When compared to marketing strategies like paid search, SEO can provide a huge return on investment. In fact, Google claims that SEO generates a 5.3x return on investment when compared to paid search, which only generates a 2x return.
We're not simply discussing vanity metrics here. Here are some of the SEO results we've accomplished for our clients:
With an in-house SEO staff, however, obtaining those kinds of results is practically impossible. To see substantial results, effective search engine optimization necessitates a deep bench of talent, as well as preparation, analysis, technology, and boundless scalability.
You need to outsource SEO initiatives to a company that can scale with you if you're the head of growth for a billion-dollar corporation.
Continue reading to learn about the advantages of hiring an SEO agency, how to do it correctly, and why you should choose us.
Points to Remember
- When you outsource SEO, you hire a third party to handle some or all of your company's SEO needs.
- When you engage an experienced SEO firm that focuses solely on SEO, you instantly increase your bandwidth and have access to their knowledge.
- Outsourcing your SEO lowers your hiring and training costs while also allowing you to scale more quickly.
SEO fundamentals outsourced
Search engine optimization can be easily outsourced. You hire a third-party firm to manage some or all of your brand's SEO needs. The third party could do the following, depending on your needs and abilities:
- Compile a list of competitors.
- Optimize your website's technological components.
- Investigate keywords.
- Make a content marketing strategy.
- Make fresh content
- Improve the performance of existing pages (on-page SEO)
- Internal links should be organised.
- Make wireframes for new website templates.
- Make a planned outreach effort
- Create backlinks
When it comes to SEO services, you basically have three choices:
- Hire an SEO firm
- Engage the services of a digital marketing firm (with SEO as one of their services)
- Collaborate with a freelancer or an independent contractor
Hire an SEO firm to help you.
Hiring a seasoned SEO firm is a highly successful strategy. You can trust their experience, strategies, and resources because they are solely focused on SEO. They should be able to provide case studies with outstanding ranking, traffic, and business results, so make sure to ask for samples.
If you look at the Success Stories section of the Stridec website, for example, you'll see examples where we:
- Increased a mortgage and loan company's Google market share by 265 percent.
- For an online bank, organic customer acquisitions increased by 553 percent.
- Organic revenue increased by 30.2 percent for a DIY retailer
Collaborating with a digital marketing firm
Working with a digital marketing business that provides a variety of marketing services, including SEO, is the second choice. This is a smart way to integrate marketing channels including paid search, display advertising, native advertising, retargeting, and public relations.
The issue is that these agencies do not have the same level of expertise in SEO strategy and execution as an SEO firm. As a result, you'd most likely opt for a diluted SEO strategy. They could even subcontract to a different vendor. At first, you could notice results. However, this is unlikely to result in a 265 percent gain in Google market share.
Have freelancers work for you
The third alternative is less expensive, but it requires you to be more involved in the entire process. To put it another way, you can't simply set it and forget it.
Furthermore, even the most experienced SEO consultants are unable to offer results on a large scale. They're frequently consultants who make recommendations that your team must adopt. Alternatively, businesses can send work to an SEO outsourcing firm that white labels their services. Unfortunately, you have almost no control over the process or quality of work done when an SEO reseller is involved.
In the end, freelance consultants are good for small and medium enterprises, but they can't make a difference in a multibillion-dollar corporation.
What are the benefits of outsourcing SEO services? (internal vs. external)
Organic search is something that brands invest in in a variety of ways. Others operate with larger teams internally, while others hire an in-house manager and outsource parts of the plan. Some companies even outsource all of their work.
However, scale will become an issue for you at some point throughout your SEO journey. It will be difficult for you to hire and manage a larger crew. You'll have too many different vendors, resulting in fragmented, misaligned, and low-quality deliveries.
You'll be wondering if you should do SEO in-house or outsource it at that point. The main benefit of outsourcing SEO is that it allows you to concentrate on what you do best while benefiting from SEO expertise. As a result, you'll be able to go further with your organic outcomes than you could on your own.
You may focus on refining your marketing strategy and enhancing marketing integration across channels instead of spending thousands of hours on SEO minutiae (and across internal departments).
When you outsource SEO, you're effectively extending your workforce without incurring the costs of recruiting an internal team. You'll be getting advice from SEO strategists and specialists who have worked with a wide range of clients in various sectors. This gives your SEO a fresh perspective on your brand's most productive strategies and techniques.
When should SEO efforts be outsourced?
Outsourcing your SEO projects might be advantageous in a variety of situations.
If you require additional assistance, please contact us.
The organic search market is quite competitive. Expertise is required for effective SEO. It entails far more than simply inserting a few keywords in the appropriate locations. Alternatively, you might add some web pages. Alternatively, you could start a blog.
