SEO Consulting Services
Half an hour or a full hour with someone who looks at your actual situation and tells you what they'd do about it. No proposal at the end, no minimum commitment, no pitch.
Who books these
Consulting isn't for people who want SEO done for them. It's for people who need to decide something and don't want to guess.
Traffic has dropped
"Our numbers fell off a cliff and nobody can tell me why."
Something changed: an update, a migration, a plugin, a redirect nobody documented. The useful part of the hour is narrowing it down to the two or three things worth checking rather than reading you a list of forty.
Second opinion
"The monthly report looks fine, but the leads aren't there."
You want someone outside the arrangement to read what you're being sent and say whether it holds up. Sometimes the work is fine and the reporting is bad. Sometimes it's the other way round. Either way you get an answer you can act on.
Before you build
"We're rebuilding the site next month."
This is the cheapest hour you will ever spend on SEO. Redirect mapping, URL decisions, and what to keep are all trivial before a build and expensive afterwards. Bring your developer to the call.
Resourcing decision
"Do I hire someone, outsource it, or leave it alone?"
There's a real answer here and it depends on your margins, your market, and how much competition there is for the terms you care about. Worth an hour before it becomes a salary or a contract.
The format
Most consultation calls lose the first twenty minutes to context gathering. We do that part before the call starts, so the time you pay for is spent on answers.
Stage 01 · Before
Along with the site and, if you have them, read-only access to Search Console and analytics. We look before we talk.
Stage 02 · During
A working call, not a presentation. Shared screen, your actual data on it, and answers to whatever you ask.
Stage 03 · After
What was discussed, what we'd do, and in what order. Sent within one working day so nothing depends on your notes.
If the honest answer to your question is "you don't need to spend money on this yet", that's what you'll hear. It happens more often than you'd expect.
On the call
Not a fixed agenda. This is what tends to fill the hour.
Why did we drop, and is it coming back
Separating an algorithm update from something you did to your own site.
Is this audit worth acting on
Most audits mix three real problems with sixty cosmetic ones. We tell you which is which.
Which keywords are actually worth chasing
Where the volume is real, where the intent is commercial, and where you have no chance for now.
How do we not destroy rankings in the rebuild
Redirects, URL structure, and what has to survive the migration.
Is our current setup holding us back
Platform, structure, and templates, reviewed on what we can actually see rather than assumed.
What should the next ninety days look like
A sequence your team can run without us, in the order that compounds fastest.
Should we be publishing more, or better
Volume versus depth, judged against what already ranks for your terms.
Is what we're paying reasonable
What the market rate looks like for the scope you're buying, said plainly.
Being clear
Worth stating plainly, because plenty of people book a consultation expecting delivery and are disappointed by an hour of conversation.
Rate
No packages, no retainer, no onboarding fee. Pick the length that suits the question.
Half session
$45
30 minutes
Right for one specific question. A drop to diagnose, an audit to sanity check, a single decision you're stuck on.
Full session
$90
60 minutes
Right for a situation rather than a question. Migrations, ninety day planning, or bringing your team along to work through it together.
Past sixty minutes the honest answer is that your question is a project, not a conversation, and it should be scoped as one instead of billed by the hour. Book a second session if you need one.
Before you book
No. Sessions are capped at sixty minutes. Attention drops after that and the quality of the advice goes with it.
If an hour clearly isn't enough for what you're dealing with, that's a signal the work needs scoping properly rather than being talked through on a longer call. You're welcome to book another session.
It helps a great deal but it isn't required. Read-only access to Search Console and analytics means we arrive already knowing what your traffic has done, which buys back a chunk of the hour.
Without it we work from what's publicly visible, which is still useful for structural and strategy questions, just less precise on anything involving your own numbers.
No. You're paying for the hour, which means the hour belongs to you. There's no proposal at the end unless you ask for one.
If you want a free conversation about working together instead, that exists separately and costs nothing. This is for people who want the advice itself.
That's one of the more common reasons people book. You want someone with no stake in the arrangement to look at what's being delivered and tell you whether it makes sense.
Sometimes the work is solid and the reporting is doing it no favours. We'll say so if that's what we find, rather than manufacturing a reason for you to leave.
Please bring them. The person who will do the work getting the reasoning first hand is worth more than the same advice relayed second hand.
It's particularly worth it for anything involving a rebuild or a migration, where the decisions are technical and the cost of getting them wrong lands months later.
Then we scope it as its own engagement and price it on what's involved. The consultation stands on its own and isn't a step in a sales process.
You're equally free to take the summary and hand it to your own team or to whoever you already work with. That's the point of putting it in writing.
Advice sits alongside delivery rather than replacing it. If a session ends with you wanting the work done, these are the areas it would fall under.
Other SEO services
Tell us what you need decided and how long you want. We'll confirm a time that works.
Or email hello@culmen.digital