FRACTIONAL SEO
Senior SEO Leadership Without the Full-Time Price Tag
You need an SEO director, not another agency. Someone who owns the strategy, drives execution, and is accountable for results - embedded in your team, on your schedule. Fractional SEO gives you the expertise without the £120K salary.
Get The Teardown60-70%
cost saving vs a full-time senior SEO hire
10-15hrs
per week of focused, senior-level SEO work
90 days
to measurable ranking and traffic improvements
Why Most Fractional SEO Goes Wrong
You've probably experienced at least one of these. Here's why.
A Full-Time SEO Hire Costs More Than You Need to Spend
A senior SEO manager or director costs £80-120K in salary, plus benefits, plus tools, plus training. For most businesses, that's overkill - you don't need 40 hours a week of SEO leadership. You need 10-15 hours of the right person doing the right work. Fractional SEO gives you director-level expertise at a fraction of the cost, scaling up or down as your needs change.
Your Agency Assigns Juniors to Your Account
You signed up because of the pitch from the agency's senior team. Then you got handed to an account manager with 18 months of experience who follows a checklist. The strategy calls are surface-level. The recommendations are generic. The senior people who sold you show up for QBRs and disappear. You're paying senior rates for junior execution.
Freelancers Lack Strategic Depth
You've tried freelancers. They're great at tasks - audits, keyword research, content briefs. But they don't own the strategy. They don't sit in your planning meetings. They don't understand your product roadmap, your competitive landscape, or your revenue model well enough to make the decisions that actually move the needle. You need a strategic partner, not a task executor.
60-70%
cost saving vs a full-time senior SEO hire
10-15hrs
per week of focused, senior-level SEO work
90 days
to measurable ranking and traffic improvements
3.5x
average ROI on fractional SEO engagements
How Fractional SEO Works
Fractional SEO means you get a senior SEO leader embedded in your business - attending your standups, working in your tools, accountable to your KPIs. Not an outsourced agency. Not a freelancer you brief once a month. A strategic partner who knows your business as well as your internal team does.
Embedded in Your Team, Not Outside It
A fractional SEO lead integrates directly into your existing workflow. Slack channels, Jira boards, weekly standups, planning sessions - wherever decisions about your website and content are being made, your fractional SEO is in the room.
This isn't about receiving a monthly report and a list of recommendations. It's about having someone who understands your product, your customers, and your competitive landscape deeply enough to make strategic calls in real time.
When your dev team is planning a site restructure, your fractional SEO is reviewing the URL architecture before it's built - not auditing the damage after launch. When marketing is planning a content campaign, SEO is baked into the brief from day one - not bolted on afterwards.
The result is SEO that's integrated into your business decisions, not a separate workstream that fights for attention.
Strategy and Execution, Not Just Advice
Most SEO consultants give you a strategy document and wish you luck with implementation. That's not fractional SEO.
Your fractional SEO lead owns the full lifecycle: audit, strategy, prioritisation, execution oversight, and performance measurement. They write the technical specs your dev team implements. They create the content briefs your writers follow. They build the reporting dashboards your leadership reviews.
This means:
- Quarterly strategy aligned to business objectives and revenue targets - Monthly execution plans with clear deliverables and owners - Weekly progress tracking against KPIs that matter - Direct collaboration with dev, content, and marketing teams - Vendor management if you use specialist agencies for link building or content production
You get the thinking and the doing. Not a deck that gathers dust.
Flexible Commitment, Consistent Results
Fractional means flexible. You're not locked into a 12-month retainer for a fixed scope that may not match your needs in 6 months.
Typical engagements range from 2-4 days per week, scaling based on project demands. Launching a new site? Scale up to full-time for a month. In a steady-state optimisation phase? Scale back to 2 days. Business priorities shift? The engagement shifts with them.
This flexibility doesn't mean inconsistency. Your fractional SEO lead maintains continuity - they know your site's history, your ranking trajectory, your technical debt, and your content gaps. Context isn't lost between engagements because the same person stays embedded in your business.
