How to Scope an SEO Project: A 30-Minute Guide
Work through this before your first call with a consultancy. The clearer your brief, the better the match — and the faster you move.
What problem are we solving?
Most SEO project briefs are too vague to be useful. “We need to improve our SEO” tells a consultancy almost nothing. This guide helps you turn a vague ambition into a brief that a boutique SEO consultancy can actually respond to — with a real scope, real timeline estimates, and pricing that is grounded in what you actually need.
You do not need to know much about SEO to complete this guide. You need to know your business, your current situation, and what success would look like. The consultancy will handle the technical decisions; your job is to be clear about the business problem.
Questions to answer before you start
Work through each question. If you can't answer three or more, you're not ready to brief a consultancy yet — and that's fine. Come back when you are.
Consultancies can help you with many things. Being specific helps them give you a relevant scope. "We want more organic traffic" is a goal; "We have lost 40% of our traffic since a Google update in March and we need to understand why and recover" is a problem.
Specific targets (ranking in the top 5 for 10 target keywords, 30% increase in organic leads) allow a consultant to work backwards and tell you whether the scope they are proposing is likely to achieve them. Vague targets produce vague proposals.
GSC data is the starting point for almost every SEO engagement. If you do not have it set up, say so. If you have it but have never looked at it, say that too. A consultant who starts without GSC access is working with one hand tied behind their back.
SEO history matters. If a previous agency built links, changed URL structures, or made significant technical changes, the new consultant needs to know. Past work can either be built on or cleaned up, but not if it is hidden.
A website redesign, CMS migration, or new domain launch changes the SEO engagement significantly. If any of these are planned, the consultant needs to know before scoping.
SEO consulting produces recommendations. Someone has to implement them. If the answer is "we have no internal resource", that needs to be in the brief so the consultant can scope for implementation support, not just strategy.
You do not need to share an exact number, but a range helps consultancies scope appropriately. A DKK 30.000 project and a DKK 200.000 project are completely different in scope. Saying "we have no idea" leads to proposals that span an unhelpful range.
Some SEO projects have time-sensitive elements (a planned site launch, a fundraising round that requires clean reporting). Others are open-ended. Knowing the timeline helps a consultant prioritise what to do first.
Typical project shapes
Most projects fall into one of these shapes. Which one sounds closest to yours?
Technical SEO audit
The consultant crawls your site, analyses your GSC data, and produces a prioritised list of fixes with implementation instructions. You implement the fixes (or your developer does). No ongoing relationship after the audit unless you choose to continue.
SEO strategy and content plan
The consultant identifies your target keyword clusters, maps them to your existing and future content, designs the content architecture, and produces an editorial calendar. Your team creates the content. The consultant may do a review pass.
Site migration support
The consultant audits your current site before any changes, produces a redirect map and migration checklist, reviews the dev team implementation before launch, and monitors GSC for issues in the weeks following go-live.
Ongoing SEO advisory
Monthly engagement covering strategy updates, content review, technical monitoring, and response to algorithm changes. Works best when there is an internal content function that can execute on recommendations.
Red flags to watch for
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They guarantee specific rankings or traffic numbers before seeing your site.
Ranking guarantees are a red flag in any context. Anyone making them either does not understand how Google works or is planning to use tactics that will get you penalised.
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They pitch link packages in the first conversation.
Links matter, but starting with links before fixing technical issues and content is backwards. Consultants who lead with links are usually selling you the thing they are best at, not the thing you most need.
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They do not ask for access to your Google Search Console in the first week.
GSC is the ground truth for your site. Any SEO consultant who does not immediately want access to it is either very inexperienced or does not actually plan to do analysis-driven work.
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Their proposal does not specify who will do the work or what their experience is.
Many SEO agencies have a senior person who pitches and a junior (or offshore) team that executes. The proposal should name the people doing the work.
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They cannot explain the connection between their recommendations and your business goals.
Good SEO work is tied to commercial outcomes. If a consultant cannot explain how their recommendations connect to leads, revenue, or another measurable business metric, they are optimising for SEO metrics, not business results.
Pre-submit checklist
Tick these before you hit send. Consultancies that get well-scoped briefs respond faster and with better questions.
- I can articulate the specific SEO problem I am trying to solve (not just "improve SEO").
- I have access to Google Search Console and can grant access to a consultancy.
- I know who internally will own the relationship and implement recommendations.
- I have a budget range in mind (even a rough one).
- I know if there are any technical events (site redesign, CMS migration) that affect the scope.
- I can share the history of any previous SEO work.
- I have defined what success looks like at 6 and 12 months.
Ready to submit your brief?
Takes 5 minutes. We'll match you to 2–3 boutique SEO Consulting consultancies. You'll hear back within 48 hours.