SEO Outsourcing: Pros And Cons

Investing in SEO is one of the best decisions your company can make. However, it can be hard to decide whether to do this in-house or outsource it to an agency given the many moving parts the process has.

In this article, we are going to take a look at the various pros and cons of outsourcing SEO to an agency.

The goal of this article is to help you understand the benefits as well as the drawbacks of the outsourcing of the SEO processes and whether you should do this for your business or keep it in-house.

In order to make the article as balanced as possible, we are going to be looking at 5 pros and 5 cons and then discuss them in details.

Let’s get started!

Reason to outsource 1: SEO Outsourcing Is Cost-Effective

Image taken from: tgentertainment.com

SEO is very cost-effective marketing solutions. There is a simple  reason for this. This marketing strategy aims to target people who are actively looking for solutions within your industry.

The inbound nature of SEO means that your business can save money on various advertising methods such as magazine ads, flyers, tv and radio ads and so on.

This does not mean that you should stop performing these activities though.

However, the leads coming in from these activities can be much more expensive than SEO.

And given all of the above, it simply that the return of investment per dollar in ad spend is much higher than the traditional advertising methods.

Reason to outsource 2: SEO Is Not Part Of Your Expertize

Simply put, if SEO and digital marketing as a whole are not part of your primary business.

However, you still want to take advantage of digital marketing and use it to grow your business, but you don’t want to sacrifice resources such as time and money and the effort it takes to build a quality digital marketing team.

In this case, hiring an SEO agency would be your best option. This will allow you to focus on your primary business tasks while the agency takes care of the SEO and digital marketing work.

Reason to outsource 3: SEO Is Easy To Track

Unlike traditional advertising such as billboards, magazine ads, flyers etc. SEO (and digital marketing) as a whole is extremely easy to track.

Tools such as Google Analytics provide immense data and information on the effectiveness of each and every campaign that you produce.

You can use Google Analytics to figure the movement of the users and potential customers at every step in the digital marketing campaign.

For example, you can track where each user came from, what they viewed on your website and whether they were just looking at your products or services or purchased something as well.

And not only that, but you can use this data in order to remarket to them based on the actions they took.

This is an over-simplification, but still you can easily understand how simple it is to track everything and figure out where your priorities should be in terms of your marketing efforts.

Reason to outsource 4: You Get A Team To Work On Your SEO

Usually, depending on the size of the agency, there will be several people that are working on your project at once.

These people may include SEO experts, content writers, graphic designers, web developers and so on.

If you are to set up such a team inside your own business, the costs could be as high as tens of thousands of dollars.

However, given that agencies usually price their work in packages, you will be able to use the services of an already established team at the fraction of the cost of having this team in-house.

Reason to outsource 5: You Buy The Agency’s Experience At A Discounted Rate

An SEO agency and its’ team members have spent quite a long time and money learning their skills and mastering them. This is their core business and expertize.

This is why they can afford to and, in fact, should spend time and money on improving their skills.

This means that they have probably spend years and thousands of dollars (and sometimes much more than that) in order to gain and master their skillset.

However, most of the times you will have to invest around a $1000 per month with a trusted SEO agency instead of spending years and probably tens of thousands of dollars on various courses.

And when you compare how much you could invest per month vs the time and money required to learn to do SEO on your own efficiently, you would probably choose to hire an agency vs doing the work yourself simply because of the cost efficiency.

Reason to NOT Outsource 1: A Lot Of Scams In The Industry;

Even though we are a digital marketing agency ourselves, we will be the first to admit that there are a lot of scams in our industry.

During your research you may stumble on agencies that look genuine however eventually they turn out to be scams.

So, you should be prepared to carefully research each potential agency that you plan to work with.

Unfortunately, this takes time and energy, but in the end it can save you a lot of money.

Reason to NOT Outsource 2: Efficient SEO Takes Money And Time;

The truth is that efficient SEO takes time and money. While you can certainly score some quick wins via technical SEO and some other methods, it will usually take around at least 6 months and at least several thousand dollars of investments in content production, on-page SEO and link building before the results begin to appear.

The time and money required will also depend on the levels of competition in your industry and the various keywords that you want to target.

Also, it will depend on the age of the website and its’ current status. For example, you will have to be prepared that if you are just starting out, the results of the SEO work will happen more slowly and may take at least few months before even the website is picked up by the search engines.

Reason To NOT Outsource 3: Selecting A Provider Can Be Difficult If You Don’t Have A Prior Knowledge On SEO;

There is a whole universe of SEO providers on the Internet. Literally. Like, thousands or even tens of thousands.

Many of these are legit companies and many of these are scams.

How do you know which is which and how do you select the company you can work with?

First, make sure to take a deep look around their own website. Does it have any useful content or a list of testimonials? Where is the agency located? If you insist on working with an agency that is close to your physical location you can totally do so.

However, if an agency is in another country that does not mean they will not do a good job.

In fact, they could be even more effective than an agency that is within your vicinity.

Next, you can request a proposal from each company and compare what they are offering you and at what price. I am not saying that you should go with the cheapest, but instead you should go with the one that provides more value within the given price.

These are just the basic things you need to look out for when choosing an agency.

Do your own research and eventually you will be able to make an informed choice about which SEO provider to go with.

Reason To NOT Outsource 4: You Do Not Have A Clear Business Model

Having a clear business model is super important. Simply put, business model means how is your business making money and getting new customers.

Do you have a finished product or service that you know the market needs or can find useful?

Perhaps, you still need to improve your own products and services a bit before you can offer them to your customers.

However, I should also note that you must avoid falling in the trap of consistently focusing on improving the product and service and actually be afraid to launch in the market.

I myself was in this trap and wasted a few years. If I had launched my digital marketing services I could have been so much further ahead by now.

So, the best thing you could do is to have minimal viable product/service, launch it in the market and start improving the product/service based on the feedback of your initial customers.

Also, it is important to note that while you should the basics of your product or service done, you can also still do the initial marketing before the launch. This way things will happen faster.

Reason To NOT Outsource 5: You Do Not Have A Website Yet

While you can certainly build an initial online presence without a website, it is strongly advisable that you invest in creating one for your business.

Having your own business website means that you have your own place on the Internet, which is controlled only by yourself.

Also, the audience you build up on the various channels is actually not yours and still belongs to the certain channel.

If you do not have a website yet, we recommend our own web design service.

Conclusion

Like anything else in life, outsourcing SEO has both pros and cons. As you have probably figured out, SEO can be quite expensive. However, missing out on opportunities due to not performing the varios SEO activities that can grow your website.

So, have you ever considered SEO as a marketing technique for your business? Have you had experience with SEO outsourcing before? Was it positive or negative?

Tell us in the comments below.