SEO Training
One-to-one training or hands-on support for your in-house team, so you can run SEO yourselves with my guidance rather than depending on me for everything. Full detail on my SEO training and support page
SEO Services · Manchester
This is where I lay out exactly what you get when you hire me: the services, how they're delivered, and roughly what it costs. No packages designed to confuse you and no agency layers between you and the work.
I'm a freelance SEO consultant based in Marple, Stockport, working with businesses across Manchester and the wider UK. Whether you want a specific piece of work such as an SEO audit, fully managed SEO delivered end to end, or consultancy that sits alongside your own in-house team, it's all below.
Search engine optimisation covers a lot of ground and no two SEO campaigns look the same, so everything below is modular. Start with what you need now and add to it as your business grows.
Why it matters
Manchester is a competitive market. Whatever you sell, other Manchester businesses are already investing in SEO to win the customers searching for it, and search engines reward sites that put the effort in consistently, not the ones that dabble for a month and stop.
A scattergun approach to digital marketing rarely works. A proper SEO strategy, built into your wider marketing strategy rather than bolted on as an afterthought, is what actually moves the needle, whether you're a five-person team in Manchester city centre or a national brand based here. Good SEO strategies are specific to your market, your customers and your competitors, not a template applied to every client the same way.
Search "Manchester SEO" or "SEO agency Manchester" and you'll find plenty of options. What matters more than the label is whether the approach to SEO is honest and whether you can actually see the SEO results, which is why I report in plain English rather than jargon designed to look impressive.
The work
Every engagement starts the same way: understanding your business, your market and what success actually looks like for you. From there, the services below get tailored to your budget and goals rather than sold to you as a fixed package.
One-to-one training or hands-on support for your in-house team, so you can run SEO yourselves with my guidance rather than depending on me for everything. Full detail on my SEO training and support page
A full audit of your technical SEO, on-page content and backlink profile, with a prioritised list of what to fix first, not a 40-page document with no order to it. See what's included on my SEO audits page
Getting you found in the Google map pack and local search results across Greater Manchester, Stockport, Cheshire and Macclesfield. See my Manchester local SEO page
Finding the search terms your customers actually use, mapped to the right page on your site rather than guessed at.
Content optimisation and creation that answers real questions and matches search intent, built to earn rankings rather than just fill a blog calendar.
Earning backlinks from sites with genuine authority through outreach and digital PR, not buying links that put your site at risk of a penalty.
Optimising your channel and videos to capture demand on the world's second-biggest search engine, a channel most competitors ignore entirely.
Planning and hands-on support before, during and after a site migration or redesign, so you don't lose the rankings and traffic you've already built.
Diagnosing what an algorithm update or manual action has done to your visibility, and building the plan to recover it.
Process
We start with a proper conversation about your business and your goals. Some businesses need a full SEO company behind them; plenty just need one experienced pair of hands. I'll tell you honestly which fits, and what kind of results are realistic for your market.
Every SEO strategy I build starts from a proper audit: technical health, on-page content and your backlink profile. You get a clear, honest picture of where you actually stand before anything else happens.
I build a plan around your budget and priorities, then get on with the work, whether that's solo or alongside your existing SEO team. You get plain-English reporting on what's been done and what it's achieved, not a wall of jargon and vanity metrics.
Capabilities
Most projects draw on several of these at once. None of it works in isolation, so I plan across all of it rather than selling each discipline as a separate add-on. My background also covers PPC, social media marketing, CRO and web development, so SEO recommendations fit your bigger marketing strategy rather than fighting it.
Site speed, crawlability, structured data and Core Web Vitals: the foundations that decide whether search engines can find and understand your site at all.
Google Business Profile optimisation, citations and location pages that get Manchester and North West businesses found by customers nearby.
Pages and articles written to answer real search intent, structured so both readers and search engines get what they need from them.
Outreach, partnerships and digital PR that earn links from sites Google actually trusts, the kind that move rankings rather than risk a penalty.
Product and category page optimisation, technical fixes for large catalogues, and internal linking that stops your best products getting buried.
Making sure your business gets cited in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity as well as classic search results. Read more on my AI search optimisation page
Measurement
Every project runs on data: rankings, organic traffic and enquiries, tracked with the same SEO tools professional SEO teams use, including Google Search Console and Google Analytics (I hold the Google Analytics certification). You get real search engine performance, not vanity metrics dressed up to look good in a monthly report.
I'll show you exactly how I plan to measure the success of an SEO campaign before we start, so there's no argument later about whether it worked. If a strategy isn't producing results, I'll say so and we'll change it, rather than quietly extending the contract and hoping you don't ask.
Straight talk
Whether you run a single Manchester business or several across the North West, investing in SEO only pays off with a comprehensive approach: technical foundations, content and links working together rather than one discipline propping up the others. I've seen enough half-finished SEO work from previous agencies to know that improving your SEO properly means finishing the job, not just the easy 80%.
