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Why Bother with an SEO Company?

Went Hot: April 22, 2008 - 5:47 am
Posted By: annie7 440 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.searchenginejournal.com)
Category: SEO

Knowing what one should do and actually doing it are two extremely different things. Consequently knowing SEO strategies is only one piece of the pie. A much larger piece is acting upon that knowledge.

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from iBrian 440 days ago #

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To be frank, if all you can offer is something that a company can easily do themselves, then you have no service to offer.

Plenty of SEO companies have experience and resources that very few if any non-SEO company can use.

Simply put - most companies that feel they can do all the SEO themselves will be out-performed by competitors who outsource to good SEO companies.

2c.

from annie7 440 days ago #

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Brian, agreed 100%

from Matt-D 440 days ago #

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I doubt many companies would really benefit from someone in-house who solely understood SEO. However, if you can afford the man power, I think a member of your marketing team who is savvy to the whole internet marketing game (including social, SEO, PPC, affiliates and plain old display advertising) would be invaluable. Even if the work itself is outsourced, that person will be far more concerned with your bottom line than the company you've outsourced to, and would be able to check for and call BS on any dodgy activities.

The reason so many shysters exist in this field is that the people who buy the services we offer have no clue about what it is we're doing for them and tend to have little interest in it so long as they see a good ROI. If you emply someone a little more knowledgable than yourself to "manage" your outsourced work, you can be confident that you're wringing more value out of the money you're spending, and reasonably protected against any activities that might damage you long term.

from DarkMatter 440 days ago #

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SEO is not rocket science. Neither is auto repair. But when my car breaks down, I don't crack open a book and start troubleshooting the engine myself. I'm more likely to break it than fix it if I don't invest the proper amount of time in learning. I might change my own oil filter, but I need a mechanic to do the complicated stuff. SEO is no different.

from Matt-D 440 days ago #

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Agreed DarkMatter... but I'd probably take a friend who knew a little more about cars than me along to the garage in case they saw me coming and tried to rip me off.

from bbcarter 440 days ago #

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Problems with in-house SEO are learning curve AND more importantly, politics- frankly, it seems that companies are more willing to listen to paid external experts even if they're paying those experts less than they would their in-house guy or gal. Familiarity breeds contempt- and working with multiple clients from an agency perspective, you get more experience- I'd be afraid of getting stale if I worked in-house in just one vertical.

from willneu 440 days ago #

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I agree bbcarter, imagine working on the same niche market day in day out. I guess if you were working for Amazon it wouldn't be so bad, but even then!

The toolsets and resources agencies generally have far outweigh anything that a company could achieve within reasonable cost constraints!

And it is always good to have an outside view on this sort of situation anyway, having an outside eye looking in and creating a report to follow is always better than just "doing SEO" on your company website.

from mike.tekula 439 days ago #

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@DarkMatter, I definitely agree - it's funny, I was just telling someone who was confused about what I do that "it's not rocket science." I wouldn't even say SEO is as complicated as an automotive engine. However, what clients really want when they hire an SEO firm is the technical knowledge along with advice - advice on where to put their limited resources to achieve the best ROI. With that in mind, holistic SEO is clearly not just about "optimizing pages" or "building links" but about serving as an extended marketing department for your client - you need, in other words, to make them more money through search engine traffic. You have to justify your existence with real, positive numbers. Otherwise, no matter how good a game you talk, they'll end up chopping you off as dead wood.

from sem4u 439 days ago #

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I work in-house...I always have, but I do feel that a lot of companies can benefit from working with an SEO agency/consultant.

from mpilatow 439 days ago #

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Yeah, bbcarter. I have worked in house and at agencies and the agency environment is much more dynamic and interesting long term. Working in house was a great experience though as it allowed me to hone my skills and really dive into one site and watch it grow and evolve. After a while I did get a bit disinterested though, which is why I moved back into the agency side.

from JacobKerr 439 days ago #

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Sorry if this is a little of topic:

One of the bigest issues with some web design and development companies that try to take on SEO by themselves is the fact that they have a hard time adapting to the fact that SEO takes place from start to finish and that the SEO director should be part of everything from design to development. Before a project is ever started the SEO team needs to develop a solid game plan and needs to be able to guide the design and development team in the right direction and even the sales team which some CEOs like to be a big part of and have a hard time fully understanding or listening to their SEO team etc. etc. etc.

You know what I mean? Let your SEO team develop a solid game plan from the start and follow it to the T and allow them to change things as needed on the fly...

After reading this article I have to say an SEO company def. knows best and not anyone without experience can make a web site rank well within organic results off of research. Through extensive testing and past experience a good SEO firm can develop a solid and proven game plan that will suceed. :)