To continue with the popular guest post series, I have asked Jo Turnbull of seojoblogs.com fame to write about search engine optimisation, or SEO. This is a subject I am particularly keen to learn more about as I’ve recently instructed an SEO agency for one of my clients and the results have been less than electric.
In any case, over to Jo for her post on whether to do your SEO in house or via an agency…
SEO – in house or agency?
When you start thinking about implementing an SEO strategy, there are two options:
- Bring the SEO inhouse and have one person or a team looking after the SEO.
- Use an seo agency who will be managed by one person in your company.
I have worked both client and agency side and have written the pros and cons of each in this post.
Advantages of using an SEO agency:
- Specialists – the people at the agency are the specialists in the field. They have experience in working on numerous websites, optimizing them for seo. They know what works and what doesn’t.
- Team – there is a dedicated team at the agency who will be working on your site.
- Integrated search strategy – you may be offered the opportunity to work with the paid search team, driving traffic for specific campaigns.
Disadvantages of an SEO agency
- Expensive – it can cost anywhere from 5,000 pounds to 25,000 pounds for one year of work from an seo agency.
- Commitment – most agencies want to sign a client up for at least a year with a retainer clause.
- Account management – unless stated in the contract, you may not have an account manager meaning it is unclear who is working on your site. With high turn over rates at agencies, it may just be only one person working on your site with little support from the rest of the team.
Now you have seen the pros and cons of an agency, you may want to bring SEO in house, but wait, read the below first…..
Advantages of in house SEO
- Cost – the member of staff that is working on the seo for the site is already employed by the company to carry out a particular job. Therefore the company does not have to shelve out anymore money for the employee to work on seo.
- Knowledge is power – it is important that those who own the site, know as much as possible about it. Those that already work for the company have a good understanding of its products and services and therefore are able to optimize the site easier than those who know nothing about the company.
- Team – this ties in with the second point. If the employee knows the company well, they should also know the people well and can liaise with the tech and marketing team to help them implement the seo recommendations.
Disadvantages of in house seo
- Training – many people client side may not be fully aware of what seo is and how it can benefit the site. Therefore a lot of education and training needs to be carried out to make sure everyone is behind the seo team or manager.
- Over worked – sometimes seo is under estimated and people do not think it is a full time job. There be a marketing manager that has been told to do seo as well as his/her full time job which means he/she is overworked.
- Attention to detail –this ties in with the last point. If the staff are overworked, they have no time to check out the search news and how they can implement this to address issues with their site.
The solution to SEO is dependant on the size of your website and the company’s needs.
From personal experience, if you have a small website, I would encourage companies to hire consultants who have experience who then can come in and work with the client. This way they are also showing the client in a step by step way how they can increase visibility of the client’s website. The other advantage of a consultant, is that they can be cheaper and can be used on an adhoc basis without being tied in for a year. Their work is very transparent and therefore it is obvious if they are good or not.
All solutions should be well thought through, because even though some are cheaper than others, it is still time that will be spent on a project. Money, you can get back, but time, you never will. So choose wisely, the SEO path you want to follow.
i will prefer both.
1) doing SEO in house.
2) hire an agency.
by doing this you will get better results than doing work on one side.
I prefer doing SEO in house feel comfortable and relax and have my own time for work.
Yes you are right, it will be dependant on the size of the organization. The larger the organization the greater the need for a specialist SEO service. The changing nature of the SEO world and algorithms requires specialist up to date knowledge.
D. Kale
yes you are right, nice comments, i am always concerned with that , an SEO expert must have to update his/her knoledge with the passage of time, as for good and effective seo strategies one need to update him/herself with the time.
I guess hiring an agency gives you better expertise and a way to relax!
It should be done by professionals i guess
SEO is a skill – and like any other skill, can be learned. If you don’t want to learn it or don’t have the time, then farming it out to an agency may be your solution, provided you can afford it. But by learning it and then doing it yourself, you not save money but have a skill you can always use from then on.
So this means that hiring an agency for doing SEO work is really a productive idea to gain more meaningful results in a very short period of time. Thanks for making such a nice post.
doing seo in house is stress free and not costly in my opinion. Thanks for the share!