Do I Need to Hire an In-House SEO?

Many business owners have an understanding that marketing is a cost they have to budget for no matter how minimal or simplistic the efforts will be. After all, what is the point of having a great product or service that no one knows about? While traditional marketing like media and print are effective, online marketing and Search Engine Optimization continue to grow in significance and value as online business continues to grow by any measurement criteria you choose. Even with proof that web marketing is highly effective, some business owners are still hesitant to put their marketing dollars into SEO (search engine optimization) services.

Great and effective marketing is just as important as any other part of your business plan s. As business owners, you need to promote your products or services. When deciding to take your business to the next level, and really begin pushing an SEO campaign, you must decide if you want to hire a search engine “operator” or search marketing “professional” either hired in-house or outsourced to an Internet Marketing Company.  This decision is based on several factors including size of your company, the marketing objectives, website marketing objectives, the “job description” of the website, competitive factors and, of course, budget.

When companies consider outsourcing SEO, there is a misconception that paying for these services will be more costly than hiring one or two employees to work in-house. A continuous and detail-oriented service like SEO might sound like a great investment at first but business owners often do not consider all factors involved when adding up the costs. Few recognize that you will have to hire a copywriter or more than one person to divide the various processes. Consistent (weekly) new textual, audio and video content is essential for any SEO Specialist (in-house or sub-contracted) as fuel to drive SEO metrics and results. Now think about the time that goes into finding dependable talent, paying for yearly salaries, benefits, training and the cost of yearly seminars your employees will have to attend to keep up to speed with new processes. Internet Marketing and SEO are constantly evolving so new tools, techniques and processes need to evolve to keep pace with your competition.

After calculating all the time and costs required to have a successful SEO “department”, it will make much more sense to outsource your SEO services. When you outsource SEO, look for companies that charge a monthly fee that covers all aspects of SEO including copywriting, content syndication, link building, viral marketing, social media marketing, and ecommerce solutions.  Moreover, look for results … see live results for many keywords and many clients.  In addition, does the SEO offer a Pay for Performance model where a significant portion of its fees are contingent on actual stats

As opposed to hiring one, two or three employees who may or may not possess all of the expertise in all SEO processes, strategies and techniques, hire a full service Internet Marketing Company that offers a fully-staffed well coordinated group who can bring their full complement of talents to your online marketing strategy.