The freelance SEO consultant who shows you the work
Hiring SEO help usually means paying every month and hoping something got done. Here you see the price before we talk, you work with the person doing the job, and every week you see what changed on your site and why.
Why freelance SEO costs anywhere from $15 to $200+ an hour
Two things drive most of the price: how much experience you're paying for, and whether the person only advises or also does the work. Per month, a senior consultant and an agency cost about the same. What changes is who does the work.
Help with one small, clear task, like fixing page titles or setting up a listing.
You manage the work and check the quality yourself.
A capable pair of hands for a set scope. Usually strategy or execution, less often both.
Lots of small clients at once, so replies can be slow.
A team that can run SEO, ads and social media together.
Senior people sell the deal, and junior staff often do the work.
Someone who has seen enough sites to know what to fix first and what to skip.
Some only advise. Ask who makes the changes.
From $2,500 a month. Most clients land between $3,000 and $6,000, with the work done on your site.
You'll always know what got done
The most common complaint about SEO help is paying for months without seeing a single change. So the work happens in the open: what changed, why it changed, and what it did.
- The strategy and the hands-on work, both done by me
- Fixes, new pages and rewrites, made directly on your site
- Leads and sales tracked, so results show up in money
- A weekly call, and replies within 24 hours
- A monthly report on what moved and what it was worth
- Bought links or link packages
- Guaranteed rankings
- Long contracts or cancellation fees
- Accounts or content you don't own
The person behind Win The Search
I've run Win The Search since 2021, and I've done SEO since I was 14.
Before going out on my own, I spent five years at Munday Digital. I started there as a junior and left as head of SEO, after working on 20+ campaigns for Australian and global brands and managing the team of SEOs, writers and VAs behind them.
Since then I've checked sites for SEO before buyers paid six and seven figures for them, and co-founded Linkter, an internal linking tool for WordPress.
WordPress is where I'm most at home. Every site I build for myself runs on it, and I like that you own your site outright instead of renting it from a platform.
That's also why I know what themes, page builders, plugins and hosting do to your rankings, and how to change them without breaking your site.
Who should hire a freelance SEO consultant, and who shouldn’t
A freelancer isn't the right call for every business, and sometimes the right call is not hiring anyone yet.
You want one person to own your SEO
You'd rather talk to the person doing the work than an account manager, you want changes made instead of listed, and you can put $2,500 or more a month into it for at least 6 months.
This is where I fitYou need several channels run together
SEO, paid ads, social media and email at once, or a big team producing content at scale. One person can't cover all of that well, and a good agency can.
You have one small, clear job
Fixing page titles, tidying up a Google Business Profile, a basic audit. A marketplace freelancer can handle it, as long as you're happy to check the work.
SEO isn't the right move right now
Your site is brand new and you're still figuring out what sells, you need leads this month (ads are faster), or you can't keep going for 6 months. For a local business, a well-kept Google Business Profile is free and a good first step.
What happens when I run your SEO
The Operator is my ongoing engagement. It starts with tracking, an audit and a plan, and then the work happens on your site every week.
Tracking, an audit and a plan
Leads and sales from Google get tracked first. Then a full audit of your site, rankings and competitors, and a 6-month roadmap of what gets done first and why.
The biggest fixes go live
Broken redirects, pages Google can't index, slow templates and messy structure. Whatever is holding the site back gets fixed first.
Pages that bring in buyers
Your key pages rewritten around what buyers search, plus new pages where you're missing out. This is usually when growth starts to show.
Building on what works
More pages and content, built on what's already bringing in leads. The bigger returns usually come after month 6.
Every week
- A call on what moved last week and what's next
- Fixes, pages and content shipped on your site
- Slack or email all week, with replies within 24 hours
Every month
- A report on what moved, why it moved and what it was worth in leads and sales
- The plan for next month, based on what's working
- Hosting and maintenance handled too, if you'd like me to run your site
5 checks before you hire any freelance SEO
They take about 15 minutes and filter out most of the people you shouldn't hire. Run them on me too.
Talk to the person who will do the work
Not a salesperson and not an account manager. If they won't get on a call before you pay, move on.
Ask who makes the changes
A list of recommendations only helps if someone ships it. Find out if they'll make the changes or leave them to your developer.
Ask how they'll measure it
Rankings and traffic are easy to show and easy to dress up. Ask how leads and sales from Google will be tracked.
Check what happens when you leave
You should own the site, the accounts, the content and the data. Anything that stays with them is how they keep you.
Start with something small and paid
An audit or a short first project shows you how they think and work before you commit to a monthly retainer.
“We guarantee page one in 90 days.”
Nobody controls Google's rankings. A promise like that means guessing or cutting corners.
“You’ll need to sign for 12 months.”
Good work keeps clients. A contract shouldn't have to.
“We’ll set the accounts up under our name.”
That's how you end up unable to leave.
“We have our own network of sites for links.”
Private link networks can get your site penalized.
“I found 47 errors on your site.”
An unsolicited email full of scary numbers is a sales script, not an audit.
