For your own website, you will be able to use the SEOPress PRO features to perform an SEO audit, add local business schema, integrate Google Search Console and OpenAI.
Keywords for SEO experts
To illustrate our advice on SEO strategy, we will imagine that you have just set up business as a freelance SEO expert in Seattle (Washington, US). You want to be found by website owners and agencies that are searching for a local SEO expert.
Using Google Ads Keyword Planner, it is possible to get keyword data for local searches in US cities (this is not available in all countries). Results from this search show that there are on average just short of 20,000 searches on the subject of SEO every month in Seattle. One thousand searches per month just for “SEO” and 50 searches per month for “SEO expert”.
There are also searches for “SEO agency” (210), “SEO services” (170), “SEO company” (110) and “SEO Consultant” (50). However the majority of the 20,000 monthly searches are for generic SEO subjects including “PageRank”, “backlinks” as well as complete questions like “how to use AI for on-page SEO”, “What does SEO mean”, “Where to include city names for local SEO”.
Looking at national results, we can detect that there are searches for “Seattle SEO agency” (480), “SEO service in Seattle” (590), “Seattle SEO company” (590) and “SEO Expert in Seattle” (390). These are searches where the name of the city was mentioned explicitly and may be more interesting to target.
Analyzing the SERPs for SEO expert searches
Looking at Google’s search results can help understand what the intention of most searchers is. It will also help judge the competition. We have done this search from Seattle, but make sure you perform this search from a relevant location for you and analyze those results.
SEO Expert
Searching for “SEO expert” in Seattle shows sponsored results, organic results and local results marked “Businesses”. Organic results are not showing local companies from Seattle and only one SEO expert, Mike Khorev, who is based in Toronto Canada. Other organic results include blog posts from SEO tools (Backlinko and SEMRush), a guide from Google on hiring an SEO and Freelance marketplaces (FreshGigs and Upwork).
The local results feature on this SERP shows the first 3 results from Google Maps. This has 115 addresses listed near Seattle – although some addresses as far afield as Vancouver are also showing.
AI Overviews are not visible in Seattle, but we have seen them in other locations. The response generated by AI tends to feature advice on how to become an SEO expert.
The results from these searches tend to make us think that searches that don’t include the word Seattle in their search terms are unlikely to be searching for local SEOs.
Seattle SEO Expert
Searches for “SEO expert Seattle” are probably more relevant. They show a full page of organic listings featuring the word Seattle. The list of websites featuring in the top results includes the websites of local SEO experts, but it also includes pages created by agencies in California, New Jersey or Texas (some sites have added pages optimized for a large number of cities to their websites, some claim to have offices in those cities). The SERP also featured the local 3-pack from Google Maps, but even in these results we can have some doubts about their actual presence in Seattle.
Content and link building for an SEO expert
SEOs in Seattle may be very frustrated with the inaccuracy of results provided by Google. I would look at this as a glass half full rather than as a glass half empty. It proves that there is still a possibility for small local businesses to feature in search results despite the concerted efforts of spammers to ruin them. These are not “normal” results.
Having done some keyword research and checked out the competition, you should proceed as you would with any small business. The SEO strategy guidelines that we gave to small businesses in a previous chapter apply to you. Make sure that you give enough information about your services, yourself and your registered company. Make sure that you have a verified Google Business Profile (the best primary category for a Google Business Profile at the time of writing is “Internet Marketing Services”).
An SEO expert in Seattle will optimize their home page for the keyword “SEO expert Seattle”. A web design company will have to create a strong “SEO expert” or “SEO Services” page on their website. Make sure that your business address is visible on these pages.
Because SEO is a competitive niche, we suggest that you also start a blog and that you follow the strategy detailed in the chapter for bloggers. The subject of SEO is already heavily covered online, but by publishing regularly you can prove that you really are an expert. Try and find the local angle and feature testimonials of happy customers. There may be a strong temptation to employ black-hat techniques when ranking is difficult for such important terms. We advise you to resist the temptation, respect Google’s guidelines and just do your best job to prove your “white hat” SEO skills. In the long-term, Google wants that type of site to win.
