The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing SEO
Many marketing teams face the decision of whether or not to hire an outside SEO consultant to either optimize their website directly or support the in-house marketing and web development team in doing so. This article explores the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing this critical function by hiring outside SEO consultants.
Advantages of Outsourcing SEO
Here are the primary advantages to consider when weighing the pros and cons of outsourcing SEO:
- Rare Expertise: An SEO expert will bring the specialized and hard-to-find skills, tools and extensive experience needed to ensure a successful SEO initiative. This specialization in SEO - optimizing websites all day every day for many years - is not something to underestimate. These same skills and this experience would takes years for inhouse members to acquire, assuming they could devote themselves full time to SEO.
- Instant On: an SEO expert consultant will hit the ground running and be productive immediately, whereas a newly designated inhouse SEO specialist may take years to reach the same level of effectiveness.
- Reduced Risk: There is reduced schedule risk when hiring with a proven SEO process and toolset. In contrast, a newly designated inhouse team member will necessarily require much more time to learn the art and science of SEO. As a result, the latter's skill at defining an efficient process and estimating schedule milestones will be unreliable.
- Train the Troops: The right SEO consultant will share knowledge with and help train inhouse team members, in effect "bootstrapping" the inhouse team while at the same time achieving the website optimization goals.
Disadvantages of Outsourcing SEO
On the other hand, decisions to oursource an important function should always be weighed carefully. The following disadvantages of outsourcing, or put another way, the advantages of growing your own in-house SEO team are worthy of consideration as well:
- Missed Investment in Inhouse Expertise: While the return on investment from hiring an outsourced SEO expert may be compelling in the short and medium term, there is no doubt that building an inhouse team of SEO experts will pay off even more handsomely over the longer term (after the first several years).
- Impact on Morale: If there is an in-house team member who posses the requisite skills and motivation to become an SEO expert, outsourcing to an SEO consultant may be seen as a vote of no confidence and have an adverse impact on the team's morale. This can be mitigated somewhat by working with an SEO expert that is willing to help train the inhouse team member.
- Out of Pocket Cost: Hiring an SEO consultant to optimize your website will require an investment of thousands, and possibly tens of thousands of dollars. The bet is that this certain outflow of cash will be more than offset by the less-than-certain inflow of cash resulting from the SEO initiative. Companies that are highly risk averse, cash-constrained or are unable to convert an influx of new visitors to customers need to consider this financial risk. On the other hand, those companies that can afford the investment and that choose their SEO partner carefully will most likely be very glad they did.
The Blended Approach to Outsource SEO
Often there is great urgency to implement SEO programs but a reluctance to outsource SEO and not grow internal search engine marketing capabilities. In this case, a blended approach to outsouring SEO is popular. Under this alternative the client engages the SEO consulting services of a firm like StratiMind that will train the in-house team concurrently while developing and implementing effective SEO programs. This will have all the benefits of the outsourced SEO approach outlined above while minimizing the negative impact of bringing in the outside SEO consultants. The out-of-pocket cost of the SEO consulting services will also be less as well since the in-house team will, in time, be able to pick up the ongoing SEO program activities.
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