With online marketing being as prevalent as it is now for any business, everyone has a concern for SEO and whether they are achieving the goals they had hoped. There are basically two routes to taking on SEO work, in-house SEO, meaning that the job of SEO management falls into the duties of someone already apart of your team, or you seek out SEO management.
The real issue is that sometimes it is not ideal to seek out SEO management and it is actually better to keep the work in-house, but it’s tough to know what’s best. This is why it is good to know if you need to invest in SEO management before you go through the process of hiring external help. Here are five questions to help you evaluate this decision.
-
Is your in-house SEO team performing well?
This may seem like an obvious question, but if your in-house team is already producing the working you need for SEO and your rankings are doing well, why would you hire externally? In-house teams have their benefits, and if everything is running smoothly you don’t need to try and fix what isn’t broken by changing who is in charge of your SEO efforts.
However, if your in-house team isn’t performing—for example, you are starting to need more work done at a faster pace—then an external agency may be able to provide this service at a similar price as keeping the work in-house. If you go this route you can also opt to keep your in-house team and have them work closely with the agency, this may help to facilitate learning and eventually the work may be able to remain in your home department.
-
Are you redesigning or starting a new website?
Starting a new website or creating a redesign gives you the opportunity to build the entire business site with SEO in mind fro the get-go. This is the best reason to hire a management company, as they are often very knowledgeable and can really aid a business just starting their site.
-
Are your rankings dropping without any explanation?
Before you can really figure out what is going on, sometimes things like algorithm changes or negative SEO can affect your rankings and you in-house SEO team may not be able to figure out why as quickly as you need them to. This process of figuring out why and then proceeding to solve this issue is often a time costuming task that may best be left to an expert. This is definitely a case where you should think about seeing out SEO management.
-
Is there something you want that in-house cannot figure out?
Again, this may seem like a fairly obvious question to ask, but if there is something you want for your site or online presence that your in-house team cannot seem to figure out, rather than spending extra time and energy to attempt to get what you want, hiring SEO management may be the best option. While it is true that with all of the tools and online help available in-house SEO is easier to do than a few years back, there are definitely still cases where experts are going to top searching to solve your problems and in achieving what you want.
-
Is your social media becoming too much to manage?
One of the ultimate goals of online marketing is to increase social media audience and traffic. However, sometimes when you are working with purely in-house SEO this can become a lot to manage. If traffic has increase rapidly and it is becoming such a success that you do not have time to interact with your audience, than it is definitely time to hire SEO management.
-
Do you know your goals and what you want to focus on?
If the answer to this is no, then do not hire SEO management. Here is why: SEO management’s job is to optimize with a specific set of goals in mind. It is a waste of time and money to hire someone to work aimlessly, only to change your mind half way through.
The Takeaway
If after going through this exercise of questions you have identified the need for help beyond what your team can currently handle, and you have specific goals in mind, it is definitely time to hire SEO management. If you are still developing your marketing and business goals, or your in-house team is achieving what you need for the moment, than it may be okay to hold off on seeking external help.
The important thing is to think about these questions before you invest in SEO management. While the choice to work with external management can be great for your business, you need to justify beyond working with your existing team and make sure it is the best decision for where your business is at the moment.