SEO Consultant in Leeds
Senior SEO and AI search work for Leeds businesses, from the person who actually does it. You talk to the person who diagnoses the problem, decisions happen faster, and there are no agency overheads built into the price.
Get in touch Request a free SEO auditOver a decade in SEO. I grew Originality.ai's organic traffic from 278K to 1.18M monthly visits, and every engagement is delivered by me, from the first crawl to the last report.
An SEO consultant in Leeds is an independent specialist who audits a website, sets its search strategy and does or directs the work that improves its rankings, organic traffic and visibility in AI search tools such as ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. Unlike an agency, a consultant usually works alone, so the person who diagnoses the problem is the person who fixes it.
Leeds isn't short of SEO agencies.
Search for one and you'll find dozens, most of them promising award-winning results and a dedicated account manager.
However, most of the businesses I speak to don't need a bigger team.
They need someone senior to find what's actually holding the site back, fix it in the right order and tell them honestly what it will take.
That's the job I do, from Horsforth, on the north-west edge of Leeds.
Here's what I work on, what it costs, how a project runs and how to tell whether a consultant or an agency is the better fit for you.
Which service fits your problem?
Two questions. It will point you at the right service, or tell you to start with the free audit.
1. What's the main problem?
2. How do you want to work?
Pick an answer to both questions to see where I'd start.
SEO services for Leeds businesses, delivered by one person.
Technical SEO audit
A full crawl of your site with every issue ranked by impact and a specific fix your developer can act on: indexing, internal links, page speed, schema and the problems a crawler alone won't explain.
Service: Technical SEO Audit
AI visibility audit
I test how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews describe your brand across 30 to 50 real queries, then show you where competitors get cited instead of you and what to change.
Service: AI Visibility Audit
Content strategy
A topical map, competitor content gaps, keyword clusters by intent and a phased 6 to 12 month roadmap, so every piece you publish has a job to do.
Service: Content Strategy Blueprint
On-page optimisation
Page-by-page work on the URLs that make you money: entity gaps, content structure, schema and title rewrites, mapped to the keywords your buyers actually use.
Service: On-Page Optimisation
Content refresh
The fastest wins usually sit in content you already have. I find the decaying pages, the near misses on page two and the posts competing with each other, then brief the fixes.
Service: Content Refresh Programme
Site migrations
Redirect maps, staging QA, launch-day checks and 90 days of monitoring when you change domain, platform or URLs. If the move has already gone wrong, I do rescues too.
Service: SEO Migration Services
Shopify SEO
Collections, product pages, duplicate URLs, apps and international stores, from someone who built a Shopify brand from a blank domain as a live test of this method.
Service: Shopify SEO consultant
Monthly SEO retainer
Strategy, technical monitoring, content briefs, AI visibility tracking and reporting every month, with direct access to me rather than an account manager.
Service: Full-Stack Monthly SEO Retainer
Results from real client work.
Organic traffic growth for Originality.ai, from 278K to 1.18M monthly visits.
Growth in Connecteam's AI Overview appearances, from 3,522 to 6,320, alongside 62.6% more organic traffic.
Impressions in six months for 6sense, from a technical SEO and content strategy programme.
Monthly impressions for REHAUS four months after I took over a failed site migration.
"A fantastic content strategy partner who has helped Originality continue to grow into one of the industry-leading AI detection software tools, with excellent exposure across Google, LLMs, and Socials."
Jon Gilham, Founder, Originality.ai
The full numbers, and how each result happened, are on the case studies page.
A Leeds SEO consultant you can actually meet.
I'm based in Horsforth, and I'm happy to meet clients across Yorkshire in person, usually for the kick-off and the strategy sessions that matter most.
Most of the work is remote, though.
Audits, strategy and reporting run on crawls, spreadsheets and Search Console, so a first meeting in person and calls after that suits most clients well.
I also know what Leeds search results look like. The city is one of the UK's biggest centres for legal, financial and professional services outside London, which makes commercial keywords here more competitive than you might expect.
If you sell to customers in Leeds, local signals matter: your Google Business Profile, consistent business details across directories and pages that genuinely serve the area. If you sell nationally, Leeds is simply where your consultant lives.
I work with businesses in Leeds city centre, Horsforth, Headingley, Chapel Allerton and Roundhay, across Yorkshire in Bradford, Wakefield, Harrogate and York, and with brands across the UK and North America.
What an SEO consultant in Leeds costs.
Most SEO pages in Leeds ask you to request a quote.
Here's what the work actually costs with me.
- Free SEO audit: £0. I review your site by hand and send a ranked report, a Loom walkthrough and a 30-minute call.
- One-off audits and projects: from £1,200, a fixed fee priced in days at £400 a day once I know the size of the site and the scope.
