Putting up a website does not guarantee people will visit. Getting people to visit doesn’t guarantee they will make a positive decision about your organization. To get the most out of a website as a marketing and customer outreach tool, you need to implement SEO and digital marketing. Let us focus on SEO for this post.
Any small company can manage SEO in-house. Another option is to hire an SEO agency. But of course, that means spending money on yet another service. Is hiring an SEO agency worthwhile? And if so, how does one convince management to approve the expense?
We have collaborated with multiple clients who originally came looking for valid reasons to hire an SEO agency. We gave them those reasons, brought them on board, and then proved that their choice to invest in professional service was the right one. Do you need valid reasons? Check out these five:
1. Professionals Bring Expertise to the Table
The team members at an SEO agency are experts in search engine optimization. They are experts in things like implementing rich snippets, taking advantage of local packs, and utilizing knowledge panels to gain a competitive edge. Marketing team members who only dabble in SEO may not have the same level of knowledge.
It is important to remember that SEO is a complex field that never stops evolving. SEO agencies make it their mission to stay abreast of the evolution. They have expert knowledge that non-professionals do not possess.
2. Professionals Put in the Time
Doing SEO right requires a significant investment of time. A well-conceived SEO strategy can yield excellent results, but not overnight. It takes months of work to start seeing results at all. An in-house marketing team trying to manage everything may not be able to commit the time and effort necessary to achieve a company’s SEO goals.
Hiring an SEO agency frees up the marketing team to put their time and energy into other things. Meanwhile, SEO experts do the work. They can make more efficient use of their time because SEO is all they do.
3. Professionals Offer a Better Value
Outsourcing to an SEO agency offers better value in the long run. You are getting more productivity for every dollar you spend because you’re paying professionals who know what they are doing. They manage SEO as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. That means you get more bang for your buck. Ultimately, you could spend less to get better results from an agency compared to what your in-house marketing team could produce.
4. Professionals Utilize Specialized Tools and Resources
The SEO of the 2020s is vastly different from the SEO of the 1990s. There is more to it than choosing a few keywords and writing some blog posts. The complex nature of modern SEO demands the use of specialized tools and resources – all of which professional SEO agencies have access to. Without those tools and resources, maintaining a competitive edge is nearly impossible.
5. Professionals Utilize a Data-Driven Approach
Finally, SEO agencies need to produce results to stay in business. Therefore, they don’t do what they do with a hit-or-miss mentality. Modern SEO is data-driven. The best agencies make full use of data and analytics to constantly improve results.
None of this is to say that companies cannot manage SEO on their own. But unless a company has a staff of trained SEO experts, keeping things in-house might not be the wisest idea. Hiring an SEO agency turns the task over to professionals who are the best at what they do.
