3 Considerations to Decide Whether to Do Your SEO In-House

Whether you are a solopreneur, small business or giant enterprise – you are sure to bump into the same question: should you do your SEO completely in-house?

Research shows that over 89% of businesses consider using external contractors as important to their success – with a quarter believing it is absolutely vital! With so many tactics that you can utilize to climb the ranks of Google, such as on-page and off-page SEO, keyword optimization and inbound links – it is hard to deny that SEO takes A LOT of hard work.

As we approach a brand-new year, here are 3 considerations to help you make the best decision whether or not to get an agency on board – all in the name of rankings!

#1: How familiar are you with SEO?

First things first: how familiar are you with SEO and its endless list of best practices? If you have just got started learning more about it in an SEO course, it might be worth hiring an agency to help oversee your projects for the time being; enough to get the ball rolling.

Sometimes, traffic seems to fall off all of a sudden and you don’t know why. The thing about SEO is that it’s a constant learning process – and having an agency ready to tackle contingencies and trickier technical issues can be great for those who are still dipping their toes in the vast world of SEO.

#2: Do you have any upcoming big projects on hand?

SEO is a long-term game – and it requires constant maintenance in order to maintain and grow your results. Especially if your business is seeing exponential growth and has plans to expand – this could mean launching several major projects at any one time.

If that’s the case, this is the perfect time to outsource your SEO efforts to an agency to either handle maintenance, or oversee the major project for your business. There are plenty of areas to tackle in one project – so it is important that you set an overarching goal from the beginning that you wish to accomplish; listing down the steps that needs to be taken and taking extra care to assign the best, dedicated people to each of them.   

#3: Do you have enough resources?

If you are a small business with little resources to spare, or don’t have any team members with the relevant know-how – then getting a SEO agency on board is a worthy investment that can be valuable, especially while you pick up SEO along the way.

Especially if you are on a tighter budget, you may not be willing to spend a large sum of money to hire a Digital Marketing Agency. If that’s the case – then signing up for a Digital Marketing Course to train both you and your staff can be a great alternative for the time being.

The verdict

Even if you are an expert in SEO, there are plenty of things that you can outsource to an agency so that you and your team can focus on your strengths. This could be social media marketing, keyword research, or even content creation. In fact, getting an agency who can provide a fresh perspective may be all you need to see a boost in stagnating results!

While having an in-house team comes with more flexibility, more control, and direct access to data and results – an external agency gives you more of a competitive edge if you find yourself having exhausted all the options in your toolbox.

At the end of the day, you want to be clear of how much is being outsourced to an agency, and how much is being done in-house; measuring the ROI of both to determine its effectiveness in bringing you closer to your goals.

Deciding to augment your in-house efforts with some external assistance is definitely the way to move forward – making your business both agile and scalable!