Is Outsourcing SEO a Good Idea?
There are a lot of SEO companies that offer all kinds of services to webmasters. Some examples are:
- Directory submission
- Article submission
- Article writing
- Social bookmarking
- Forum and blog commenting
- On-page factors and site structure optimization
- All-in-one SEO packages
As soon as you try using a few of them, it seems that they fall into two categories:
- Those which produce poor results
- Those which are too expensive
For example, I recently tried to use a cheap directory submission service. They offered to manually submit my site to 100 directories for a very competitive price. A month later, after checking the links on Yahoo and Google, I found exactly one link as a result of that promotion. Suddenly, it doesn't look so attractive any more. You get what you pay for.
At another company, I ordered article writing and submission service. That worked a little better. The articles sometimes required the time to edit comparable to rewriting, and they still looked kind of boring, but at least I received a reasonable number of links as a result. Not nearly as many as you could think from the advertising, but worth the money.
I ended up choosing several article directories that worked, writing my own articles and submitting them myself. I still think my initial order was a great deal, because otherwise I would never find the time to try this technique on large scale, and I would never find half of those good working directories.
If you think about this situation, it makes sense to ask yourself next time you want to outsource some SEO work:
- Is it something only an expert can do, or can you teach
yourself in a few hours?- How much do you need to learn anyway, to oversee the job,
provide good input and evaluate the results?- How much time you will spend managing the outsourced task,
compared to doing it completely by yourself?- Is it something you need to do once, or on a regular basis?
- How much you can learn from having someone else do it once?
- How easy it is to mess up the job, and what are the possible
consequences?- Is it better to do it less than perfectly, or not do it at all
because you never have the time?- Is there a software that can do it?
- Which choice (outsourcing, software or do-it-yourself)
is more financially efficient long term and short term?
Naturally, there are tasks that you just cannot do yourself, and also time and money is a delicate balance. So, I suggest to outsource the following:
- Work that you cannot do yourself
- Trivial tasks that can't go wrong
- Experimental tasks
Everything else you're better off doing yourself, if you have the time. If you don't have the time, it falls into category 1 above.
Outsourcing is an invaluable tool. Big companies use it all the time, and it can offer a lot of benefits for a small business owner, too. The key is to know when to use it and when there may be better options available.
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Helpful Stuff
Thanks for the tips and suggestion Val, we are just starting out with SEO so this helps. It would be super helpful if you could share here or via email the links of "article directories that worked". I personally would very much appreciate that.
Oh, it looks like you allow (even encourage?) links to be posted here so I will shamelessly do it :) Please feel free to delete or "nofollow" it.
Kush
FrameWorksDS
Providers of easy digital signage
If the price is wright I
If the price is wright I don't see why someone with not outsource SEO. Is better to be helped by a specialist if you don't know a lot about SEO.
Hi Kush, Glad you liked the
Hi Kush,
Glad you liked the article.
I share some of these directories, as well as other useful resources, in my other article:
Top 10 Most Effective Link Building Techniques
SEO:Outsource or Do It Yourself?
Dr Adept started as a website design and training company. We started out learning SEO ourselves to promote our own business. We spent two years carrying out SEO on our own websites before we started to offer it to our clients.
Finding out exactly what your customer wants, giving them good advice and letting them know what expectations they should have is the best way to go. Then over deliver every time. Hopefully those companies offering great SEO services will get noticed.
@Christina
Hi Christina,
Yes, I believe there are SEO companies that deliver excellent results. Maybe your company is one of those. Maybe it's just that most beginner webmasters cannot afford really good companies, turn to cheaper shops, are discouraged by the results and start to think bad of the whole industry. In a way, cheap SEO shops undermine the whole SEO industry.
But this race to the bottom is common in other fields as well, and yet the companies continue to grow. I think by clearly presenting your advantages and targeting clients who can afford a better service, you can still be successful. Good luck!
Good Information
Good Information. I have been promotion my site myself for the past year with the help of my friend but due to time constrain I am thinking to out source this part of business. Can you please share some insight on how to choose the best and cost effective seo. I would appreciate if you could email me or share an article on it.
Thanks much
services
I've had similar experiences. When I measure the time and money invested in the services (rewriting, checking work etc.). it hardly seems like it is worth it.
On the other hand, I just do not have the time to do everything by myself.
Still looking for a services that really gives me what I need..
Very Informative
There can be great benefits if you outsource SEO. You can have more time in doing other stuffs while having the assurance that your online campaign is being taken cared of experts in the field.
outsourcing is great
to make you are going to get the best of outsourcing, don't hire freeelancer, go for an outsourcing companies..
Guide to Outsourcing
This is actually why it's important to assess whether the type of business you have would benefit more if you use outsourcing or would it just do otherwise. It's probably just practical to do tasks that you can actually do yourself than waste money on delegating it to other people. Outsourcing can be advantageous you're too busy to handle every aspect of your business. This guide is something that you can relate to to give you some ideas on what other areas outsourcing can be useful in.
fundamental questions to consider
When planning your Internet Marketing Strategy there are fundamental questions to discuss and consider like if you’re planning to develop and implement parts or your entire strategy in-house or should you outsource:
- Do you have the current skills in-house?
- If you don’t have the skills, can you train or hire?
- Is internet marketing your core business?
- Would managing your internet marketing affect your productivity?
It is definitely a good idea
It is definitely a good idea as you can bank some saving through outsourcing, can get rid of management of a large in house team and also can save some expensice such as training people and regular expenses.
outsourcing is a delicate subject
yes, as you mentioned in your article, what you do and the quality of your work is very crucial. It is what will make or brake you. Search Engines are now very intelligent, and the spinned content or double content is found easily. It is something to essential to realize.
that is why outsourcing is a delicate subject. choose your team well.
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