When to Outsource SEO

SEO can be a massive project because it is always changing. There are no set rules as to how a company should strategize SEO.   In the marketing world, you may have heard of SEO referred to as a black box. This term is used to explain that the exact way Google or other search engines determine how sites rank are not processes known to the general public. For this reason, SEO can be considered an abstract concept that is strategized through a combination of experience and research.  

How Can I Outsource SEO?

Because SEO can take an immense amount of time, some businesses may consider outsourcing their SEO efforts. This can be for a variety of reasons including lack of resources or not knowing which strategies would work best for their company’s site.   To outsource, the most likely place to look is at an experienced SEO digital marketing agency. Some companies may also hire a freelance contractor with SEO experience. The main benefit of hiring someone externally for SEO is that they would have experience working on SEO for several different businesses, as opposed to just one. So, they may be able to carry practices and strategies that worked on another business over to your site to see how they perform.   Being able to test different strategies on different businesses gives SEO experts a better feel on how to help your site rank on search engines. Even if a business has the time and resources to strategize SEO in-house, they may still outsource because of the up-to-date knowledge and experience that a digital marketing agency or contractor would have across several businesses and industries.  

What Types of SEO Strategies Can I Outsource?

If you have SEO resources at your business, you may consider outsourcing for only part of your SEO strategy. After all, even having resources in-house may still mean that you do not have enough bandwidth to handle it all.   The types of SEO strategies that you can outsource include:

• Copywriting (blog writing, landing pages, meta descriptions)
• Technical SEO (site speed, indexing, canonical URLs)
• Link building (guest blogs, PR, directories)

  Figuring out which strategies are best outsourced vs. in house will come down to what type of expertise your staff have and how much time/resources they have at their disposal. For example, link building can take up too much of their time if they are also working on technical SEO.  

Copywriting

 Reasons to outsource copywriting can range from not having enough time to not having the expertise. While the biggest benefit from in-house copywriting is having a strong understanding of your brand’s voice, you may also benefit from getting an outside perspective.   If your company is looking to modernize or update their brand voice, this can take up a lot of time. You would have to change everything from your website’s copy to your email marketing. While determining how your new brand voice will sound, it’s helpful to get an outside perspective of what the brand might look like to someone who does not engage with it every day.   Another reason to outsource copywriting is to keep up with consistent tasks. Posting a few blogs per month to your site can be a great tool to help boost SEO. But, you may not have a person in-house with the right job to do so. Since posting a few blogs per month wouldn’t be enough to hire a full-time employee, it is best to outsource to a copywriter who can get these done for you.  

Technical SEO

To rank on a search engine, Google must be able to crawl and understand the information on your site. Things like core web vitals failing or broken links can be detrimental to your site if left unchecked. To fix these things, you will want someone who has the expertise and knowledge to update. You don’t want to be left with even more problems to fix if you try to do it yourself. But, not every company has an in-house web developer. Outsourcing a web developer for technical SEO can be a simple one-time project that occurs every once in a while to keep your website in check. Making sure your site is healthy is one of the simplest, non-recurring projects that you can do for SEO. It may not be a simple fix, but that is why outsourcing to an experienced web developer can help relieve stress and free up your time.  

Link building

Link building can often be the most time-consuming part of SEO. The process of link building involves reaching out to other relevant websites with high domain authority to ask them to link back to your site. This can help boost your domain authority, a ranking system that Google uses to determine how credible your site is. Similar to a domino effect, a boost in domain authority can lead to higher positions in Google’s search results and increased organic traffic.   The links you can obtain from link building can include directory listings with your site’s link included, guest blogs, reviews, and asking sites to add a link to an existing page on their site.   Not every site that you reach out to will respond, and not every site will accept your request. Finding sites that are relevant to the content/services on your site can be difficult but finding sites that also have a high domain authority and high organic traffic can be even harder. For these reasons, outsourcing link building to an experienced SEO consultant could save you a lot of time while also making sure you get the most out of the time spent.  

What Can I Expect When Outsourcing SEO?

SEO can be confusing and overwhelming to someone trying to understand how they will best benefit from it. After all, it is not an immediate boost in traffic. SEO works slowly, sometimes not showing results for 6 months or more. But, it is great for your site’s overall health and to boost organic traffic over time.   When you outsource for SEO, the main benefit you want out of your service is taking advantage of their experience. For example, an SEO consultant from a digital marketing agency has experience that spreads across many different companies, websites, and industries. They can use that experience and understanding of different SEO strategies to determine what the best course of action is for your business.   An in-house SEO consultant will only be able to draw experience from their company’s site. If they have experience from past jobs, that does not mean those strategies can be used, as SEO is constantly changing, and those strategies may be out of date.  

I Want to Outsource SEO. What Questions Do I Ask?

To be prepared to work with an SEO consultant, there are a few things you will want to review on your checklist:

• Is Google Analytics set up?
• Is Google Search Console set up?
• What efforts is your business currently using to boost SEO?
• What do you most want out of SEO (i.e. increase organic traffic, compete with competitors on Google)?
• How long are you willing to wait to see results?
• What kind of results do you expect from your business?
• Who at your company would be the main point of contact for an outsourced SEO consultant?

  When you outsource SEO, you can ensure that your company’s SEO efforts are following best practices to encourage optimal results. While there is no single strategy that covers every step you can take to rank number one on Google, best practices are a great starting point that will help you understand how to communicate your goals to your outsourced SEO consultant. The more prepared you are when you outsource SEO, the more benefits you can reap from their services.