What clients say about working with me
Vukasin is the best SEO guy I have ever worked with. He has a very strong understanding of SEO and how it correlates to our business expectations, and hardly needed any guidance on what we wanted done. Highly recommended!
Vuk is one of the sharpest SEO/AEO specialists I've worked with — deeply knowledgeable, always a step ahead on where search is heading, and just a joy to collaborate with. Responsive, easy to talk to, and genuinely fun to work with on any project.
Vuk exceeded expectations with his thorough, data-driven SEO audit. Everyone was very impressed with the quality of Vuk's work, his thoughtfulness and clear expertise. Plus, he's easy to work with, delivers on what he says he's going to deliver, and goes above and beyond.
An amazing SEO consultant whose knowledge goes beyond surface level. He's able to outsmart the thousand SEOs who are just looking at what everyone else is doing.
Vuk provides a really wonderful alternative to larger agencies. The results I got from working with him definitely rival what I've gotten from larger, US-based SEO agencies.
I'm impressed with the work he has put in to help me form my SEO strategy. Knowledgeable about the industry, timely with his work and generous with his advice.
Want to hear it from me instead? A first call is free and takes 30 minutes.
Book a free call →Start small, or hand me the whole thing
Three options, and there's no set path between them. Start wherever fits where you are right now.
The Scan
A fast outside read on your site
I spend 60 minutes on your site and send you a 20-minute video on the 5 biggest opportunities, ranked by how much revenue they're likely to move.
Start a Scan →The Operator
I run your SEO and your site
A full audit and 6-month roadmap in your first 14 days, then weekly calls and the work done on your site. Month-to-month, with a 30-day walk-away.
Book a free call →The Build
A WordPress site built to rank
Built on WordPress and Bricks with search planned in from day one. Fast, tracked, documented and 100% yours.
Book a free call →Everything each option includes is on the WordPress SEO services page.
Running an agency? I take on white-label SEO work too
Senior help under your brand and on your client relationship. Useful when you're short on senior hours, or a project needs someone who has done it many times before.
- Audits and technical SEO
- Site migrations
- Strategy and roadmaps
- WordPress fixes and builds
Hiring a freelance SEO consultant: common questions
Something else on your mind? Ask me on a free call.
Book a free call →How much does a freelance SEO consultant cost?
+
It mostly depends on experience. Marketplace freelancers often charge $15 to $35 an hour. In Ahrefs' survey of 439 SEO providers, freelancers averaged about $72 an hour and consultants about $171, with monthly retainers averaging around $1,350 and $3,250. My ongoing work starts at $2,500 a month, and most clients land between $3,000 and $6,000. I broke down what's fair in my SEO pricing guide.
What does a freelance SEO consultant actually do?
+
Finds what's stopping your site from bringing in customers from Google, then fixes it. That usually means technical fixes, better pages for what buyers search, content, internal links and tracking. Some consultants only advise. I advise and do the work, on your site.
Is a freelance SEO consultant better than an agency?
+
For most businesses that mainly need SEO, a senior freelancer gets you more experience for the money, because you're not paying for account managers and office space. An agency makes more sense if you need several channels run together, or a big team producing content at scale.
How long until I see results?
+
Technical fixes can show up within weeks. Real growth usually takes 3 to 6 months, and the bigger returns come after 6 to 12. Month-to-month terms mean you can judge the progress along the way without being locked in.
Should I pay hourly, per project or monthly?
+
Hourly works for a second opinion or a few calls. A project works for one clear job, like an audit, a migration or a new site. Monthly works for growth, because most SEO results come from steady work over months, not one big push.
What happens if you get sick or we stop working together?
+
Nothing breaks. You own the site, hosting, domain, content, data and the strategy, and the work is documented. If we stop for any reason, the next person picks it up from where I left off. When a project needs more hands, I bring in a writer or specialist I trust and manage them myself.
Do you work with businesses in the US?
+
Yes. I work with businesses across the US and EU from Novi Sad, Serbia. That's 6 hours ahead of New York and 9 ahead of Los Angeles, so calls usually happen in your morning, and replies come within 24 hours.
Can AI or ChatGPT do my SEO now?
+
It can speed up parts of the work, like drafting or sorting data. It can't decide what's worth fixing on your site, and it won't make the changes. AI answers also lean on sites Google already trusts, so good SEO is also how you show up there.
Do you only work on WordPress?
+
WordPress is where I can build, fix and rank a site myself, so that's where I do my best work. If your site is on another platform and you have a team that ships changes fast, I'm open to that too.
What's the best way to start?
+
If you're not sure what your site needs, start with a $50 Scan. If you already know you want help, book a free 30-minute call and we'll work out the right fit.
Talk to the person who would do the work
Tell me about your site and what isn't working. You'll get an honest read on what I'd do first, and if I'm not the right fit, I'll say so.
Not ready for a call? Start with a $50 Scan →
Tell me about your site
Takes about 3 minutes. Goes straight to me, Vukasin.You'll hear back from me within two business days.