SEO and Digital Marketing Consultant: When One Person Should Run Both

An SEO and digital marketing consultant is one person who plans and runs search engine optimisation alongside the other channels that bring you customers: Google Ads, email, analytics and the landing pages they all share. The question is not whether that sounds efficient. It is whether your business is at the size and shape where one lead makes better decisions than several specialists working in parallel.

I have worked in SEO and digital marketing for more than 16 years, and the specialisms on my profile include SEO, Google Ads, web analytics and conversion work. So I am biased towards the joined-up model. That is exactly why I want to be clear about where it stops working.

What an SEO and digital marketing consultant actually does

Google’s page Do you need an SEO? lists the services an SEO may offer. Most are pure search work: site reviews, technical advice, keyword research, content. One line goes wider: “Management of online business development campaigns.” That is the territory of a consultant who runs more than SEO.

In practice the role covers four jobs:

• Search: the usual SEO work on pages, structure, content and links.
• Paid search: setting up or reviewing Google Ads campaigns, and deciding which searches to pay for and which to win organically.
• Retention: email and other ways to bring back visitors you have already paid for or earned.
• Measurement: analytics, key events and a reporting convention that lets you compare channels honestly.

One clarification first, because it is a common misunderstanding. Google says that “advertising with Google won’t have any effect on your site’s presence in our search results.” Running ads and SEO together does not help your rankings. The benefit is in better decisions, shared data and less money spent twice.

When one person running both pays off

These are the situations where I see one lead doing better than separate suppliers.

The pattern is simple. When the problem is coordination, one lead wins. When the problem is volume, you need more hands, and the lead’s job becomes keeping them pointed the same way.

The joins that only work when someone owns them

Most of the value of a joined-up consultant sits in four places where channels meet. Separate suppliers rarely own any of them.

Shared keyword data between SEO and Google Ads

Google Ads has a paid and organic report that shows organic results “right alongside the performance statistics for text ads”. It needs your Search Console account linked to Google Ads. Google suggests using it to find “queries where you only appear in organic search with no associated text ads” as potential keywords to add.

I use it in both directions. Searches where you rank well organically are candidates for a smaller ad budget, tested carefully. Searches where you only appear through ads show where SEO work would reduce what you pay over time. Neither decision is automatic: I test, compare and keep what holds up.

One tracking convention

If your newsletter links say utm_source=Newsletter one month and utm_source=newsletter the next, your reports split one source in two. Google’s help page on URL builders and UTM parameters says that “parameter values are case sensitive”, recommends using lowercase as standard and says you “should always use utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign.” Missing parameters show up as “(not set)” in reports.

The medium matters too. Google Analytics sorts traffic into default channel groups by rules: Paid Search, for example, needs a search site as the source and a medium matching patterns such as “cpc” or “ppc”, and Email matches a source or medium of “email” and its variants. Tag links badly and paid clicks or email visits end up in the wrong channel. One person who owns the convention prevents most of this.

Landing pages that serve both

Ads and organic results often send people to the same pages. An ads specialist may want a short page with one form; an SEO wants a page that answers the search fully. One lead can design a page that does both, or decide when each channel needs its own.

Keeping the visitors search brings

Organic visitors cost nothing per click, but most don’t buy on the first visit. A newsletter sign-up or a useful download on the pages that rank turns one visit into a relationship. That join only exists if someone is responsible for both the traffic and what happens after it.

How SEO services drive qualified organic traffic, and why that matters for the rest

“Qualified” traffic means visitors whose search matches what you sell, at a point where they might act. SEO drives it by matching pages to the searches your customers make, making sure Google can find and understand those pages, and earning enough trust to rank. Nobody pays per click, which is why an organic visitor is worth keeping: email and remarketing make each one count for more.

For more on how the two budgets compare, I have written a separate guide on organic SEO versus paid ads, with a payback comparison you can run yourself.

The best reason to put one person in charge of SEO and ads is to stop paying twice for the same customer.

When to keep specialists separate

I would not recommend one consultant running everything when:

• Ad spend is large and needs daily management. Bids, budgets and tests at that scale are a full-time job. A lead can set the strategy and review the work; a specialist should run the account.
• The content programme is big. Planning fits one person; writing, editing and fact-checking many pages a month don’t.
• You are in a regulated sector where every ad and page needs compliance review. More people and more process are needed anyway.
• You already have strong specialists who talk to each other and report from the same data. Don’t fix what works.

In these cases the useful role is a coordinator: someone who sets the keyword split between paid and organic, owns the tracking convention and reads every channel’s report against the same goals.

SEO expert, digital marketing agency or consultant?

If you need many hands across several channels, an agency with an SEO expert on the team may suit you better than one consultant. The trade-off is the usual one: more capacity, but you rarely talk to the person doing the work. I have compared the two models in detail in SEO consultancy vs SEO agency.

Whichever you choose, insist on one person who is accountable for the whole picture, and on reports built from data you can open yourself. A useful structure for that report is in my monthly SEO report template.

How I work across SEO and digital marketing

I charge by the hour, with no fixed packages. For a business that needs one lead, I usually start with the joins: tracking, the split between paid and organic searches, and the pages both channels depend on. My specialisms and certifications, including Google Analytics IQ, are on my profile page, and the full list of what we offer is on our SEO services page.

If what you need is a dedicated ads manager running a large account every day, I will tell you so, and help you brief one.

FAQ

What is the difference between an SEO expert and a digital marketing agency?

An SEO expert specialises in search: technical work, content and links. A digital marketing agency usually covers several channels with a team, often including SEO. The right choice depends on whether your problem is depth in search or capacity across channels.

How do SEO services drive qualified organic traffic?

By matching your pages to the searches your customers actually make, removing what stops Google from crawling and understanding them, and earning the trust that helps them rank. Qualified means the visitor’s search fits what you sell, so traffic growth should show up in enquiries or sales, not only in visits.

Does running Google Ads help my SEO rankings?

No. Google states that advertising with Google won’t have any effect on your site’s presence in its search results. Ads and SEO help each other through shared data and better decisions, not through rankings.

Should one consultant manage both SEO and Google Ads?

It works well for smaller businesses where the same searches and landing pages serve both, and where one person approves all spend. With a large ad budget that needs daily management, a specialist should run the account and the SEO lead should coordinate with them.