It isn’t a secret anymore; attracting organic traffic to a website is imperative. But, doing so comes at a cost. No matter what type of digitized business you own, if you aren’t able to or willing to invest time, money and efforts into SEO or search engine optimization, then you will have a hard time finding potential customers and clients for your business online.

In many cases, most start-up entrepreneurs opt to take the challenge of SEO on their own. But, it is important to note that SEO can be challenging even for the industry professional. Metrics like traffic, rankings and conversions constantly fluctuate for a variety of reasons. To maintain and improve these metrics, constant vigilance, experimentation, and testing is necessary.

Therefore hiring SEO talent is the best solution to reach the prospective audience at the right place at the right time. But, now the biggest confusion is whether you should hire an in-house team of SEO experts or outsource your SEO needs.

Stick around to know which option you should pick.

What is SEO outsourcing?

SEO outsourcing is a process of hiring external contractors or agents to handle the on-page and off-page optimization of your website.

Outsourcing SEO is quite simple and straightforward. You work with a third party company to manage some or all of your brand’s SEO work. Based on your needs, the outsourcing company might help with:

• Keyword research
• Content strategy creation
• Conduct competitive analysis
• Generate new content
• Organize internal links
• Build backlinks
• Conduct strategic outreach
• Organize internal links
• Construct wireframes for web templates
• Optimize your website’s technical aspects

When it comes to outsourcing SEO, you can hire an SEO company, sign a contract with a digital marketing agency or work with independent contractors or freelancers.

When should you outsource your SEO projects?

There are several situations when outsourcing SEO can prove beneficial, such as:

1- You need more expertise

Organic search is quite competitive. Similarly, effective SEO needs expertise. There is more to the process than just putting the keywords in the right place, starting a blog or adding a few web pages.

Reliable SEO service providers go above and beyond rankings and organic traffics; they look for ways to enhance customer acquisition, revenue and market share. They also help with capitalizing on the low acquisition costs of organic search so you can significantly reduce your paid media expense.

2- You want to scale the metrics

Due to the incredible amount of work involved, it can be daunting to scale SEO, especially when only one person is doing most of the work. With an outsource team, you are able to enhance the output of your SEO programs ten times better.

For instance, let’s say that you wish to build relationships with influencers and publishers. Internally, there is only as much engagement as you can do. After that, the efforts can multiply exponentially.

SEO service providers tend to manage databases of hundreds, if not thousands of publishers and influencers, enabling you to target the most relevant influencer or publisher for each of your customers. They connect and collaborate with them seamlessly to drive thousands of backlinks for your brands. Such a streamlined process and kind of scale is impossible to achieve with just technology, process and manpower.

3- You want faster results

Let us all agree on the fact that SEO doesn’t work overnight. It takes time – sometimes weeks and even months to show effective results. But, that too only if the right technique and strategy are used.

Unethically done SEO can yield results sooner but cost your website a lot more down the line. Similarly, improperly done SEO can cost you both your time and money.

Thankfully, SEO companies are well-aware of the latest update in the SEO domain. They use tried and tested tricks and tips to yield genuine results. They can help you get quick wins while creating a long-term strategy that will result in steady organic search traffic. They can keep you from making costly mistakes.

SEO outsourcing company’s larger team and stronger technology will yield you better outcomes than a small team.

Pros of outsourcing SEO

Following are the most popular reasons why you must consider outsourcing SEO:

1- Saves money

It goes without saying hiring an in-house SEO team can cost hundreds and thousands of dollars every year. You have to pay out the team’s salary, update infrastructure, invest in staff training and even have to bear the sick leaves.

But, that isn’t the case with outsourcing. Other than paying for the services you receive, you virtually have to pay for nothing else. Instead, you get access to a diverse team of professionals ever ready to help your business grow.

Furthermore, you don’t have to worry about unplanned leaves either. There will always be someone on the team who knows the ins and outs of your project.

2- Keeps you up-to-date

SEO outsourcing companies are known for managing multiple clients at a time. This only says that these firms have greater knowledge of the subject matter.

As a result, they are always up to date with the latest algorithm roll-outs, newest trends and ever-changing technical developments associated with search engine optimization.

3- Experienced and collective knowledge

A trustworthy SEO outsourcing company has the experience of working with different companies, irrespective of their niche. They also undertake simple and complex projects. As a result, they generate diverse knowledge and extensive experience in the field, making them capable of performing the exact services that you are looking for.

An agency’s collective knowledge will always beat the experience of one single individual on any given day.

4- Flexible SEO services

Hiring a full-time in-house SEO team is always a massive commitment. You need to take care of various things, including their salaries, incentives, training, leaves, etc. Plus, you cannot simply lay off the employees if things go south.

