In-House vs Fractional SEO. Hire the Model That Fits Your Stage.
You are choosing a hiring model. A full-time in-house SEO hire owns one seat. Fractional SEO from Austin brings senior SEO + AEO without the full-time cost. This page is that decision.
Pick the model first.
Cost: a senior in-house leader is $150,000 - $250,000+ a year after salary, benefits, software, contractors, and content
Speed: a consultant starts on money pages this month. A hire still has to recruit, ramp, and staff the work
Execution: Austin owns strategy and the work. A Head of SEO still needs writers, PR, and tech
Skill set: most Head of SEO roles are classic Google SEO. AEO is citations, entities, and answer engines
Featured In & Published On
Need senior search ownership without a full-time hire?
Buyers shortlist vendors in AI answers before they click ten blue links.
SEO still matters for rankings. AEO decides who gets cited in the answer.
The winning hire owns measurement, content systems, and entity proof together.
Austin Heaton's take: treat AEO and SEO as one operating system, not two vendors.
Book a call, request a Tally brief, or review pricing to start.
In-House vs Fractional SEO
The hire, not the definitionIn-house is the right call in some companies. Fractional is the right call in others. Here is the comparison a marketing or growth lead actually has to make.
Cost
Senior work without a full-time seat. No salary number invented here - we scope on the call.
Hiring a senior SEO or AEO leader often costs $150,000 - $250,000+ annually after salary, benefits, software, contractors, and content production.
Speed
Starts on the live site. Money pages, entity work, and citations can move in the first month.
Recruiting, offer, notice period, then ramp. You wait before the first commercial page ships.
Seniority
You work with Austin. Strategy and execution sit with one senior owner. See the AEO consultant page.
You hire a leader. That person still has to prove the AEO skill set and still has to staff the work.
Execution
Austin owns strategy and the work: money pages, technical SEO, mentions, MOFU/BOFU, citations.
A Head of SEO still needs writers, PR, and tech. The hire is a manager seat unless you also fund the bench.
AEO vs classic SEO
Built for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews - plus Google. Citations, entities, commercial pages.
Most Head of SEO job specs are still classic SEO: rankings, content calendar, reporting. AEO is a different skill set.
Time-to-first-citation
The work starts on the pages buyers already ask AI about. Faster path to a citable commercial page.
First citation waits on hiring, then on the production team the hire still has to assemble.
In-house is not the wrong answer. It is a different job.
Be honest about the seatDo not hire a consultant when you need a people manager. Do not hire a Head of SEO when you need senior AEO shipped this quarter.
You need a full-time manager inside the building.
- You already have a large content, PR, and eng bench that needs daily people management
- Internal politics require someone in every standup, every week, on payroll
- You are building a multi-year search org, not shipping a citation system
- You have the budget for the $150,000 - $250,000+ fully loaded seat plus the writers and contractors that seat still needs
You need senior ownership of the work, not another org chart.
- You want one senior owner across Google and AI search without a full-time hire - that is fractional SEO
- You need money pages and citations now, not after a six-month search
- You do not have (and do not want) a large in-house SEO team to manage
- The gap is AEO skill and commercial execution, not headcount
What Austin Does in the Consultant Seat
Strategy plus the workThis is not a strategy deck handed to a junior team. Austin owns the commercial pages, the entity signals, and the technical foundation that get you cited.
Comparisons, alternatives, and use cases your category already loses to review sites
Mentions, schema, and knowledge-graph signals so models can name you correctly
Crawl access, structured data, and page architecture AI systems can retrieve
Commercial content for buyers already comparing vendors - not another TOFU blog
Citation work across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews
AEO consultant or fractional Head of Search - one senior owner
Cases Already on This Site.
Documented on this siteThese are the live case studies. Same numbers as the portfolio.
6,000%+ impression growth, featured next to DocuSign in 11 days
Read the Pactvera case study →310.8% AI search growth and #1 citation share at 7.79%
Read the iSpeedToLead case study →Free AEO Report Card
We review where your site loses visibility across technical, on-site, and off-site - then send the exact fixes.
Get My Free Report Card →Clients & Partners
FAQ
Who should hire for In-House vs Fractional SEO?
In-House vs Fractional SEO. Hire the Model That Fits Your Stage.
How do we start with Austin Heaton?
Book a 30-minute Calendly call, submit a Tally brief, or review pricing at /pricing.
Does Austin Heaton replace an agency?
Austin works as a senior consultant or fractional lead. Many teams use him instead of adding another agency layer.
AEO consultant vs in-house Head of SEO - what is the actual decision?
You are choosing who owns Google and AI search, and whether that person also does the work.
An AEO consultant or fractional Head of Search is a senior owner who ships money pages, entity work, technical SEO, and citations. An in-house Head of SEO is a full-time seat. That hire still needs writers, PR, and tech unless you fund those too.
How much does an in-house Head of SEO cost?
The homepage FAQ already states it: hiring a senior SEO or AEO leader often costs $150,000 - $250,000+ annually after salary, benefits, software, contractors, and content production expenses.
That is the fully loaded seat - not just base salary. If the consultant model fits, we scope it on a call.
When should we hire in-house instead?
Hire in-house when you need a full-time people manager, a large team already in the building, and someone inside every internal political loop.
Hire the consultant model when you need senior AEO now and one person who owns strategy and execution. Adjacent: AEO for B2B, AEO for FinTech, AEO for Crypto.
Does a Head of SEO still need writers and PR?
Yes, in most companies. The title is leadership. The citations still come from commercial pages, entity mentions, and technical access. Austin's consultant seat covers strategy and that work.
What proof do you have?
Documented on this site. Lumanu: 656 AI-sourced clicks and 101 conversions in 60 days. Riseworks: 288% organic growth and 575% AI search expansion. Pactvera: 6,000%+ impression growth and placement next to DocuSign in 11 days. iSpeedToLead: 310.8% AI search growth and the #1 citation share at 7.79%. See the case studies.
How do we start?
Book a call. We look at whether you need a full-time Head of SEO or a consultant / fractional owner. Book a call with Austin or use the contact page.
Ready to Choose the Hire?
If you need senior AEO ownership - and you are deciding consultant vs a full-time Head of SEO - book the call. We will tell you which model fits.