Senior SEO Consultant for Established Florida Law Firm | 90-Day Project With Ongoing Opportunity

Senior SEO Consultant for Florida Law Firm | 90-Day Recovery Project We are an established Florida law firm seeking a senior, hands-on SEO consultant for an initial 90-day recovery and growth project, with the potential for ongoing monthly management. This is not a new-site setup or routine SEO maintenance engagement. We have an established domain, a strong local reputation, and a substantial existing content footprint, but our organic visibility, nonbranded keyword performance, and local map rankings are significantly underperforming. We are looking for an individual contractor who will personally diagnose, prioritize, and implement the work. This role is strictly focused on SEO. We are not seeking PPC, Google Ads, Local Services Ads, social media, or general marketing services. No agencies, outsourced teams, or account managers representing other providers. What You Will Be Inheriting Known issues requiring validation and remediation include: A meaningful decline in estimated organic visibility and traffic Heavy dependence on branded searches Limited page-one visibility for commercial-intent keywords Weak local map performance despite a strong review profile Dozens of missing or ineffective title tags, H1s, and meta descriptions Redirects, broken URLs, and non-indexable pages requiring review Approximately 57 thin pages More than 65 location pages with uneven quality and weak performance Potential keyword cannibalization and overlapping search intent Weak internal linking and site architecture Mobile performance and Core Web Vitals concerns Limited recent growth in quality referring domains Suspicious or spam-like backlinks requiring careful review Incomplete attribution between organic traffic, calls, forms, qualified leads, and signed clients We do not expect every crawler finding to be treated as equally important. The selected consultant must identify which issues are materially affecting performance and prioritize them based on business value, ranking potential, conversion opportunity, and implementation risk. Scope of Work You will be responsible for both strategy and hands-on implementation. Technical and On-Page SEO Diagnose the likely causes of the visibility decline using Google Search Console, GA4, and website data Review crawlability, indexation, canonicals, redirects, broken links, sitemaps, robots directives, orphaned pages, and schema Review mobile performance, Core Web Vitals, images, scripts, plugins, and template-level issues Correct priority metadata, heading, redirect, indexation, and internal-linking problems Improve keyword targeting, search-intent alignment, page structure, and conversion paths Maintain a URL-level record of proposed and completed changes Implement corrections directly when possible and provide precise instructions when developer support is required Content Architecture We already have substantial content. We do not want a strategy centered on publishing large volumes of new blogs or city pages before fixing the existing site. You will: Review practice-area, location, attorney, and resource pages Identify thin, outdated, overlapping, duplicative, or underperforming content Identify keyword cannibalization and overlapping search intent Recommend which pages should be refreshed, consolidated, redirected, deindexed, restored, or removed Improve Florida-specific legal relevance, topical depth, internal linking, and local value Create content briefs only when new content is strategically justified We do not want mass-produced or lightly edited AI-generated legal content. AI may support research, organization, outlining, or analysis, but it may not replace original writing, legal research, or meaningful human editing. All content must be accurate, substantive, relevant to Florida law, and approved before publication. Local SEO Review and optimize the Google Business Profile Evaluate categories, services, descriptions, photos, and profile completeness Review attorney or practitioner listings Conduct a citation consistency and duplicate-listing review Correct priority citation issues Identify reputable legal and local directory opportunities Review competitor citations and local backlinks Establish geographic map-grid tracking Develop a strategy to improve local relevance and prominence We want geographic map-grid reporting, not a single ranking checked from one location. Backlinks and Authority Review the backlink profile and anchor-text distribution Classify legitimate, low-value, suspicious, and potentially manipulative links Review Search Console for manual actions Determine whether monitoring, removal, or disavowal is justified Obtain approval before submitting any disavow file Analyze competitor referring domains and link gaps Develop and begin executing an ethical backlink-acquisition strategy Conduct outreach directly or clearly disclose who will perform it We will not permit private blog networks, automated backlink packages, rented links, bulk guest-post vendors, spam directories, or undisclosed paid placements. All acquired links and third-party costs must be fully disclosed. Expected 90-Day Outcomes By the end of the engagement, we expect: A clear diagnosis of the visibility decline Reliable Search Console, GA4, crawl, backlink, and local-search baselines A prioritized implementation plan Completion of high-impact technical and on-page corrections Optimization of priority practice-area and local pages Improved internal linking and content architecture Classification and remediation of thin and overlapping pages Google Business Profile and citation improvements Local map-grid comparisons Backlink-risk analysis and legitimate outreach underway Before-and-after performance reporting A prioritized roadmap for the following quarter Implementation should begin promptly. We are not looking for someone who spends most of the engagement preparing reports without completing corrective work. Communication Requirements High visibility is important to us. You must provide: A brief written update each business day covering completed work, current work, blockers, approvals needed, and the next priority One weekly video meeting during Eastern Time business hours Transparent reporting on affected URLs, technical fixes, visibility changes, local rankings, conversions, outreach, and acquired backlinks Required Experience Direct experience recovering or remediating established websites with declining organic performance Strong technical, on-page, and local SEO expertise Advanced Google Search Console and GA4 experience Google Business Profile and local search-grid experience Experience with Screaming Frog or a comparable crawler Experience evaluating backlink profiles and conducting legitimate outreach The ability to personally implement technical and on-page changes A documented history of improving organic and local-search performance Law-firm, personal injury, estate planning, or competitive local-service SEO experience is strongly preferred. This is not an entry-level, content-writing-only, or advisory-only engagement. Project Structure This is an initial 90-day engagement with the potential for ongoing monthly management. You may propose: An hourly engagement with estimated weekly hours and a monthly cap.