It's the consistency of an in-house hire with the flexibility of an external partner.
Accountability to Revenue, Not Vanity Metrics
Your fractional SEO lead is measured on the same metrics your business cares about: organic revenue, qualified leads, pipeline contribution, and market share.
Not impressions. Not 'keyword visibility scores.' Not traffic from branded searches you'd get anyway.
Every strategy decision maps back to commercial impact. Which keywords drive revenue, not just volume. Which pages convert, not just rank. Which technical fixes unlock revenue, not just improve audit scores.
Reporting is transparent and tied to outcomes:
- Organic revenue attribution by landing page and keyword cluster - Pipeline influence from organic search - Market share tracking against named competitors - ROI calculation: cost of fractional engagement vs organic revenue generated
If the engagement isn't generating measurable return, you'll know - and so will we.
Industries We Serve
FINANCE & TRADING
Finance & Trading
Finance marketing that converts traders without getting banned. SEO, paid search, and content strategy built for forex brokers, crypto platforms, and trading companies.
INSURANCE
Insurance
Insurance marketing that competes with comparison sites and avoids $50+ CPCs. Long-tail SEO, content depth strategy, and technical SEO for insurance providers.
Common Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What is fractional SEO?
Fractional SEO is hiring a senior SEO leader on a part-time, embedded basis instead of a full-time employee or traditional agency. You get director-level strategy, execution oversight, and accountability - typically 2-4 days per week - without the £80-120K salary, benefits, and overhead of a permanent hire.
How much does fractional SEO cost?
Fractional SEO typically costs 60-70% less than a full-time senior SEO hire. Exact pricing depends on the scope and hours per week, but you're paying for focused, high-impact work rather than filling a seat for 40 hours. No retainer lock-ins, no bloated agency fees subsidising account managers who don't do SEO.
What's the difference between fractional SEO and an SEO agency?
An agency assigns your account to a junior, follows a generic playbook, and reports monthly. A fractional SEO leader is embedded in your team - in your Slack, your standups, your planning sessions. They own the strategy and the execution, not just the recommendations. No account managers, no handoffs, no 47-slide decks.
How many hours per week does a fractional SEO work?
Most engagements run 2-4 days per week, scaling up or down based on your needs. Launching a new site? Go full-time for a month. In steady-state optimisation? Drop to 2 days. The flexibility is the point - you get consistency without paying for time you don't need.
Is fractional SEO right for my business?
Fractional SEO is ideal if you need senior SEO leadership but can't justify a full-time hire, you're tired of agencies assigning juniors to your account, or you need someone who understands your business deeply enough to make real strategic calls. If you just need a one-off audit or basic keyword research, a freelancer is probably fine.
What does a fractional SEO director actually do?
Everything a full-time SEO director does, compressed into fewer hours. Technical audits, content strategy, keyword research, competitive analysis, dev team coordination, vendor management, reporting, and executive communication. The difference is ruthless prioritisation - every hour is spent on work that directly impacts rankings and revenue.
How quickly will I see results from fractional SEO?
Most clients see measurable ranking improvements within 90 days. The first month is typically audit, strategy, and quick wins - fixing technical issues and content gaps that are actively suppressing your rankings. Months 2-3 are where compound gains start. SEO isn't overnight, but a fractional lead accelerates it by eliminating the implementation bottlenecks that plague agency relationships.
Can I scale fractional SEO up or down?
Yes, that's the entire model. Scale up when you're launching, migrating, or entering new markets. Scale down during steady-state phases. Scale back up when the next growth initiative kicks off. No termination fees, no contract renegotiation. Your needs change, the engagement changes with them.
Need SEO Leadership Without the Full-Time Cost?
Let's talk about embedding senior SEO expertise into your team - on your terms, at your pace.
"Page 3 to #1 in 60 days. Previous agency quoted 12 months."
Tom R. · Health Tech
"18 page 1 rankings. Zero meetings. Two agencies said it couldn't be done."
Marcus W. · Construction