What is Search Engine Optimisation? 

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving a website’s ranking on search engines, predominantly Google. 

People are continuing to use search engines to find information about a query or problem they’re trying to solve. If your company can rank on the first page for these searches, then it brings traffic to your website. 

But to achieve those rankings in the first place, it requires a good SEO strategy. 

And a good SEO strategy lays the foundation for all other digital marketing activities. It also works particularly well with digital PR. 

Why hire an SEO Specialist?

An SEO specialist improves the quantity and quality of organic traffic to a desired website destination. 

They know how to get in front of your target audience and increase the amount of quality traffic landing on your website. Afterwards when enough data has been gathered, they can find ways to optimise your content to provide a better user experience. 

Which can then lead to better rankings and conversion rates. 

So to speak, their work can help you get more leads and customers repeatedly to your business for as long as you’re ranking for certain keywords.

What does a freelance SEO Specialist do? 

Numerous businesses have an SEO team on board to improve their organic visibility and search discovery. 

That’s because getting to the top of the results page for your preferred search terms is a long and complicated process. It takes a lot of work and there are multiple areas to focus on such as:

• Keyword research: identifying the exact words or phrases your audience is typing into search engines. 
• High-quality content: creating valuable content to serve your consumers, e.g. blog posts. 
• Building backlinks: the process of getting inbound links from another website back to your website.

Each of these is a crucial part of developing a long-term strategy. For instance, using the information gathered from keyword research can help to devise an SEO plan aligned with your content strategy so that it’s niche relevant for your specific audience. 

If you’re ranking for keywords that aren’t related to your product or service, it leads to low-quality traffic.

Meaning, those website visitors aren’t likely to become a paying customer since they don’t have a need or interest related to what you have to offer. 

Other tasks may include performing an in-depth competitor analysis, or running an in depth site audit to identify any technical issues.

For business owners without the expertise in how the search engine algorithms work, these can be a headache to deal with.

Freelance SEO Specialist responsibilities

There are many tasks involved in an SEO project that can boost your organic performance and overall digital marketing strategy.

Here’s what an SEO specialist from Passionfruit can do for you:

• Conduct a thorough SEO audit
• Indexing and backlink monitoring
• Sitemap management
• Optimise website content and blog posts 
• Find new keyword opportunities
• Allocate the budget for an ads campaign strategically to maximise ROI
• Consultation on website structure and codes
• Track website analytics and key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Manage an editorial calendar 
• Diagnose the issues for declines in search traffic

How much does a freelance SEO Specialist cost?

The day rate of an SEO freelancer is typically anywhere from £300 to £700. They could also charge on a per-project basis depending on the deliverables. For example, an SEO audit could come around £2,000 or more. 

Keep in mind that there are no shortcuts when it comes to ranking on the first page of search engines.

Bad SEO will come back to bite you twice as hard in the future. If you're using methods that go against the algorithm guidelines like buying backlinks, it can lead to serious trouble. Once the search engine bots find out, it's going to put your website rankings back further and it'll take weeks, months, or even years to recover before you can start ranking again.