For a business owner who has decided to boost the rankings of their website to increase the amount of organic traffic they receive, the way to achieve that is via SEO. Assuming that they are not an SEO expert, then they have two choices as to who it is they employ to plan, create, and implement an SEO campaign. Those two choices are either an SEO consultant or an SEO agency.
The most obvious difference between the two is that an SEO consultant will be a single person who operates on a freelance basis. Alternatively, an SEO agency will be a business with employees that combine their efforts to achieve what the client has asked them to. There are several other differences, and these will greatly influence your experience of using them.
SEO Consultant
As we mentioned, these are individuals, although as part of the work they are doing they may sub-contract some of the tasks, such as content creation. Those that work efficiently will be working for only one or two clients however, some take on multiple clients at the same time. The risk here is that they spread themselves too thinly and thus miss deadlines.
SEO consultants are relatively easy to find. They will advertise locally, but one of the aspects of SEO work is that it is not location-specific. That means you can employ an SEO consultant from anywhere in the world. Online sites such as Fiverr and Upwork will have several freelance SEO consultants and as you are employing them via those sites, your payment is secure until the work is completed.
On the subject of payment, one of the benefits of an SEO consultant is that they tend to charge lower fees than SEO agencies, although not always. This means if a business is on a tight budget, the lower cost allows them to have an SEO campaign albeit may be limited in its scope.
SEO Agency
Within an SEO agency, you are going to have multiple professionals who specialise in specific aspects of SEO. This means that regardless of whether it is content creation, backlink building or on-site optimisation you will have an expert working on it. With greater staff numbers an SEO agency is also going to be in a much better position to produce quicker results and complete tasks and milestones within the agreed timescale.
SEO agencies also tend to have access to a greater number and a more varied array of tools and resources. Whether that be research tools, analytical tools, content writers, or user experience experts, they will all contribute to making your SEO campaign successful.
One argument put forward for SEO consultants is that you are dealing with just one person which does make communicating easier. However, the best SEO agencies allocate a campaign manager who oversees your campaign and is also the point of contact for you, meaning you only need to speak to one person rather than several.
As for cost, SEO agencies do tend to have higher fees than freelance SEO consultants, but that needs to be weighed up against the increased benefits of working with an SEO agency prices including enhanced results. Besides, many SEO agencies offer payment plans to make their services affordable for all.
Conclusion
All things considered, an SEO agency does offer the best services due to its increased number of experts, enhanced resources, and ability to produce results faster. That they have a payment plan option also helps make them affordable.