Your SEO Freelancer from Berlin

Search engine optimisation is a field that is difficult to define. The classic three-part division is:

• Technical SEO
• Content SEO
• Off-page SEO

In addition, what is often needed above all is project management. However, this includes not only creating and monitoring tickets for content creation or IT, but also, for example, persuading management in order to secure a budget in the first place.

In practice, however, there are a number of SEO measures that are used in the vast majority of projects. Examples include:

• Optimising crawling & targeted deindexing
• Improving web performance & Core Web Vitals
• Improving navigation and internal linking
• Revising existing landing pages
• Developing new landing pages
• Optimising for CTR & SERP features
• Building backlinks

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”—in German, Suchmaschinenoptimierung. At its core, it is an abstract discipline aimed at offering search engine users the most suitable result possible.

Search engines act as gatekeepers. They reward successful SEO measures with better rankings, which generally leads to more traffic and, for example, higher sales for online shops.

In concrete terms, you usually proceed in the following steps and repeat them continuously as an ongoing process to steadily improve your rankings:

1. SEO analyses, for example of SERP features and competitors
2. Technical optimisations, for example of web performance and navigation
3. Content optimisations, for example with suitable content formats and keyword targeting
4. Backlink building, for example via premium providers or outreach campaigns
5. Ongoing iterations

My hourly rate is €150/h.

However, the total cost of an SEO project depends on additional factors, such as:

• Type of SEO measures: The scope can vary greatly depending on the topic area and the specific challenges of a project. For example, working with an outdated system can require additional effort and therefore increase costs.
• Competitive situation: The intensity of the respective competition and the pulling power of a company’s USPs generally have a very strong influence on the required SEO effort.
• Provider’s home market: SEO prices vary greatly by region and provider. As an SEO freelancer from Berlin, for example, I am significantly more affordable than my competitors from Hamburg or Munich. In addition, agencies are also more expensive than freelancers due to organisational overhead.
• Contract type: Some SEO providers calculate on the basis of fixed-term contracts with monthly retainers, while others bill on a project basis. The devil is usually in the details here, and unfortunately, inexperienced clients very often fall for targeted misdirection by salespeople. I am happy to explain which contract type is the best choice for your SEO project in a detailed preliminary consultation.

Monthly costs for a promising SEO project usually range from a few hundred to several thousand euros.

At its core, search engine optimisation is an abstract discipline in which two elements need to be brought together:

• Search queries and search intent
• Search results

When you start with SEO, the first step is to identify relevant search queries. The classic approach is keyword research. In addition, it is crucial to get an overview of SERP features in the targeted topic area.

For example, when searching for many service providers or shops, Google assumes an implicit local search intent. You can see this, for example, from the map on the search results page. Accordingly, you should optimise for this feature because it is very dominant visually.

The second step is optimising your web presence. This includes both technical optimisations and the content development of landing pages into the best possible candidates for leading search results.

As an SEO freelancer, for example, I have developed an entire series of configurations for the crawling of different website types and industries using Screaming Frog. This allows me to analyse several key technical problem areas semi-automatically and very quickly.

At this point, I would strongly warn against SEOs who, for example, only work with XOVI or Ryte. These are also crawling tools, but for people who cannot configure things themselves. And if they lack that competence, they are usually not well equipped in other areas either.

Another key factor is the use of data. However, the talk of “data-driven” is sales nonsense. The quality of the data from on-page tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics, and even more so from third-party tools such as SemRush or Sistrix, is problematic. In most cases, these are not exact or even complete values, but only fragmentary estimates. Letting such data “drive” you is pretty foolish.

Capable SEOs therefore follow the “data-informed” approach. That means you look closely at the data in Google Search Console, but you do not follow it blindly—instead, you draw your own conclusions. There are still plenty of pitfalls, which I would be happy to explain and demonstrate as part of training sessions.

As you can see: getting started with search engine optimisation is very easy. But then it becomes very complex very quickly and requires years of practical experience. You also need to continuously expand your expertise and keep up with new developments. So if you do not happen to want to devote your entire life to this topic, I would be pleased to support you as an SEO freelancer.

