Top Reasons to Outsource your SEO
Search Engine Optimisation is an integral part of any marketing strategy. However, it can often be overlooked by many businesses for a variety of reasons. Often the barriers to entry can cause businesses to avoid facing the challenge head on or perhaps other forms of advertising (such as google Ads) can bring shorter terms gains.
However, if your business has had a lower volume of sales than normal, or perhaps fewer leads, or just low rankings on search engine result pages in general, i’d suggest it’s time you incorporated SEO.
If you’re a startup, theres a good chance you have a small team of marketers that might be too busy to handle any SEO. Alternatively, your team may not feel confident enough to tackle Search Engine Optimisation head on due to technical challenges.
The most obvious solution is to you outsource your SEO to a freelance SEO Consultant such as me 🙂 This is my most common set up with my clients.
But first, let’s look at some of the factors to consider before outsourcing your SEO.
Factors to Consider before Outsourcing your SEO
Hiring an SEO Consultant can feel like a minefield. The industry has had a rocky past with many companies giving SEO a bad name by using black hat techniques. Deciding on hiring someone is a major step for your business so here’s a few factors to consider first.
- Budget
Truth be told. White hat SEO isn’t cheap and often you need to invest a substantial amount of money to achieve the desired results. On the flip side, in-house SEO isn’t cheap either and you could end up wasting valuable time without any significant results. My recommendation, hire a SEO specialist within your budget with a proven track record.
- Reputation
You have to confirm that your SEO consultant of choice is experienced enough to handle your SEO needs. You also need to know the kind of techniques they use to give brands the exposure they need. Ask around for referrals if need be because you don’t want to waste money on the wrong SEO agency.
- What are your needs?
SEO is a broad field and you need to understand what aspects you want to outsource. Do you want the specialist to handle everything from content, SEO, to marketing? Or do you want to outsource the link-building aspect of SEO? With this understanding, you can gauge whether the expert understands your requirements. If you aren’t sure then see the overall benefits of SEO to help grasp a better concept.
Why you should Outsource your SEO
Expertise and technology
By outsourcing your search engine optimisation, you utilise the expertise of the professionals in the field. You see, online businesses are so competitive that you need to keep updating your content to have a competitive edge. If you don’t have the skills to handle all aspects of SEO, you may have a hard time. To give you an idea on the roles you would expect to do, you can see my guide on how to be an SEO Expert.
Other than the expertise, outsourcing also means that you take advantage of high-end SEO tools to optimize your pages. These tools include Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, SurferSEO and so many others. If you decide to do all SEO in-house, you could end up spending a fortune on all these tools where as I have contracts with all of these companies as standard to help you.
Saves you time
Imagine having to spend weeks or even months trying to learn SEO then later realise that Google keeps changing its algorithms. SEO is such a dynamic field that you have to keep learning. (In case you are interested, see what John Mueller says on a weekly basis.)
You don’t have to invest so much time in a single aspect of your marketing. You can focus on other important parts of your business like production and marketing and leave SEO to the experts.
Fast execution
Often an SEO expert can analysis your website and put together a strategy for success in a far shorter time than perhaps an in-house marketeer who already has a full schedule.
High return on investment
Did you know that in the long-run SEO isn’t that expensive? Yes, you heard that right! The exposure SEO gives your business will give you high returns to cover all the expenses and much more. There is no need for you to handle your SEO to save on cost. You’ll most likely achieve no significant results with the way SEO keeps evolving.
SEO consultant firms are connected
You see, SEO encompasses other aspects such as link building. Identifying sites that are willing to link back to your website is a daunting task in itself. Working with an SEO expert makes link building much easier because these experts have connections with content marketers and other websites. The experts can therefore reach out to these websites on your behalf in exchange for backlinks.
SEO specialists can also handle content
Most SEO consultancy firms have a whole team of experts including content creators and marketers. In reality, your content and its quality also determine how well your SEO strategies work. You can therefore make your work easier by outsourcing all your content and SEO strategies. With these aspects of your business sorted, you can focus on other things.
You get an objective assessment of your business
An in-house employee may be blinded by his passion for the brand and fail to point out obvious mistakes. An outsourced professional will give an impartial assessment and point out any glaring mistakes. An SEO specialist will not risk his reputation or delay his ability to achieve the desired results much faster.
Professionals will only use white hat SEO practices
If you’ve not experienced it, you’ve most likely heard of Google penalizing certain online businesses. Doing your SEO with your team may actually do more harm than good. This is because you may not be familiar with the accepted practices and those that will get you into trouble.
At the same time, you shouldn’t hire wannabe SEO persons because they may also hurt your SEO with spammy links. A professional will ensure that they follow the set guidelines and only apply techniques that won’t hurt your business in the long-run.
If you didn’t know, a website that Google penalizes will have so much trouble getting back on its feet. The only alternative is creating a new website altogether. Remember you’ve invested so much in your online brand that you wouldn’t want to risk having it de-indexed.
Conclusion
Search engine optimisation is a crucial part of any business strategy. The pros of outsourcing SEO services outweigh the cons. You don’t have to waste a lot of time trying to understand what SEO is all about – leave the work to the professionals.
I hope you found the article useful and as always, if you would like to discuss further, please send me contact me today.
