SEO Tools vs SEO Consultancy?

When it comes to paying for something – whether a product or service – naturally some people may gravitate towards the cheaper option, although often this is no match for the real thing which comes with a heftier price tag. Similarly, we're sometimes asked by prospective SEO clients why they should pay for a consultancy service when instead there's plenty of SEO tools on the market - some of which are free, or others which only require a one-off payment which is comparatively cheaper.

Whilst SEO consultancy may not be suitable for everyone’s budget, here we take a look at the reasons why we think it’s the best option for you…

Limitations

Whilst a tool may indeed tell you which elements of your site are broken or could be improved and aligned with SEO best practice, at the end of the day it’s only code following a set of rules - it cannot provide context or a personalised solution aligned with your objectives.

For example, not all tools will provide you with an actionable list of tasks, especially one which has been prioritised and also factors in how long the fix will potentially take you or your developers to implement. An SEO tool may also flag thousands of potential “errors” such as missing meta titles which may set off alarm bells, although without context these may not be an issue at all - say for example if these pages have already been set to noindex as this is duplicated content from a feed.

Experience

Do you want to know how to handle out-of-stock products or the potential impact from a site migration or relaunch? A software tool won’t tell you this, for this you’re reliant on the experience of the SEO consultant – many of whom have worked across hundreds of sites within various industries over the course of their careers.

Advice

The SEO industry is constantly evolving with algorithm updates, new technologies and studies shedding light on particular facets of SEO, thereby leading to new approaches. These things can take time before they are factored into updated versions of any SEO tool, whereas a good consultant will be on top of the latest trends, gaining insight from blogs and attending industry conferences and can pro-actively raise these with you.

Cost

Yes, good SEO consultancy will likely be more expensive in the short-term, although if your SEO strategy is solely reliant on the findings of a tool then the risks from misinterpreting this data are high - which could ultimately cost you more in the long-run if you were to harm your site’s rankings. In summary, whilst SEO tools have their place, a good SEO consultant should be able to use these and interpret the results from them, providing recommendations on how this applies to your site, complementing this with their own personal insight which the software cannot.