If your developers, agency or in-house team build and run the website, you may not need another team to do the SEO. You need someone who works out what matters for search, puts it in order, explains it clearly enough for a developer to act on, and checks it afterwards. That’s the work I do.
I’m Paul Myers, an independent SEO consultant with nearly 20 years in search. I don’t make the changes unless you ask me to. I tell your team what needs to be true for search, write it up as briefs they can build from, and check the result once it’s live.
What do I do for a team that builds its own site?
I review the site as Google sees it, rank what I find, and give your developers and writers a short list they can work through. Where a fault needs a developer, the brief says what’s wrong, where to see it, what the fix should achieve and how I’ll check it. Where it needs content, the brief says which question the page has to answer and what it has to contain.
I’m not a front-end developer. I don’t tell your team how to write the code. I tell them what the page has to do for Google, and then I test whether it does.
Who is it for?
It suits you if:
- your own developers or agency build and maintain the site
- you work in React, Angular, Next.js or another framework, or on a headless build
- you’re planning a rebuild or platform move and want search considered before launch
- you have writers, but nobody who decides what they should write about
- you don’t want to pay an SEO to duplicate work your team can already do
What does it look like in practice?
On Kwiat’s move to a headless Shopify build, the content lived in two systems, Shopify and Sanity, and a sitemap had to pull from both. I wrote the specification: a sitemap index with separate sitemaps for products, collections and editorial content, listing only live, indexable URLs. The development team built it, and I checked it once it was live. The same review found content that only appeared once scripts ran, old category URLs still resolving and canonicals pointing at the wrong pages, each written up as a clear action. The Kwiat migration case study has the detail.
On Evewell’s redesign of a WordPress site, the audit came before the build. I produced 13 development briefs and 16 content briefs, plus schema templates, so the clinic’s developer had the decisions while they were still easy to make. The Evewell case study covers it.
What do you receive?
- A review of how your site looks to Google: what’s in the HTML, what appears after rendering, how links, titles, canonicals and status codes behave
- A ranked list of what to fix, and what can wait
- Briefs for your developers, written so a developer can act without translation
- Briefs for your writers, tied to the questions your customers ask
- A check of each change once it’s live, and a record of what was verified
- A monthly review of Search Console and your enquiries, if you want ongoing support
My guide to SEO for JavaScript framework sites sets out the checks I start with.
Where do I fit alongside an agency or in-house team?
Alongside them. If an agency builds the site, I can act as the independent check on search. If you have an in-house team, I can be the specialist you call on for audits, migrations and a second opinion. I’m happy to be one of several people on a project, and I’d rather say so than pretend I do everything.
How is it priced?
Advice sessions and projects are agreed up front, and monthly support is a fixed fee for an agreed scope. There are no packages. The pricing page explains how it works, and a free assessment tells you what I’d do first before you commit to anything.
Talk to the person doing the work
There is no account manager here and no team to be handed to. If you get in touch, it’s me who reads it, me who looks at your site, and me who does the work if we go ahead.
Get in touch, or start with a free assessment. If you’re planning a rebuild, my site migration service covers it, and my technical SEO audit is the usual starting point for a live site.
FAQ
Do I need an SEO if my developers already know SEO?
Possibly not. A good developer knows the basics. What a specialist adds is a view of how your site performs in search, what to prioritise and an independent check that the work did what it should. If your team has that already, you may only need an occasional review.
Can you work with our agency or development team?
Yes. I write briefs your team can build from and check the result, so I fit around whoever builds the site. I’d rather be clear about who does what at the start than discover overlap later.
Do you make the changes yourself?
Not by default. My usual role is to specify and verify. If you’d like me to make changes on a particular platform, we can agree that as a separate piece of work.
Do you work with React, Angular and Next.js sites?
Yes. The first checks are what Google receives and renders, whether links are real links, titles, canonicals, status codes and the sitemap. I’m not a front-end developer, so I tell your team what has to be true, and they decide how to build it.
When should SEO be involved in a rebuild?
Before the build starts. Templates and URLs are easy to change then and slow to change afterwards. A review of a staging site can catch a missing sitemap, duplicate titles or content that only renders in the browser while they’re still cheap to fix.