Sphinn - You Think You Know Enough To Do ALL Of Your SEO In-House?

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You Think You Know Enough To Do ALL Of Your SEO In-House?

Went Hot: July 28, 2008 - 12:35 am
Posted By: tonyadam 345 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: In House SEM

Jessica Bowman shares...While SEO can be done completely in-house, not every company truly has the expertise to fly totally solo and make it to the destination without a bit of turbulence and unnecessary crashes along the way.

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from justin 345 days ago #

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I agree with a lot of these comments. A few mistakes can cost companies quite a bit of money.
In terms of the red flags I have to disagree on a few of those points though.

"You have attended only 1 or 2 search marketing conferences in the past 4 years." - Just because you aren't able to attend conferences on a regular basis, doesn't mean anything other than the fact that your manager is el cheapo in terms of travel. For the most part you can get all the session information online, you've really just missed out on the social aspect.

The other point is "You aren't spending at least 1 hour per day reading what's happening in the search marketing arena." For many of us who are in house, our days are pretty busy so to dedicate an eigth of our day to reading about search can be pretty tough. Thats why Friday afternoons are so nice - great time to play catchup on the weeks RSS. :)

from ppedersen 345 days ago #

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I agree with justin's two points.

The way confrences are evolving (vendor showcases), I'm getting much better info in my RSS feed reader. You just have to know the right feeds to add ...there's a lot of crap out there.

I've been doing SEO since about 1996 and I also agree that one hour per day is excessive. If you've got the right sites in your RSS feed reader, one hour per week is plenty.

from gronk 343 days ago #

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i would prefer instead of stating that inhouse SEO's miss 20% of the most important components of SEO that you state what those components are.

from JohnHGohde 343 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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Personally, I hate companies who think that they always have to hire outside of the company. So, Why would SEO work be any different? Fear mongering is used to sell services. But, that don't mean that a company's SEO Department automatically sucks, just becuase there is a new SEO company / Kid on the block.

from mrdavids 342 days ago #

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I agree with everything that you say. This is not true only for SEO, but for SE marketing and designing as well.
Most people do not want to pay for outside help, but in the end, it always bounces back at them. As the saying goes, "when you buy cheap, you get cheap".
Rather spend the extra buck and avoid the potholes before than having to fix them after.
There is a new trend of websiteoverseeing (www.websiteoverseer.com) that takes on this part of the process of building websites.

from JohnHGohde 342 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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Paying is easy, while collecting is not so easy. There are plenty of horror stories regarding SEOs and Lawyers. It takes a rather strong, assertive personality to actually get what you paid for. And, when that happens you will hear the SEOs start whining about their horrible clients who actually demand value for their dollars.

from MikeBradbury 342 days ago #

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I disagreed with a lot of this...

Knowing When You're ready to fly solo: If you can correctly diagnose or plan a strategy that lands your client higher rankings and lots more traffic 80% of the time, it's time to leave the nest. And it has nothing to do with...
Attending Search Conferences: I have a 5 year track record of successfully SEOing large sites in competitive industries. How can this be? I have never been to a search conference!
Reading SEO articles for an hour everyday: Are you kidding me?! If I read SEO articles for an hour every day, 1.) I would read the same thing, roughly, everyday, 2.) I wouldn't learn half as much as if I took that hour researching & implementing my own ideas.

I've said before, and I'll say again. Yes, the search engines change constantly, and so do I. My skin cells die, my hair gets longer, my nose gets bigger. It happens every day, that doesn't mean tomorrow morning when I roll over in bed my fiancee is going to smash me in the head with the lamp because she doesn't recognize the person lying next to her.

And for companies, CHECK REFERENCES THOROUGHLY! Find more references. Offer more money and you'll find more qualified SEOs. Invest in an SEO recruiter. There are ways to find in-house talent that can alleviate the need for a consultant if you're willing to put in the time and/or money.

from garment 342 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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Those on both sides here have put forth valid comments...my take is this - anyone, doing just a little research, can implement *some* optimization strategies that will yield results. Example - I can put up a shed in my backyard, which will keep my mower out of the rain; but a professional will build me a shed that has a bench that lets me sharpen the blade, hooks on the wall to hang the mower bag, etc...you get the picture.

Mower out of the rain (minus outside spend) = good
Mower out of the rain (plus spending $$ on a professional, plus productivity tools for the long run) = better

Either way, you're not worse off in either case; you just (maybe) could have done a little better.

We wrestled with this very question before ultimately deciding (happily) to go with a professional - and then decided to assist those in the same quandry as us. If you are in the same boat as us, head over to www.seotrac.com and sign up for the beta - you can use our tools to track results for SEO over time. Thanks.

from tripstar 342 days ago #

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I somewhat agree, but I don't have time to go to conferences! and I do the code too sometimes so checking with the developer? That's an interesting conversation with myself "hi self, what's changed today?" (there's a couple other developers, but it's fun with the "talking to yourself" analogy.)

from yojpotter2 342 days ago #

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Nobody can claim they know everything SEO because just like everything else..SEO is always changing..everyday new trends and techniques are being developed..that's why it is very important to always be updated.

from amiablegurl1982 341 days ago #

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Hi Guyz , I am new here so right now settling myself here wid this environment. Anyways, For an inhouse yes u must posses a complete skill set of SEO and SEM. I am and SEO and SEM Executive and am taking care of all SEO and SEM activities in-house. I feel thr are lot of things tht need to be learnt...even wn i am having 8 months of experience doing this. Every day i learn many new things and try to implement with regard to its after effects . I do a llot of research work upon the things tht are in pipeline before its actual implementation as it might can effect positively or adversely on website.
Anywyas, its really good to knw about this site.....

from seobro 339 days ago #

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Well, the aswer is no, but I can't afford the heavy hitters. It is like writing copy. The pros are real expensive, so I have to write my own copy an make do with a lower percent conversion.