If you've searched Google for “SEO consultant”, you'll have seen it all: from people promising you the top spot within a month to those selling hundreds of AI-written articles at bargain-bin prices. Between those two extremes there's serious, consistent and measurable work, which today leans on AI to move faster without losing the judgement of a person who knows your business.
In this guide we explain what an SEO consultant really does, what AI brings to the table (and where it gets things wrong), how to become visible in AI assistants too, how the work runs month by month, what the market charges and when it's worth hiring one.
What an SEO consultant (really) does
SEO is about making your business show up when someone searches Google for what you sell. An SEO consultant works out why you don't appear today, decides what needs doing first and carries it out, or oversees it, until it shows in visits and enquiries. In practice, the work covers several areas:
- Technical audit: making sure Google can crawl and index your website, that it loads quickly, works well on mobile and has no errors holding back your rankings.
- Keyword research: finding out how your customers actually search, not how you think they search, and what intent lies behind each search.
- Structure and content: which pages you're missing, which ones are surplus or compete with each other, and which articles can attract people who are about to buy.
- Local SEO: Google Business Profile, reviews and consistent contact details everywhere, which is key if your customers are in your town.
- Authority and links: earning quality mentions and links, with no link farms or dodgy packages.
- Measurement: Search Console and Analytics to know what's working and what isn't.
A good consultant won't send you a PDF with two hundred red warnings: they'll tell you which ones matter and in what order to tackle them.
What AI brings to SEO (and what it doesn't)
AI has changed SEO mainly in terms of speed: it frees up hours of mechanical tasks so they can be spent thinking. These are the areas where it genuinely adds value:
- Grouping hundreds of keywords by search intent.
- Preparing article drafts from a well-developed outline.
- Reviewing and rewriting titles and descriptions for lots of pages at once.
- Spotting topics your competitors cover and you don't.
- Generating the code for structured data.
- Adapting content into other languages as a starting point for a native review.
What AI shouldn't do on its own
The biggest mistake is using AI to publish content in bulk without anyone reviewing it. Google makes this clear in its guidelines: it cares less about how a text was created than about whether it's helpful, but churning out pages en masse to manipulate search results counts as spam and can lead to a drop in visibility that's hard to recover from. On top of that, AI gets facts, prices and regulations wrong, and writes copy that's correct but generic, lacking the real experience that makes a customer trust you.
AI speeds things up; people make the decisions. Every piece of copy should be checked by someone who knows your sector and your business before it goes live: verified facts, your own tone of voice and real examples.
SEO for Google and for AI assistants
More and more people ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity directly, or read the AI answers Google itself shows. There's no trick to always getting cited, but there are good practices that help these tools understand who you are and what you offer:
- Structured data: schema.org markup for your business, your services, your articles and your FAQs. It's like handing machines a neat fact sheet about your website.
- llms.txt file: a plain-text summary in the root of your website, designed for language models. It's a recent proposal and not every system reads it yet, but it takes little effort and keeps your information organised.
- Google Business Profile: complete, with opening hours, photos, services and replies to reviews. It's one of the most frequently consulted sources for local searches. You'll find a practical guide in our article on how to optimise Google Business, which applies to almost any business.
- Clear answers: content that answers specific questions in a few sentences, with headings that make sense on their own.
- Consistency: the same name, address and phone number on your website, your profile, your social media and directories.
All of this is part of our AI SEO service, where we work on visibility in search engines and AI assistants at the same time.
How working with an SEO consultant runs month by month
SEO isn't a one-off job; it's ongoing work. A well-planned partnership usually follows a rhythm along these lines:
- First month: audit, competitor analysis, keyword selection and a prioritised work plan.
- The following weeks: technical fixes, improving pages that already have potential and the first pieces of new content.
- From then on: regular publishing, internal linking, updating what already ranks and work on authority and reviews.
- Every month: a clear report on what's been done, what's moved and what comes next.
SEO is a medium-term investment. It's normal to start seeing movement after a few months, although a lot depends on the competition in your sector and the state of your website. If someone gives you an exact date for reaching the top, be wary.
How to choose an SEO consultant: red flags
Before you sign anything, look out for these signs. If you spot several at once, keep looking:
- They guarantee you the top spot. Nobody controls Google's algorithm, and Google itself warns against anyone who promises that.
- They sell packages of hundreds of cheap links. These usually come from low-quality websites and can harm you.
- They don't explain what they do. If you can't see where your money is going, something's wrong.
- They keep hold of your accounts. Search Console, Analytics and your Google profile should be in your name.
- They publish unreviewed automated content and boast about volume rather than results.
What you should look for
Someone who asks about your business before talking keywords, who shows you real examples, has verifiable reviews and gives you reports you can understand without being technical.
How much does an SEO consultant cost in Spain?
Prices vary widely depending on the size of the project and who's doing it. As a rough guide to the Spanish market:
- One-off audit: from a few hundred euros for small websites, and more for large sites or online shops.
- Monthly freelance consultant: fees of a few hundred euros a month are common, depending on hours and scope.
- Agency with a team: usually several hundred euros a month, and considerably more for highly competitive or multilingual projects.
The biggest factors in the price are the competition in your sector, the size of the website, the number of languages and whether the service includes content creation or stops at recommendations.
Spain Consulting Group's AI SEO plans
At SCG we've been in digital marketing for 22 years, and we've designed AI SEO plans built for SMEs, with human review of every piece and fixed prices:
- Start, €49/month: AI-assisted SEO articles, 1 language and a monthly report.
- Pro, €99/month: more articles plus social media posts.
- Premium, €199/month: high content volume and multilingual.
If your website isn't ready to rank yet, start there: with our Web design service, websites are delivered with the technical SEO groundwork already in place. We're rated 5.0★ on Google from 25 reviews, and you can compare every option on our plans and pricing page.
Before hiring anyone, ask yourself what a new customer is worth to you. If a couple of enquiries a month comfortably cover the fee, SEO has every chance of paying off.
When hiring an SEO consultant pays off (and when it doesn't)
It pays off if your customers search for you on Google before deciding, if you run a local business with competitors in your area, if your website exists but barely generates enquiries, or if you want to appear in AI assistants' answers. A clear example is the motor trade, which we know well: we cover it in our guide to SEO for car dealerships.
It doesn't pay off yet if your website doesn't work on mobile or is broken (it needs fixing first), if you expect results within two weeks, or if you don't have the capacity to handle the enquiries that come in.
Want to know how your website is doing and what you could improve before spending a single euro? Request our free analysis and we'll tell you, with no obligation, where to start and which plan suits your business.
Frequently asked questions
Can an SEO consultant guarantee the top spot on Google?
No. Nobody controls Google's algorithm, and Google itself warns against anyone who promises it. A good consultant commits to a work plan and clear reports, not to rankings.
Is it bad to use AI to write SEO content?
Not if a human reviews it. The problem is publishing unreviewed copy in bulk, because it tends to be generic, contains errors and may be treated as spam.
How long does SEO take to deliver results?
It's a medium-term investment: you'll usually see movement after a few months, depending on the competition in your sector and the state of your website.
What is the llms.txt file?
It's a text file in the root of a website that summarises its content for language models. It's a recent proposal and not every system reads it yet, but it's easy to add.