Hiring an SEO specialist: what they do, what it costs and how to choose.

Your shortlist probably looks familiar. A freelancer with glowing reviews, an agency with a polished deck, maybe a job description you have not published yet. Each one promises more visibility. None of them makes it easy to compare what you would actually get, or what it should cost.

This guide gives you that comparison. It covers what an SEO specialist does in a normal month, the main types, when a freelancer, an agency or an in-house hire makes sense, and what each one costs, with the source behind every number. It ends with the questions Google itself suggests you ask and the red flags that should end a conversation. We are an SEO agency in Amsterdam, and we wrote it to be useful even if you end up hiring someone else.

What does an SEO specialist do?

An SEO specialist works out why search engines rank other pages above yours, then changes what can be changed. SEO stands for search engine optimisation. The work covers the unpaid results in Google and, increasingly, the sources that AI systems cite in their answers.

In its guide Do you need an SEO?, Google lists what SEOs typically offer: a review of your site’s content or structure, technical advice on things like hosting, redirects, error pages and JavaScript, content development, management of online business development campaigns, keyword research, SEO training, expertise in specific markets and geographies, and optimisation for generative AI.

In practice, a month of work usually looks like this:

• measuring in Google Search Console and your analytics: which pages rise or fall, and where enquiries come from;
• checking technical health, such as indexing, page speed, redirects and structured data, and getting issues fixed;
• improving existing pages and planning new ones around what your customers actually search for;
• earning authority through mentions and links from trade media, PR and partners;
• reporting what changed, what it delivered and what comes next.

What an SEO specialist cannot do matters just as much. Nobody controls what Google shows, and rankings are not for sale: Google states that advertising with Google has no effect on your presence in its organic results. Paid search belongs to a different discipline, covered in our guide to SEA and Google Ads. Larger technical changes are usually carried out by your developer, on the specialist’s instructions.

The job has widened. AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity now answer questions with cited sources, and you want to be one of them. The foundation has not moved, though. Google says its generative AI features are rooted in its core ranking and quality systems, so a good SEO specialist works on both at once. Our guide to SEO vs GEO walks through that guidance, and GEO optimisation covers what AI visibility adds on top.

Types of SEO specialists

Most SEO specialists have a centre of gravity. Ask about it early, because it decides whether someone fits your problem.

For most companies, a strategic generalist with specialists on call works best. One person decides what matters first. A migration or a PR push goes to whoever is strongest at it. For a full picture of the work itself, see our guide to SEO optimisation.

Freelancer, agency or in-house?

The right model depends on your size and ambition. A freelance SEO specialist is personal and flexible. An agency brings more hands and absorbs absence. An in-house hire knows your business best, but is still one person with one profile.

A hybrid often works best: a marketer in-house who owns SEO as part of the role, with an outside partner for strategy, technical work and the hard questions. If you lean towards an agency, our guide to choosing a digital agency compares the main types.

How much does an SEO specialist cost?

An SEO specialist costs you an hourly rate, a monthly retainer or a salary, depending on the model. The most useful public data comes from an Ahrefs survey of 439 SEO service providers and from salary figures Indeed collects from job postings.

Hourly rates

In the Ahrefs survey, the average hourly rate for SEO is $111. The most popular band is $75 to $100 an hour, charged by 24% of respondents, and 90% charge $150 an hour or less. Rates differ sharply by region, so a quote from another continent is not a like-for-like comparison. Before comparing two rates, ask what happens in an hour and who does the work.

Salaries for an in-house SEO specialist

In the United States, an SEO specialist earns $82,423 a year on average, based on 896 salaries from job postings on Indeed, updated on 11 October 2026. Most salaries fall between $43,005 and $157,974. In the Netherlands, Indeed’s data puts the average at €3,646 gross per month across 443 salaries, with Amsterdam among the best-paying cities at €3,901 per month.

A salary is only part of the cost. Add payroll taxes, tools, training and the time it takes to manage someone. And one person is rarely equally strong in technical SEO, content and PR.

Monthly retainers

Most SEO work is sold per month: 78.2% of the providers in the Ahrefs survey charge a monthly retainer. Agencies averaged $3,209 a month and freelancers $1,348. Ahrefs calculated those averages from the top of each price band, so read them as an upper-leaning guide. For our own work, the figure on our SEO page applies: serious SEO starts at a few hundred euros per month for a focused programme and grows with scope, such as content production, technical work and the number of markets or languages.

Does your SEO specialist need to be local?

For most of the work, no. It happens in Search Console, in your CMS and in shared documents. What does matter is knowledge of your market: who your competitors are, how your buyers search and, for local SEO, how your region works. Google lists experience in your country or city among the questions worth asking an SEO.

That matters if you sell into the Netherlands. A specialist should research Dutch-language searches directly rather than translate an English keyword list, because the phrases people type rarely map one to one. Our guide on how to use Ahrefs shows how to set the country before you start.

