Okay, so you’ve got an SEO strategy (or at least you’re by now beginning to formulate one). It’s time to get tactical. But who’s going to carry out the ongoing SEO initiative? Do you hire an in-house search specialist, or outsource those duties to an agency, or perhaps to a freelance SEO practitioner?
The answer, of course, is “it depends”. A decision is going to be contingent on your marketing budget, the scope of the project (and often, of the websites in question), goals, and whether you plan to focus solely on organic search optimization or will also add paid search advertising or paid performance to the list.
Everyone’s situation is different, so let’s examine some of the pros and cons of handling search internally versus tasking an outside expert to handle the duties.
• SEO is an ongoing process, and regularly updated content goes hand-in-hand with SEO efforts. There can be good reasons to keep all aspects of site management in-house, particularly in industries (such as pharmaceutical) that are strongly regulated, or subject to legal and compliance concerns when it comes to website copy and other site content.
• Many organizations need internal support and champions to get projects off the ground. If marketing, content, and IT are truly in sync and have clearly defined goals, SEO can be effectively managed in-house.
• Unless yours is a very small business or site, consider the many duties inherent in SEO. Will one individual (or a small team) be able to optimize multiple pages, write content and tags, build links, and run reports, quickly enough to stay competitive? Ongoing training is practically mandatory to do the job well since the search engine landscape changes so frequently.
• One current and very real drawback is that once trained, SEOs can be extremely difficult to retain. Even in a down economy, demand is high for almost anyone with demonstrated SEO skills in this very nascent marketing discipline. As I once said to a headhunter who called to see if he could pry open my Rolodex, “How many SEO majors did you know in college?”
• SEO isn’t purely an IT function, nor does it reside squarely within marketing. As with other digital marketing initiatives, a solid SEO strategy requires the knowledge, skills, and input of both camps. Ask yourself if your organization is up to that task, and if you can identify an individual who spans these two often-disparate worlds.
• Finally, although costs will be lower than hiring an outside consultant or agency, the burden is high. Assess whether you can support the internal resources.
• An outside agency will have a specialized staff with expertise in the myriad aspects of SEO: strategic planning, copywriting, link building, site architecture, and technical issues. Moreover, SEO is its core competency. It will stay on top of new technology and trends in the business.
• An outside agency or consultant can become a trusted partner that helps keep even the in-house slice of the initiative on track, while offering a fresh, outside perspective on the business.
• Even when in-house personnel are highly competent, driven, and well-compensated marketers, an agency usually brings consistency, continuity, and strategic planning to the table.
Finally, there is one last alternative: Compromise and split the balance. Many companies don’t outsource the entirety of their SEO or SEM efforts, but rather those pieces of it they cannot, or don’t want to, handle internally. It may be beneficial to work with an agency to develop a long-term organic optimization strategy, but execute most of that plan internally. Alternately, an in-house marketing staff may find that it needs support with only one or two SEO-related issues, which can then be outsourced to an independent consultant. You might, therefore, want to keep the bulk of SEO in-house, but outsource certain specialized tasks, such as overall strategy, site architecture, or link-building.
Obviously, there’s never a black and white, right or wrong answer when it comes to hiring any kind of outside business consultant or service. Search engine optimization is certainly no exception. And as search grows, agencies are becoming more specialized. There are now disciplines within search that specialize on local businesses, public relations, multimedia search for audio and video, global and multicultural search, social media search optimization...the list goes on and on.
One person or agency you shouldn’t hire under any circumstances: anyone who promises “the number-one slot on Google”. There are scammers out there, too. Get references and speak with former clients and employers!