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Marketing budgets are tight at most small and medium-sized businesses these days. So, not surprisingly, there are many individuals wearing multiple caps within an organization, trying to juggle it all. Over time, business websites often fail to rank on the first or second page of the search engines, leading entrepreneurs to wonder if there is a better way. Hiring an SEO consultant is a big step, but will prove to be a valuable partnership if you find the right agency to help. In today’s post, we’ll discuss eight of the top reasons people hire SEO consultants, versus doing search marketing in-house.
1. Save time.
The need to free up additional time is perhaps the top reason people outsource their SEO consulting work. Business leaders need to assess their top talents and ask themselves, “Is my time best spent doing SEO, or am I better at — say — generating sales leads?” How much is your time really worth? If you don’t even like doing SEO work, then your time is probably best spent elsewhere. Growing businesses often transfer the SEO cap to someone else once there are more resources to devote to delegation.
2. Get better results.
You may have an awesome website, but the traffic is sluggish. Often, just a few simple tweaks can improve your page’s ranking overnight. Or perhaps your website is ranked on the first two pages of Google, but visitors only stay a few seconds before quickly bouncing somewhere else, without buying anything or contacting you. You deserve better, so go out and get it!
3. Do it right.
There are some people that stubbornly insist on doing it all themselves. They slap on their own roofs, program their own electrical boxes, fix their own plumbing, and do their own SEO. Then there are people who accept that there is a reason professional tradesmen exist. You may understand search engine optimization, but still accept that there are people who just know more about it than you. They do the same tasks quicker — and they enjoy it more too!
4. Keep up with the times.
SEO is ever-changing. If words like “Panda” and “Penguin” just sound like zoo animals to you, then it’s time to hire an SEO consultant. Matt Cutts and the Google team are always trying to stay one step ahead of webmasters who try to game the system, so it’s an ever-changing industry that few people have time to keep track of — unless, of course, you’re paid to do so!
5. Stay on the good list.
Businesses that take shortcuts with SEO often suffer. There are still agencies that make slick promises and get results by using illegal, unethical “black hat” SEO tactics. They use techniques like keyword stuffing, link farming, spam-commenting, adding invisible text to the page, and creating doorway pages. Black hat SEO may work temporarily, but ultimately, cheating will get your site blacklisted — probably long after you’ve paid your cheap SEO consultant and parted ways!
6. Get a second opinion.
Working on the same website for years can get stale. You may have run out of ideas for topics and feel like your blog or internal pages could use a fresh new direction. Fresh eyes and fresh perspective can inject the life your website needs to grow your business. Sometimes when your head is too buried in the sand, you may be missing ample opportunities to engage audiences with compelling SEO copy.
7. Save money on tools and resources.
According to SmallBizTrends.com, the cost of just five “low-cost SEO software tools for businesses” comes to about $146 per month. To us, that’s on the extremely low end, but even so, that’s $1,752 a year! You still have to do all the legwork yourself and learn how to use each tool and how to analyze the data. Don’t forget that SEO involves a lot of work and strategy. Shiny SEO tools don’t actually do the work for you – professional SEO experts do! Why not pay someone else who already knows all the best tools to boost your search engine placement AND who is willing to do it ALL for you?
8. Build a relationship.
Sometimes it just feels good to put two heads together and brainstorm. Working with an outside SEO consultant gives you a sounding board for your ideas and validates your SEO strategy. Building relationships with other dedicated professionals can be very rewarding. It’s nice to know you’re not alone in the universe and that you can share your challenges with someone else who has valuable experience and expertise to help you out of a jam.
By : Mandy McEwen