We work from Amsterdam for clients across the Netherlands. We do not build a separate page for every city someone might add to “SEO specialist”. Google’s spam policies name pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page as an example of doorway abuse, and list blocks of text naming the cities a page wants to rank for as keyword stuffing. If a specialist proposes thirty near-identical city pages, you are mostly buying risk. A city page earns its place only when you offer something distinct there, such as an office or local work you can show.

How to hire an SEO specialist

Hire the SEO specialist who asks about your business before they talk about keywords. Google writes that a good SEO should want to know what makes your business unique, who your competitors are and how customers find you today. If that interest is missing, keep looking.

1. Define the problem you are hiring for: a migration, content growth, local visibility or AI search. It narrows the field quickly.
2. Ask for examples of previous work, with the results attached.
3. Ask whether they follow the Google Search Essentials and back their advice with Google’s documentation.
4. Ask what results they expect, over what timeframe, and how they measure success.
5. Ask about experience in your industry and in your country or city. Sectors differ: SEO for software companies, for example, has to win technical buyers over long buying cycles.
6. Ask how you will communicate and whether they will explain every change to your site, with the reasoning.
7. Ask whether their advice on AI search aligns with Google’s official guidance.
8. Agree that every account sits in your name and what you receive if you part ways.

Then call one or two of their clients. Google recommends checking references: did the SEO provide useful services, were they easy to work with, and were the results positive? If you want to check a specialist’s claims about your site yourself, our guide to Ahrefs explains what the most common SEO tool measures and how far its data goes.

Red flags when hiring an SEO specialist

A few signals are enough to walk away. Most of them come straight from Google’s documentation.

• Someone guarantees a number one ranking. Google states that no one can guarantee a top position in Google.
• Someone claims a “special relationship” with Google or advertises a “priority submit” to Google.
• You receive an unsolicited email saying your site is missing from the search engines. Google says it gets these emails too.
• Someone offers to submit your site to thousands of search engines, or sells schemes that inflate link popularity.
• Links are bought or exchanged at scale to influence rankings. Google classes that as link spam.
• The proposal is dozens of near-identical city or region pages.
• Nobody tells you what is changing on your site, or why.
• The monthly report shows rankings and a tool score, with no enquiries or revenue.

Keep one point in mind above the rest: you are responsible for what someone you hire does to your site. Google writes that site owners are responsible for the actions of the companies they hire. If an SEO creates misleading content on your behalf, your site could even be removed from Google’s index entirely.

How we help

At Viralistic, SEO is not a bolt-on package. We start with your positioning: who should find you, and at what moment in their decision? Then we build technical health, content and visibility in AI answers as one system. You get one strategic lead instead of a stack of freelancers, with Marrallisa Kreijkes directing the work herself. If you run a premium brand, our guide to SEO for luxury brands shows how visibility can grow without diluting what makes you exclusive.

For SilverDrive, a premium chauffeur service in Amsterdam, the Randstad and across Europe, we first wrote the BrandScript and brand story. Then came a three-phase SEO growth programme running from March to June 2026: keyword mapping and city pages, blog content and image SEO, and finally backlinks and Google reviews. After the first phase we moved the content strategy towards city-to-city trips, so SilverDrive shows up both in Google and in AI answers such as ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Looking for an SEO specialist who understands your brand? Read how we work in our SEO approach, or plan a strategic call with Marrallisa.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an SEO specialist cost?

It depends on the model. In an Ahrefs survey of 439 SEO providers, the average hourly rate was $111, agencies averaged $3,209 a month and freelancers $1,348. An in-house specialist in the United States earns $82,423 a year on average, according to Indeed. At Viralistic, SEO starts at a few hundred euros per month for a focused programme.

How much does an SEO specialist get paid?

An SEO specialist in the United States earns $82,423 a year on average, based on 896 salaries from Indeed job postings updated in October 2026. Junior roles average $56,704 and senior roles $90,093. In the Netherlands, the Indeed average is €3,646 gross per month, and in Amsterdam €3,901. Employers pay payroll costs, tools and training on top.

Is it worth hiring an SEO agency?

It is worth it when search is a real growth channel and the work spans several disciplines, such as technical fixes, content and PR. Google notes that a small local business can probably do much of the work itself. An agency earns its fee when it brings capacity and judgement you lack, and when it explains every change it makes to your site.

Can ChatGPT do SEO?

ChatGPT can help with research, outlines and first drafts, but it cannot own the strategy. Google asks that content made with generative AI tools meets its Search Essentials and spam policies, and it treats generating many pages without adding value as scaled content abuse. Knowing your customers, setting priorities and taking responsibility remain human work.

Is SEO dead now with AI?

No. Google says SEO best practices remain relevant because its generative AI features are rooted in its core Search ranking and quality systems. What changes is the bar for content: a unique point of view counts for more than a summary of what is already online. A good SEO specialist now works on Google rankings and AI answers together.

Can a beginner do SEO?

Yes, up to a point. Google says a small local business can probably do much of the work itself and recommends its SEO Starter Guide as the place to begin. That knowledge also helps when you hire later, because you will spot methods Google advises against. Technical audits, competitor research and consistency over months are where specialists earn their keep.