- Monthly SEO retainer: £2,400 to £4,800 a month (six to twelve days at my £400 day rate), typically for six to twelve months with one month's notice.
For context, UK SEO freelancers typically charge £40 to £100 an hour and agency consultants £100 to £250, based on the research in my guide to SEO pricing in the UK.
If your budget is under £1,000 a month and you only need to show up in the local map results, a local SEO specialist will usually be better value than me. I'd rather tell you that now than after you've signed.
Should you hire an SEO consultant or a Leeds SEO agency?
| Question | Leeds SEO agency | SEO consultant (me) |
|---|---|---|
| Who does the work? | An account manager briefs a team | The senior person you spoke to |
| Who you speak to | Usually an account manager | Me, directly |
| Where the budget goes | Delivery, plus management and sales overheads | Senior hours on your site |
| AI search visibility | Varies, often an add-on | Part of every engagement |
| Capacity | A large team across several channels | One specialist, a small number of clients |
| Best for | PPC, social and SEO run together | Businesses that want senior SEO without the overhead |
If you need paid search, social and SEO run by one team, a full-service Leeds agency is the right call, and I'll say so on the first call. My guide to consultants versus agencies goes into the trade-offs in more detail.
Four steps, one person.
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Free audit
Send me your site. I crawl it, pull your competitive data from Ahrefs and spot-check how AI platforms describe you.
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Discovery call
We go through what I found, your goals and your budget, in person if you're local. No sales pitch, just what I'd do first.
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I do the work
I run the tools, build the strategy and produce every deliverable myself. Nothing is outsourced or handed to a junior.
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You act on it
Every deliverable comes with prioritised actions, the data behind them and clear owners, so your team can start the same week.
Want to check a few things first? My free SEO tools run in your browser with no login, from a meta description checker to an AEO readiness score.
Who I'm a good fit for.
A good fit
- Growth-stage businesses: investing seriously in organic search, not testing it for a month.
- SaaS, ecommerce and professional services: where a few rankings are worth real revenue.
- Teams that care about AI search: who want to be cited in ChatGPT and AI Overviews, not just ranked.
- In-house marketers: who need a senior SEO without hiring one full time.
Not a fit
- Guaranteed rankings: nobody can promise them, and Google warns against anyone who does.
- Link building only: links without strategy rarely move anything that matters.
- The cheapest package in Leeds: there are cheaper options, and I'm not one of them.
SEO consultant Leeds FAQ.
How much does an SEO consultant in Leeds cost?
UK SEO freelancers typically charge £40 to £100 an hour and agency consultants £100 to £250, while most SMEs spend £1,500 to £5,000 a month on an SEO retainer. My day rate is £400: the monthly retainer runs from £2,400 to £4,800, and one-off audits and projects start at £1,200 as a fixed fee, and the first audit is free.
What does an SEO consultant do?
An SEO consultant audits a website, finds what is limiting its rankings and organic traffic, and sets the strategy to fix it: technical fixes, content, on-page optimisation and, increasingly, visibility in AI search tools. A good consultant also does or directs the work and reports on the results, rather than handing over an audit and leaving.
Should I hire an SEO consultant or an SEO agency in Leeds?
Hire a consultant if you want senior SEO expertise and direct access to the person doing the work. Hire an agency if you need several channels, such as PPC, social and SEO, run by one team. For most growth-stage businesses focused on organic search, a consultant delivers more senior hours for the same budget.
Do you only work with businesses in Leeds?
No. I'm based in Horsforth, Leeds, and work with brands across the UK and North America. Clients in Leeds and Yorkshire can meet me in person, and everyone else works with me remotely, which is how most SEO work happens anyway.
Can we meet in person?
Yes. I'm happy to meet clients across Yorkshire in person, usually for the kick-off and key strategy sessions. Day-to-day work and reporting run remotely.
How long does SEO take to work?
Technical fixes and on-page changes can move rankings within two to six weeks. Most campaigns show clear organic traffic growth within three to six months, and the bigger compounding results arrive over 12 months. Changes in AI visibility often show within four to eight weeks.
Do you do local SEO for Leeds businesses?
Yes, as part of a wider engagement: Google Business Profile, consistent business details, location pages and a reviews plan. However, if the local map results are all you need, a dedicated local SEO specialist will usually cost less, and I'll tell you that on the first call.
Do you guarantee rankings?
No. Google warns against anyone who guarantees rankings. What you will get is a clear plan, the reasoning behind every priority and monthly reporting on what has changed in your numbers.
Tell me what's not working.
Send me your site and what you'd like it to do better. I reply personally within two business days, and if I'm not the right fit, I'll say so.
Get in touch Request a free SEO audit