When it comes to influencing your business, the finest SEO agencies go well beyond rankings and organic visitors. They want to raise the number of customers you get, your revenue, and your market share. They allow you to take advantage of organic search's low acquisition costs in order to dramatically lower your paid media spend.
If you need to scale
When you're doing everything yourself, scaling your SEO might be difficult due to the quantity of work needed. You can practically 10x the productivity of your SEO programme by hiring an outsource workforce.
Let's imagine you're looking to develop ties with publishers and influencers. Internally, you might be able to engage with a few dozen people. Beyond that, the effort multiplies by a factor of ten.
When compared to dealing with a professional SEO firm, the difference is night and day.
Stridec has a database of over 9 million publishers and influencers, allowing us to target the most relevant publications for each of our clients. We use our proprietary outreach tools to interact and cooperate with them in order to generate backlinks for the business.
Through our content placements, we were able to reach an audience of more than 31.2 million for one client. Without technology, procedure, and labour, you just won't be able to achieve that level of scale.
When you need to get things done quickly
When it comes to the importance of organic search, SEO companies know what works and what doesn't. They can assist you in achieving immediate results as well as developing a long-term strategy that will result in constant organic search traffic. Outsourcing your SEO to a seasoned SEO firm allows you to achieve faster results and avoid costly mistakes.
Outsourcing's speed benefit is also linked to scalability, as previously stated. You can get results faster with a larger team and better technology than you could with a small team.
Outsourcing SEO work has a number of advantages.
There are numerous benefits to outsourcing SEO services, including the following five:
Reduce hiring and training costs
It can be costly and time-consuming to hire and train an SEO team. You pay for their computers, software subscriptions, healthcare and other benefits, employment taxes, vacation time, and so on, in addition to their wages and bonuses.
You must not only teach them SEO principles, but you must also teach them how to use various SEO tools (keyword research, competitive analysis, content gap analysis, on-page optimization, strategic outreach, etc.). It takes a lot more than a single training course to become an expert in SEO. Ongoing training costs mount up over time.
Outsourcing your SEO allows you to gain a deeper understanding while also saving money on recruiting and training.
Reduce the time it takes to become proficient
Because of its intricacy, SEO has a somewhat steep learning curve. It takes time and effort to become adept in all of the skills and tools required to execute SEO properly. Expect to spend a significant amount of time training team members to a sufficient degree of expertise.
Even if you do, it's rare for one person to be skilled in both technical SEO and content development, or content gap research and blogger outreach, for example.
When you outsource SEO, you're hiring a team of specialists who are ready to get started right away. This equates to quicker outcomes.
Reduce the likelihood of inexperience
The other day, I was speaking with someone who works in SEO for a huge manufacturing company. They reasoned that Google's mobile-first indexing approach would not apply to them because their website's traffic is mostly desktop. Obviously, this is not the case. Regardless of the percentage of traffic from desktop, mobile-first indexing applies to all websites.
When someone is inexperienced, this can be the level of knowledge discovered and the types of mistakes made. It can harm not just your organic ranks, but also the cornerstone of your SEO programme, causing long-term harm to your organic results.
These kinds of hazards are avoided when you use outside SEO experts.
Scale SEO projects effectively.
SEO is difficult to scale due to its labor-intensive nature, especially if you're working on it alone. There just isn't enough time in the day to complete all of the necessary keyword research, page optimization, content production, backlink building, and other SEO duties.
You'll need a complete staff working on your SEO efforts if you actually want to scale them. Outsourcing comes into play in this situation. Outsourcing your work to a team is far more cost effective than trying to establish and manage internal resources.
Improve SEO Return on Investment
Outsource SEO to boost your return on investment. You get more if you outsource to a company with a proven track record of delivering exceptional outcomes than if you try to do everything yourself.
You're doing SEO for more than just better rankings and traffic; you're hoping to make a positive impact on your company. Leads, customer acquisitions, revenue, customer perception, customer lifecycle, and market share are all examples of ways to do this.
It's difficult to make personnel changes within an internal team, even if the results aren't great. With a diversified, skilled outsourced staff, it's lot easier to obtain the best SEO ROI because it's easier to hold an outsourced team accountable.
What is the best way to outsource SEO?
Let's move on to the precise procedures you should take while outsourcing your SEO.
1. Establish your objectives
You must first determine your major objectives before partnering with an SEO firm. "I want to be number one" is far too general and not a realistic aim; you must be more specific.
Obviously, you want more visitors to your website. But, what kind of traffic are you looking for? Are you attempting to boost sales of your most profitable items?
Do you mostly serve domestic customers or do you have an international clientele? Do you have any local retailers, motels, restaurants, or other brick-and-mortar businesses that need to be supported individually? Are there any specific geographies where your company needs to grow?
