Hire SEO Services or DIY? This Guide Will Help You Decide
Search Engine Optimization efforts are basically a request to search engines to rank your website right up top. There are no ifs and buts here. The question is, do you make this request yourself or do you hire SEO services to have the experts do it for you?
This is an age-old problem and we deal with it throughout our lives.
Hire a gardener to properly trim the hedges or do it yourself?
Go for a drive-through car wash or bring out the bucket and mug?
We make these minor decisions without giving it too much thought.
But when the future of your business and, hence, your livelihood depends on the decision, it isn’t an easy one to make.
But that’s what we’re here for – to facilitate you in making the decision that is best for YOU.
And we won’t be biased just because we offer SEO services – our motto is to help your business grow, whether you outsource to an SEO expert or try your own hand at it.
Here are the tips that will help you decide.
Let’s begin!
DIY Search Engine Optimization or Outsource to an SEO Expert?
There are many ways of looking at this.
This or that, here or there.
So we decided to make it a little easier for you.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss a few factors that are relevant to your search engine optimization efforts, whether in-house or outsourced.
What we want you to do is take a minute to reflect after each section. Think about what you just read in the context of your business operations.
By doing this, you will start to understand which factor tilts the scale toward which side. The heavier side will, eventually, be the one you should choose.
Cost of SEO
The cost associated with SEO varies immensely based on the route you take.
At first glance, it seems like an easy decision. Outsource search engine optimization for at least a couple of hundred dollars or do it yourself for free?
Definitely the latter, right?
Wrong.
Here is our take with regard to the options we just mentioned.
- Outsource Search Engine Optimization
If you opt for a third-party agency to take over your SEO efforts, there is a range of prices you will come across. These will vary based on your choice – monthly retainers will have a different cost than a project-based effort or a performance-based one.
As a general idea, you can find anything between a couple of hundred to a few thousand bucks per month.
This depends on the extensiveness of the SEO campaign, the expertise of the professionals you are outsourcing to, and a bunch of other factors.
These two guides will give you a much better idea of what the pricing could look like:
SEO Pricing: ~350 Agencies, Consultants, and Freelancers Reveal How Much SEO Costs
- DIY Search Engine Optimization – LITERALLY
If you know the basics of SEO and want to try your own hand at optimizing your business and getting your website to rank higher, it will cost you nothing, right?
Actually, no, that’s not quite right.
Technically speaking, you will be paying no one anything. But here’s the thing: being the amateur that you are, you will be spending a lot of time doing SEO that you could’ve spent focusing on other parts of your business operations.
In other words, the time you could’ve been spending growing your business will be spent TRYING to increase your traffic and improve your ranking instead.
- Hiring an SEO Expert
Hiring an SEO expert to become a part of team can have its benefits (which we’ll discuss later) but you will find yourself paying an average annual salary of $45,000. For ONE person.
So that is definitely something to give a lot of consideration to.
Learning Curve
Now we come to the learning curve. Confused? Let us explain.
- Outsource to an Expert
When you outsource SEO to an agency or freelancer, it will take them a bit of time to get well-acquainted with your business.
To truly understand your business ideology, your moral framework, your products and services, and your goals in essence, is not easy for an outsider.
That is not to say that it isn’t possible – there is just a learning curve associated with the process.
On the other hand, these professionals are pros at SEO itself, and that has a lot of worth.
- DIY SEO
The learning curve when it comes to trying your own hand at SEO is completely different. You understand your business inside out – no one can know it better than you.
But what you are not an expert at is SEO.
And while you can understand your end goals and what you want to achieve, it will likely take you a long time to get a hang of what you’re doing.
The results of your SEO efforts will also, thus, take longer to become visible.
Knowledge of Technical Aspects
In the digital world, nothing stays the same for too long.
Everything in constantly changing and only if we keep up with these changes can we get the best results.
Now let’s put that in the context of SEO.
- Hire SEO Services
We just mentioned how the digital world is always changing. Only an expert in the field can keep up with all these changes.
And that description matches the profile of an SEO professional from a top digital marketing agency.
From never-ending Google updates to new tools, rules, and best practices among many other things, an individual whose sole focus is SEO is ever up to date with all this information.
He or she is, thus, fully equipped to provide solutions that are in line with changing trends.
- In-house SEO
If you hire an SEO expert to become a part of your team, it is likely they will have the same level of expertise an agency professional will.