But, that isn’t the case with SEO outsourcing companies. You have the right to break off their services whenever you like – only if there are no strings attached. So, ensure to sign the contract with your SEO service provider only after thoroughly reading the contract papers.

5- Easy to scale

The whole point of optimizing the website is making it visible and eventually growing the business.

As your brand expands, your SEO service provider will be able to scale right along with you. In fact, they can offer your firm more and more resources down the line as they become necessary.

The same can’t be said about an in-house team. Scaling can get a trickier and more costly affair. You may require to expand your team to undertake different tasks.

6- Few to zero worries

Besides proving a costly affair, an in-house SEO team can have huge and devastating emotional consequences, too.

Since SEO agencies manage most of the aspects associated with search engine optimization for your brand, you and your team have more time on hand to focus on important tasks. Furthermore, by working with an agency for a long time, you reduce the worry of hiring and firing staff members.

7- Access to latest resources

The best thing about working with an outsourcing SEO agency is that they are well-equipped in terms of resources, tools and well-qualified individuals.

In fact, these agencies combine both skills and tools to help you optimize your brand’s growth online. When you sign the contract with your SEO service provider, you think that you only pay for their expertise and services. What you may not know is that the price of necessary tools is already incorporated into the contract, meaning you don’t have to worry about paying anything extra when a tool or software is used to obtain optimal results.

What is in-house SEO?

In-house SEO is when businesses hire full-time or part-time employees to create and execute search engine optimization internally.

The term “in-house SEO” denotes the employees in charge of this function. An in-house SEO team can have one single SEO expert or a group of professionals – all working as a part of the internal marketing team.

Pros of building an in-house SEO team

If you have enough financial resources to create an in-house SEO team, then you can benefit in ways like:

1- Easy communication

The best thing about the in-house SEO team is the ease of communication with everyone on the team. You have immediate access to every team member, meaning you don’t have to wait to receive answers to your queries. Similarly, your requests are immediately acted upon.

One certainly cannot experience such an effortless back and forth communication by outsourcing the SEO needs.

2- Retain full control

Your in-house SEO team was created by you for your own company’s needs. This means these individuals work for you and only you.

You have full control over the entire process. The progress of the project is much more transparent because you have direct access to all the things that are being carried out.

3- Brand knowledge stays within the team

When you create an in-house SEO team, whether using the existing employees or by hiring new ones, you can stay assured of these individuals having unsurpassable product and brand knowledge.

This also means that the experience and knowledge developed and accumulated by your team over the years remains in-house.

Challenges of managing SEO in-house

SEO is a continuous process that demands constant management. And since SEO is also an ever-evolving domain, it becomes hard for an in-house team to manage the complexity without being trained for the same regularly.

You may require either hiring new personnel regularly or training the existing ones with the latest skills and expertise, which can prove a costly affair. On the other hand, if you have the right team with reliable expertise but lack finances, then that can backfire, too.

Besides, with SEO, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. This ever-evolving domain requires continuous education, experimentation and testing.

Anything from inadequate resources, unhealthy working group dynamics and unsupportive team leaders can create difficulties in executing the SEO strategy in an intended manner, therefore impacting the final results.

In-house Vs outsourcing

Until now, it is quite clear that brands invest either in in-house management of SEO or outsource the same to generate organic traffic. Some work on certain aspects of SEO, while other brands completely outsource their projects.

No matter in which category you belong, scaling is one of the crucial things to determine how well your SEO is working. Hiring and managing a large team can get challenging at times. Similarly, there will be too many disparate vendors misaligned and fragmented deliverables resulting in lowered quality work.

The biggest reason to outsource SEO instead of building an in-house team is that it allows you to focus on what you do the best while still reaping the benefits of SEO expertise. As a result, you will be able to drive better organic results than you could have with an in-house team.

You can focus on developing a marketing strategy instead of spending countless hours on the details of SEO, therefore enhancing marketing integration across channels.

Moreover, SEO outsourcing gives you the opportunity to expand your team without actually having to hire professionals. You can get insights from SEO specialists and strategists who have obtained expertise by working with various clients – similar and different from your industry niche. This gives your SEO both fresh and experienced sets of eyes to create the most effective and result-oriented strategies.

In a nutshell

Your decision to build an in-house SEO team vs outsourcing SEO depends hugely on your budget and control matrix.

If you are more flexible and have a limited budget, then you are better off outsourcing SEO. But, if you would like to have more control over the project and budget isn’t a huge concern for you, then creating an in-house team may prove a worthy choice.

No matter which route you choose, ensure the experts involved in your project are capable of tackling the ever-evolving domain of search engine optimization.