Do you need to increase the number of leads and customers you have? Do you have any competitors that you'd like to pass?
Are you effectively connecting with your audience at all stages of the customer journey, or are there any steps that need extra attention?
What is the minimum amount of money you require from your SEO campaigns?
Answering these questions will help you figure out which SEO business to choose and what services you'll require.
2. Identify the services you require
Your SEO objectives will assist you in determining the services you require. Do you require all-encompassing SEO services, including keyword research, technical SEO, content development, and link building? How about assistance with local SEO, reputation management, or algorithm recovery?
If your requirements are specific, you can work with a company that specialises in those things. You'll want to work with a full-service SEO firm if they're complete.
3. Establish a timeframe for your project.
It is critical to keep in mind that SEO is a long-term strategy. You should probably invest in something else, such as PPC, if you want immediate results.
If you're going to outsource your SEO, be prepared to wait for results. Your period should be at least 12 months, but you should expect more meaningful results after that. Stay away from SEO firms that claim overnight success. They don't know, or they're doing dirty, black-hat tactics that could get you penalised by Google.
4. Evaluate a number of SEO firms
When it comes to SEO, seek for a company that is well-versed in the field and consistently produces excellent results for its clients. It's also a good idea to look into a company's online presence to ensure there aren't any negative reviews.
Examine their case studies to see what types of business outcomes they emphasise. Are they chock-full of vanity metrics (more on that later) or results that matter to the bottom line?
Once you've narrowed down a few companies, set up consultation calls with them and ask them the following questions.
- What is the length of time you've been in business?
- Do you have any experience working with small company owners?
- What distinguishes you from your competitors?
- How will you comprehend our clients?
- Are you able to provide technical SEO, on-page optimization, and linkbuilding services?
- Are you able to deliver high-quality content creation services?
- What strategies would you use to take advantage of our organic search opportunities?
- What technologies and tools do you employ?
- Do you have any case studies of consumers who are similar to us?
- Do you resell or outsource contracts?
- Can you provide client testimonials and references?
Any reputable organisation should be able to simply answer these questions. Any lack of openness in relation to any of these is a red flag.
You want a firm that has a proven track record of assisting clients in achieving their SEO objectives, not one that overpromises and then fails to deliver. And don't bother asking if they practise white hat SEO because everyone will say yes.
5. Select the best SEO firm
It's time to choose the SEO company you'll work with and get down to business after you've found the greatest fit.
Clarity about objectives and outcomes is critical from the start. You should be more specific:
- What are your SEO objectives?
- The services you'll receive in detail
- Timeline for completing deliverables
- Metrics of success
- Protocols for communication (e.g., using a project management portal, etc.)
- Reporting and meeting frequency
Identifying these factors at the start of your collaboration with an SEO firm ensures long-term success and a positive working relationship.
SEO best practises are outsourced.
We may believe that as marketers, we are immune to sales pitches. Keep your guard up, though, and stay focused on the KPIs that matter to your company. It's time to choose the SEO company you'll work with and get down to business after you've found the greatest fit.
Look for the best return on investment, not the cheapest price.
When it comes to SEO, you're generally not going to go with the cheapest choice (hopefully). However, don't dismiss the most expensive company outright. It may appear that you're saving money on marketing. However, those savings will be meaningless if you don't see any long-term marketing ROI.
Consider the following: Is it your objective to save some money? Or is it to achieve tremendous shareholder value by crushing your organic search goals?
Instead of focusing on price, examine the outcomes you require and whether the organisation you're contemplating is up to the task. As previously stated, request case studies and double-check that they aren't for a small business in a simple keyword space.
Don't get caught up with vanity stats.
It's not uncommon for marketers to tightly focus on one or two keywords and monitor how the brand performs against them on a regular basis. Your SEO metrics should be linked to your business objectives, which implies taking a more holistic approach to your keyword landscape possibility. It also entails evaluating performance in terms other than keywords and traffic, such as business impact.
It may make you feel good to rank high for a specific keyword, but if it doesn't result into more leads, conversions, or customers, it's just a vanity statistic.
Review reports and findings on a regular basis.
While patience is crucial when it comes to SEO improvements, it's also critical to examine quarterly reports and analyse results on a regular basis. Discuss and agree on your priority KPIs, as well as the types of dashboard data and regular monitoring you may expect, with your SEO agency.
Is it time to hire someone to do your SEO for you?
It's time to think about outsourcing your SEO if you want to reap the rewards of a high-performing SEO programme.
Outsourcing allows you to focus on more important projects and duties while still expanding your organic search presence. You can grow your SEO efforts, decrease expenses and errors, and achieve results faster than if you rely entirely on an in-house team by hiring a full-time SEO team.