Cities
Five Canadian markets, measured rather than guessed
I measured the first page for "seo consultant" in each of these cities on 2026-09-21, with Google's location set to that city. The pages are different enough from each other to be worth reading before you hire anybody, including me.
| City | Searches a month | Who holds first place | The thing worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| TorontoOntario | 3,600 | ahmetkul.ca | Toronto buyers search for a firm about twice as often as for a person |
| EdmontonAlberta | 1,600 | www.adster.ca | Edmonton is the one market of the five where no consultant's own website appears in the top ten |
| CalgaryAlberta | 1,550 | growmemarketing.ca | Calgary has the softest first page of the five |
| VancouverBritish Columbia | 1,430 | www.slavtech.com | Vancouver is led by an individual consultant |
| MontrealQuebec | 400 | www.omnivisiondesign.com | Montreal is bilingual and this page is only half of it |
Search volumes are Google Ads figures for Canada, combining the consultant, expert and specialist phrasings. Rankings measured 2026-09-21.
What all five have in common
Every one of these searches puts three map pack slots above the first organic result. That means the businesses you see first are the ones nearest you with a verified address, not the ones most likely to fix your problem. It is worth scrolling past them deliberately.
Every one of them also carries at least one directory in the top ten, usually Clutch or Semrush's agency listing. Those are advertising surfaces. A firm's position on them reflects their relationship with the directory, which is not the same as their skill at your job.
And in four of the five, two of the four questions in the people also ask box are about price. Nobody answers that on their services page, which is why the question keeps being asked. Mine is answered here, and what the wider market charges is here.
Why I publish the competition
Listing the firms that outrank me is an odd thing for a consultant's website to do. I do it because the alternative is a page that says "SEO consultant in Toronto" over and over and tells you nothing, and because I would rather you hired me having seen the field than by accident.
If one of these measurements is wrong, or a page has changed since the date above, tell me and I will remeasure it. The data behind these pages is refreshed quarterly.
If your city is not here
These five carry 8,580 searches a month between them. Every other Canadian city I measured on the same day runs between 10 and 130: Ottawa 60, Hamilton 50, Mississauga 130, Barrie 10. That is not enough demand to justify a page pretending to be about that market.
I still work with businesses in those cities. There is just nothing measured to say about them, so I have not written a page saying it.
One more thing the numbers show
In all five cities, people search for a firm more often than for a person. Toronto runs about 7,200 searches a month for the agency and company phrasings against 3,600 for consultant, expert and specialist. The same gap holds in the other four.
That makes the Toronto result worth a second look: the top two organic positions there belong to two individuals, on a query where most of the demand is looking for a firm.
Start with a 15 minute call
No deck and no discovery phase. Tell me the site and the problem, and I will tell you whether I can help and what it would cost. If I am the wrong person, I will say so on the call.