But if you’re looking to take care of SEO yourself, you will have to set aside time to keep track of all these changes.
And believe us when we tell you, if you’re not doing SEO day in and day out, this is NOT easy to do. We’re not saying you are incapable or incompetent – we’re just saying you don’t have the kind of time that is required to stay on top of things.
A More Personalized Outcome
We touched upon this earlier when we were talking about learning curves but let’s quickly take a look at the results of outsourcing SEO versus doing it yourself.
- Outsource Search Engine Optimization
As we mentioned before, a third-party professional does not understand your business the way you or your full-time employees can.
In fact, they will NEVER be as well-acquainted with all aspects of the company.
Understandably, the process and results, although they may be spectacular, may not be as personalized as you had hoped.
- DIY Search Engine Optimization
On the contrary, someone who spends time in the company is much more well-acquainted with everything about it.
So even if you don’t have SEO expertise, an in-house SEO team or even a professional or two can deliver more personalized results without less overall guidance.
One-person Vs Team Job
In our experience, 1+1=11. A bunch of people working together and bringing their expertise to the table produces the best outcome.
But there are exceptions – some individuals are multi-talented to the point where they can handle entire projects on their own. But this is rare.
What does this have to do with our topic today?
- Hire SEO Services
When you outsource SEO to an agency, you have an entire team of experts at your disposal.
From brilliant SEO analysts to web developers, copywriters, graphic designers, and more, you get the best of each skill set working on your project.
Pretty much the only downside to this is that you can’t communicate with all these people directly and it may be harder for them to get a feel of the actual essence of your business.
- DIY search engine optimization
Now, what happens when you choose to do your own SEO?
Unless you run a massive business and can afford to create an entire in-house SEO team, you will likely hire a single SEO professional to take care of all aspects of the job.
In this case, it is absolutely crucial to make sure that this individual excels in every one of these niches.
Our opinion stands: this is extremely difficult to do.
Reliability
Black-hat SEO practices may fetch what look like quick results but in actual fact, they harm your business by earning you penalties, as well as a sketchy reputation.
This is why any credible SEO professional will only focus on white-hat SEO techniques, even if it means delayed results.
But why are we mentioning this?
- Hire SEO services
When you outsource search engine optimization services, you hand the control over to the agency team.
If you have little or no knowledge of SEO, you can easily be manipulated into approving black-hat SEO practices. Heck, you may not even find out.
To avoid this, it is extremely important to do your research and pick an SEO outsource company that you KNOW to be trustworthy and professional.
- Outsource SEO to an Expert
On the other hand, if you’ve got an SEO person or even just an individual working under your very own leadership, it is easier to monitor their activities.
Even in this case, however, you need basic knowledge of white- and black-hat SEO so that it becomes impossible to manipulate you.
Access to Technical Resources
A phD candidate has access to a large range of research paper resources that normal people don’t.
And SEO isn’t too different.
- Hire SEO Services
Utilizing all the resources that are available to provide the best service possible is the bread and butter of SEO agencies. It is what they do, day in and day out.
This is why they have access to paid tools and other resources from the get-go.
These tools are already at their disposal when they come across your company’s SEO needs. All they need to do is spring into action and get working.
- In-House SEO
If you choose to take care of SEO yourself, you will have no other option than to get subscriptions for these technical tools – at least one for each task you will have to perform.
And because you won’t be using the tools as much as an agency would (after all, SEO is only a small PART of your operations), it won’t always be economically viable. At least not if you are a small- to medium-sized business.
Want to check out some cool FREE SEO tools? Read more about it here:
Free SEO Tools For Small Businesses – The Ultimate List – I
Free SEO Tools For Small Businesses – The Ultimate List – II
So, Where Does This Leave Me?
If you did as we asked at the beginning of this blog post, you must have a much clearer idea about which route is the best for you to take.
You need SEO. There is no way around that. So ask yourself:
Does it seem like you can dedicate enough time and energy to do SEO yourself?
Do you have the resources you would need to build an in-house SEO team from scratch?
Or does hiring SEO services seem like the best option for you?
We can’t make this decision for you – we don’t know anything about your business.
But wait – there is a solution! Tell us all about your business and what you aim to achieve with search engine optimization.
Once we have a better understanding of your business needs, our SEO experts will be better equipped to point you in the right direction.
Get in touch today!
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