Strategic SEO Advisory: a fractional head of SEO
Strategic SEO Advisory is a fractional retainer: I own your SEO and GEO strategy, set priorities, review the work and keep development, content and PR pulling in the same direction.
Enterprise SEO doesn't fail for lack of hands.
It fails for lack of direction. Internal teams execute tickets while nobody decides which tickets matter. You get senior strategic ownership without a full-time hire, and without an agency's junior bench.
Signs you need this
- Your agency sends monthly reports, but nobody owns the roadmap.
- Developers fix what's flagged; nobody decides what's worth flagging.
- Leadership asks what SEO is worth, and nobody can answer in business terms.
Between leadership and execution
I sit between your marketing leadership and your execution teams, in-house or external, and make sure the work that ships is the work that matters.
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Own the strategy
One organic and AI search strategy, kept current.
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Set priorities
Quarterly roadmaps and monthly priorities, ranked by impact and effort.
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Specify and review
Task specs for internal teams and vendors, and review of what they ship.
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Report in business terms
Executive reporting that connects organic performance to pipeline.
Where this sits in the Organic Value Chain
Advisory strengthens the support links: Infrastructure (governance and reporting), Capability (who owns SEO and how decisions get made) and Sourcing (agencies and vendors held to one standard). It also manages the linkages between organic and your other channels.
How the method works →- Infrastructure
- Capability
- Technology
- Sourcing
- Research
- Build
- Retrieval
- Conversion
- Defence
- ROI
Dark: main focus
Senior ownership, every month
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Strategic ownership
Ongoing ownership of your organic programme, across SEO and AI search.
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Roadmap and priorities
A quarterly roadmap, broken into monthly priorities.
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Specs and review
Task specification for your internal teams and vendors, and review of implemented work.
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Access and reporting
A weekly sync call, async access between calls, and executive reporting tied to business outcomes.
How it works
- 01 · Month 1
Onboarding
Access, a value chain diagnostic of your current setup, and the first quarterly roadmap.
- 02 · Every week
Sync call
Priorities, blockers and decisions with your team.
- 03 · Every month
Priorities and review
Next month's priorities, specs for the work, review of what shipped.
- 04 · Every quarter
Leadership review
Results against the roadmap, and the next quarter's plan.
A good fit if
You have in-house marketing or development capacity and need a strategist, not another vendor. Typical setup: working directly with the CMO or Head of Marketing.
Probably not yet if
You have nobody to implement. Advisory sets direction; it needs a developer, writer or agency to execute.
Global Trading Platform: the same role, held in-house
Global SEO strategy, roadmap, agency and budget management, and C-level reporting across markets and regulators.
Read the case study →- 3×conversion improvement
- +92%keywords in the top 3
- +217%keywords in positions 4–10
2 years · Ahrefs data
Questions, answered
How is this different from an agency?
An agency executes. I decide what's worth executing and hold whoever does it accountable, including the agency.
Do I need an in-house team?
You need someone to implement: a developer, a content writer or an agency. I provide direction and quality control.
Can I pause or cancel?
Yes, anytime. The retainer runs month to month.
Do you work with our existing agency?
Usually, yes. I set the standards and review the work; they execute.
Other ways to work together
All services →- 01 · Start here Search Performance Audit One prioritised review of technical health, content, competitors and AI visibility, built backwards from lost traffic and revenue.
- 02 AI Visibility Strategy (GEO) Measure what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini say about you, trace it to the sources they cite, and shift it.
- 03 Organic Growth Strategy What organic search is worth to your business, how it competes for budget with paid, and where to invest over the next 12 months.
- 04 Content Strategy What to build next quarter, what to update and what to cut, so every piece earns rankings, pipeline or AI citations.
Need direction, not more hands?
Send a short note about your team and what's not working. I reply within one business day.