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SEO i.e. the technique to drive organic traffic for your website is valuable for any online business. But this does have a cost associated with it. If you are planning to outsource SEO work or do it in-house on your own, it will need a lot of money, time, or a combination of both. After that, you can expect high-converting traffic on your website.
If you have a small business or you are a marketing manager of a startup then you might be skeptical about spending money on outsourcing SEO work. Rather most small businesses think that DIY is the best alternative for SEO purposes. But is that the right approach? While most businesses think that hiring top SEO Company is the best way to save time and get quicker results. But is it reliable? Let us find out.
Before we move on to decide whether to outsource SEO or do it in-house, let us first understand the concept of each term and look at its pros and cons.
What is the term “ SEO Outsourcing” concerning marketing?
The process of outsourcing in SEO is the method of hiring an agency or a contractor i.e. freelancer to manage the SEO of your website. This includes managing your on-page SEO and off-page organic traffic. It includes tasks such as generating and planning as well as execution of SEO strategies, link building, content marketing, local SEO, digital PR, and even web design.
With outsourcing, you can take advantage of the agency or freelancer’s expertise and it can save time and cost too. This is a better option if you are hiring an SEO expert in-house because salary and benefits would cost you more. But if you are considering DIY then outsourcing would be costlier.
With outsourcing, you can get access to the strengths of a team that will cater to your SEO needs. This is true if you are hiring a reputed agency or a team of freelancers. A team will have different experts for different needs of SEO such as PPC professionals, content marketers, graphic and UX designers, website developers, social media marketers, Local SEO experts and SEO strategists.
Pros of Outsourcing SEO
Efficient and Faster Results
Outsourcing will allow you to take help from the SEO specialists who are dividing their tasks and producing the results more efficiently and quickly. If you want to achieve your goal then you can try outsourcing your SEO campaign to a digital marketing agency.
With the help of the digital marketing company, the SEO campaign is having a better chance of producing positive results. It is much quicker than accomplishing the task alone. If that is the case then you should hire the SEO company.
Focus on Other Tasks
Digital marketing campaigns are not exclusive to SEO. There are other aspects of a digital marketing campaign like content marketing and social media. Fortunately, outsourcing the SEO service can give you more freedom to focus on other tasks.
Your SEO specialist will monitor and handle your campaigns while you will be able to evaluate the results and be able to come up with better strategies for the future.
Cons of Outsourcing SEO
Costly
Most people are afraid of outsourcing the SEO service because of the cost related to it.
Although all the SEO agencies are offering different prices the cost of outsourcing is mostly very expensive. Because of this most people are looking for a cheaper alternative.
Before you finalize on outsourcing the SEO service, first set your budget. The price of the SEO service mostly depends on how much you can take up digital marketing. To find out the company which is offering affordable services and it should match with your budget.
No Guarantee
Of course, there are always chances of improving the SEO rankings when you are outsourcing your SEO. But the main problem is they are not giving any guarantee of increasing your rankings on search engine results pages. But the chances of higher ranking are much higher as compared to SEO service which is done by you alone. So always keep this point in your mind.
What is DIY SEO?
DIY SEO is doing SEO on yourself. it is common in small businesses. For medium-sized and big businesses, they may opt to hire an in-house SEO expert for their website SEO. This staff will be responsible for creating and executing their strategy of SEO. He will also be handling other marketing tasks of the business. The SEO professional might be the business owner himself in the case of DIY or a person or team that is hired on a salary basis.
The expert that you are opting for will work in your premises in this case and will understand your business processes and goals in a close manner. The member will thereby have a better understanding of your SEO needs and can make suitable changes to your marketing campaigns, product/service offerings, and the website too.
But hiring someone in-house can be more expensive and one person might not have complete experience and expertise in all aspects of SEO. Also if you try DIY then you might have to first learn SEO on your own before implementing. This might take up a lot of time that small businesses and startups might not have as you would be handling other business tasks too.
Pros of opting for DIY SEO:
Save money: most owners of small businesses opt to save money by learning SEO on their own. If you are low on budget then doing SEO on your own can be the best choice for you. It is cheaper to do SEO by yourself as compared to outsourcing the work to a freelancer or other agency providing digital marketing services.