Plenty of businesses in Manchester have been burned by a trusted SEO agency turning out to be neither. I don't promise to be the exception through marketing copy; I'd rather you judge that from the case studies below and the reviews on my reviews page.
The benefits of SEO show up as a long term asset rather than a one-off spike: a Manchester SEO company chasing quick wins will happily run a short local SEO campaign and move on, but a bespoke SEO strategy built around your actual customers keeps paying back long after the invoice is settled. It's why I structure every engagement, and every SEO team I work alongside, around seeing SEO results that last.
Consultancy
Not every business wants me to run their SEO end to end. Plenty just want expert advice, a second pair of eyes, or extra capacity working behind the scenes. That's SEO consultancy, and it's a growing part of what I do.
A monthly retainer where I act as your outsourced SEO consultant: reviewing performance, setting direction, and being available when a decision needs making. You keep doing the day-to-day work; I make sure it stays pointed the right way.
Some businesses have the people but not the specialist SEO knowledge yet. I work alongside your marketing team, training them and reviewing their work, rather than replacing them. More on my SEO training and support page
I also take on white-label and freelance SEO work for other agencies who need extra capacity or a specialist skill set for a particular client, working under NDA with your agency's brand front and centre throughout.
"Adam is an excellent all-round SEO and an absolute pleasure to work with. He works alongside our in-house team as an SEO and Marketing Consultant. Adam provides us with excellent on-going suggestions to improve our organic ranking in Google."
Cost
Ongoing SEO for a small or medium business typically runs from £300 to £1,500 a month, depending on how competitive your market is and how much work there is to do. One-off projects, like an SEO audit, are scoped and quoted individually because the work varies too much for a fixed price list.
Consultancy, training and white-label work are quoted the same way, based on the time involved rather than a rate card. I will always tell you honestly what your budget can and cannot achieve before you spend a penny, and if SEO isn't the right investment for you yet, I'll say so.
Proof
Click a case study to see the strategy and the numbers behind it.
Questions
Anything not covered here, just ask. I would also point you to my SEO audits and SEO training and support pages, and my local SEO checklist if you want to start improving things yourself.
Everything from a one-off SEO audit through to fully managed, ongoing SEO: technical SEO, local SEO, content, link building, ecommerce SEO and AI search optimisation, plus SEO training and consultancy for businesses who want to do more of it themselves. The full list is above, each with its own page where I go into more detail.
Ongoing SEO for a small or medium business typically runs from £300 to £1,500 a month, depending on how competitive your market is and how much work there is to do. This kind of small business SEO investment is scoped to your budget, not a fixed package. One-off projects, like an SEO audit, are quoted individually because the work varies too much for a fixed price list.
It depends how you like to work. Manchester has plenty of good marketing agencies and SEO companies, and for some businesses a full digital marketing agency is the right fit. As a freelance SEO consultant, I keep overheads low, you always speak directly to the person doing the work rather than a team of SEO experts each juggling dozens of accounts, and more of your budget goes on things that actually move rankings. I am happy to talk through both options honestly.
Not usually. I can start an SEO campaign on your existing site and factor website design changes in later if a redesign is genuinely needed. The exception is a site with serious technical problems, where fixing those has to come first regardless.
Yes. Consultancy covers retained advisory, where I set direction and review performance without doing the day-to-day work myself, plus training and support for in-house teams. See the consultancy section above for the detail.
Yes. I work behind the scenes for agencies who need extra SEO capacity or a specialist for a particular client, under NDA, with your agency's brand staying front and centre throughout. Get in touch to talk through what you need.
Some improvements show within weeks, but meaningful movement usually takes three to six months. SEO is a compounding investment rather than a quick fix, and anyone promising page one in a fortnight is someone to avoid.
No. Most of my clients are in Greater Manchester, Cheshire and the North West, but I work with businesses across the UK. Local knowledge helps for local search specifically, but good SEO strategy travels; search engines work the same everywhere.
No, and nobody honestly can. Search engines change their algorithms constantly and your competitors are working too. What I can promise is an honest, evidence-based strategy and straight reporting on what it is achieving, not a guarantee no one can actually keep.
An SEO audit is a one-off diagnostic: a full review of your site with a prioritised report on what to fix. Ongoing SEO is the continuous work of implementing that plan, building content and links, and adapting as your market and Google both move. Many clients start with an audit and move into ongoing work once they know what needs doing.
Yes. Some businesses want it done for them, others want their own team to understand and run it, and plenty want a mix of both. My SEO training and support page covers the training and mentoring side in full.
Get started
Tell me about your business and your goals, and I'll be straight with you about what SEO can realistically do for you. See my about page for more on how I work, or areas I cover: Manchester, Stockport, Cheshire, Macclesfield and Wilmslow.