The question of how long SEO takes consists of two elements:

• the time required to implement the measure
• the time until the implemented measure takes effect

Some SEO measures can be implemented in just a few minutes and take effect within 48 hours, such as these examples:

• Optimising Google My Business
• Optimising meta titles

However, the vast majority of SEO measures are much more time-consuming to implement. Reasons for this can include:

• The need for extensive analyses
• Coordination with all project stakeholders
• Technical issues with outdated content or shop systems
• Effort required for content creation / technical implementation
• and much more.

Another key component is whether you are optimising for technical ranking factors or for user signals. For example, changing a meta title becomes visible immediately after Google processes it, usually within 48 hours.

Optimisations for better user signals, however, take much longer before a visible effect on rankings becomes apparent. The simple reason is that many new users first need to consume the optimised content so that Google can generate data to evaluate such optimisations. The timeframe most commonly cited is at least three months. Depending on how saturated the environment is, it can take much longer.

A competent SEO freelancer delivers high-quality, sustainable results. Key characteristics of this way of working include:

• Transparency and clear communication: A competent SEO freelancer works transparently and can explain their approach, methods, and expected results in clear terms.
• Sustainability in search engine optimisation: A good SEO freelancer follows search engine guidelines, such as Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and the Quality Rater Guidelines. There are fraudulent tactics that can be very successful in the short term, but they are identified and penalised by Google sooner or later.
• Individuality of the strategy: Because the roughly 200 ranking factors are weighted differently for each website, every SEO strategy must necessarily be tailored individually. A one-size-fits-all approach can never meet this challenge with full success.
• Realism: A competent SEO provides realistic, down-to-earth outlooks for a project. With exaggerated or even fraudulent promises, you cannot lead a website to long-term success.
• Monitoring: A competent SEO freelancer provides regular reports on progress and explains the strategy’s successes using metrics.
• Experience and expertise: A good SEO freelancer has extensive theoretical knowledge and even more practical experience in all areas of search engine optimisation—technical SEO, content SEO, and off-page.
• Cost structure: A reputable SEO freelancer provides a clear overview of a project’s costs and informs you in good time about any unplanned additional effort. Hidden costs are a no-go.
• Customer service: A good SEO freelancer is easy to reach for questions and support and provides excellent customer service. The reason is simple: as an SEO, you very often have to communicate your work to people without specialist knowledge. If you cannot do that, you cannot be a good SEO.
• Contractual setup: Long contract terms are, of course, very convenient for SEO freelancers and provide a lot of planning security. In practice, however, they are often set up as restrictive contracts under flimsy arguments, and clients are the ones who lose out.

The general answer is: yes. Support from an SEO consultant is always advisable when you use search engine traffic for commercial purposes. It is essentially like the question of whether you should involve a tax advisor for your annual financial statements.

In addition, small businesses in particular have an operational advantage over large providers: they are very flexible, and the number of stakeholders is small, which makes coordination much easier. Large companies, on the other hand, often need months just to approve a short text.

An SEO freelancer is a self-employed provider of SEO services. Typically, they are a sole proprietor or may have a small number of employees for support.

In practice, it is usually the best SEOs from agencies who take this step into self-employment. As a freelancer, you then work on your own account. However, the job title is not protected, so unfortunately there are also bad actors.

What matters most is that, as an SEO freelancer, you operate without an agency’s overhead. You handle sales yourself and, for other tasks such as invoicing, etc., you use at most occasional support—for example from a tax advisor. This has many advantages, such as:

• Lean cost structure
• More affordable hourly rates
• Expertise from A to Z

In addition, SEO freelancers are often among the few true experts in search engine optimisation. The reason is that SEOs in agencies or in-house are forced into highly segmented processes.

Such non-self-employed SEOs often work for years on only very limited, repetitive sub-tasks. Even punchy titles like “Senior SEO Manager” therefore have little meaning, because common operating procedures leave no room for substantial learning curves.

Hiring SEO freelancers is therefore a win-win-win situation for clients and service providers. The ones who lose out are mainly agency salespeople. They simply cannot contribute to project success, but they cost a great, great deal of money:

• Clients have lower costs than with SEO agencies.
• Clients receive better services than from SEO agencies.
• SEO freelancers earn significantly more than employees.