The experience about SEO firsthand: initially you might find the concepts of SEO to be a bit complicated, but once you get in the flow then you can understand the techniques of SEO quite simply. The more you work on your digital marketing campaigns, the more you can implement it for the benefit of your business.
Cons of opting for DIY SEO:
Time-consuming: the thing that most start-up and small business owners lack is the time to handle multiple activities simultaneously. DIY SEO comes with a lot of time-consuming responsibilities, especially during the initial phases. Because at that time you have to learn and implement SEO together. This can be an exhaustive task especially if you are not having any professional assistance. In that case, hiring an expert for the job can be the best alternative.
A steep curve of learning: most business owners opt to hire an agency or freelancer for their SEO needs because these experts are always updated about the new trends in the SEO industry. Learning new trends of SEO on your own can be highly challenging for an individual, especially if you are new to IT. You might understand the basics easily but more advanced techniques would be difficult to implement and understand.
To outsource or not to outsource:
We have addressed the pros and cons of each type of SEO i.e. outsourced and DIY. Now the question arises, which one should be preferred for our business. The best alternative is to do your research well and outsource your SEO work to a reputed agency that fits your budget constraints.
The choice greatly depends upon your needs, goals, and budget. You should consider your skills in IT and search engine optimization services and your willingness and capacity to learn as well.
Usually, one person cannot handle all management, marketing, and development tasks. So you should be ready to partner with an agency or team that understands your business needs and can use their expertise to provide you the best SEO results. Before you opt for DIY it is always advisable to consult a reputed digital marketing agency to understand their service offerings and pricing plans.
After consulting them you can understand the benefits that a professional can offer. Every digital marketing expert and agency is different from each other. Do your research well and finalize a company that has a similar outlook, mindset, and business goals to your brand. Doing SEO on your own is a good idea, but you need to make sure that you will be able to devote enough time and take on the difficulties and challenges that will come on your way ahead.
You should be ready to give numerous hours to learn and stay updated about SEO, PPC, web design, and similar stuff while you are doing SEO on your own. DIY SEO can teach you hundreds of things on your way ahead but you need to put in the efforts. Who knows you can soon become an SEO specialist in the future.
Finally, the choice is entirely yours. Before you plunge into any decision, it is wise to consider the available choices in the market and set your budget, analyze your skills and knowledge of search engine optimization. While DIY and an in-house SEO expert will provide you better control over your budget and SEO strategy, outsourcing will give you a strong SEO partner that will work according to the latest SEO trends.
The last point to consider here is whether you are looking to have SEO services regularly or is it a one-time requirement.
Ongoing SEO services:
SEO needs to be an ongoing process. If you stop working on your SEO then your website page ranking will eventually decline and it will impact your organic traffic. Some businesses need ongoing SEO services and for that purpose hiring an in-house expert might be a better idea. Working with an outside agency, in this case, has several risks, because the staff might change, the company policies, etc might change. But if you are holding a long-term contract with the SEO agency with strong cancellation policies then this might be avoided.
On-going SEO services that can be outsourced would include link-building, content marketing, technical and on-page SEO, digital PR, article posting, and local SEO. This will help to reach your business goals and drive organic traffic to your website. This is very important if your business is in a highly competitive industry.
One-time SEO project:
If you are planning to do SEO on your own, it is better to outsource it initially just for a start-up push. In this case, the SEO strategy will be set up and the agency to whom you will outsource the work would manage the content, web design, and development issues of your website to make it SEO friendly. Once the SEO is all set up then you can handle the marketing process i.e. SEO on your own and take help for some tasks if required. This will save on cost and time too.
If you are not comfortable with technical SEO or writing content for your website then you can outsource the task of a one-time audit of SEO for your website and then work accordingly. The digital marketing experts can handle the work for you for a month or two and then when everything is set up you can take over. By taking a few help sessions with an expert you can work on the areas that you are not strong at and get SEO done faster and efficiently.
But before you choose to outsource your SEO work to a company you should do proper research about the company background, team, and expertise. It is beneficial to choose a local expert that can visit your office regularly for help if required. Also, read the reviews and ratings of the agency before you make a contract. Also, it is important to mention the costs and the package inclusions clearly in the contract that you make with the digital marketing agency. Hidden terms and costs can hurt your website SEO and business growth too.
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