How To Outsource Your SEO to an Agency?

Table of Content

SEO

If you’re reading this, you already know the importance of SEO for your brand’s digital presence. So it’s not about whether you should invest in SEO or not. It’s about how to get the best returns on your SEO investments.

Many small and medium businesses deprive themselves of the revenue that can come from SEO because they can’t set up an in-house SEO team. Setting up an in-house SEO team is challenging for two reasons:

High salaries of SEO experts make it unaffordable for small and medium businesses
It takes time to train and develop in-house SEOs

But there’s an alternate way.

You can outsource your SEO to a third-party service provider. SEO outsourcing makes it easy for you to reap SEO benefits without the challenges of building an in-house team.

Let’s get into the details of SEO outsourcing and learn how to do it the right way.

What is SEO Outsourcing?

SEO outsourcing is a process to outsource your SEO functions to a third-party SEO service provider instead of managing it in-house. You can choose to outsource entire SEO operations (including SEO strategy) or some parts of it.

Here’s a list of key SEO tasks that you can outsource:

The above SEO functions are quite important for your website to perform well on search engines and drive traffic from there. However, if you don’t have a dedicated digital marketing team, it can be difficult to manage all these tasks in-house.

That’s where outsourcing your SEO operations can help.

When Should you Outsource your SEO?

These are some of the reasons for you to outsource your SEO to an external professional or agency.

You need more expertise: Let’s say, you have an in-house SEO but they may not be equipped to handle all the SEO functions. For instance, they’re good with on-page and off-page SEO but don’t have the know-how of technical SEO. This may require you to get external help for technical SEO.
You want faster results: Building an organic presence for your brand takes time. Now, if you’re on a tight marketing budget and don’t have the time to take the “trial and error” route, you may want to outsource SEO to experts to achieve results faster.
You can’t set up an in-house SEO team: For example, you’re a small or medium-sized business and don’t have the resources to set up an in-house digital marketing & SEO team. But you still want to leverage SEO for your brand. In such cases, you can choose an SEO agency that can offer you customised services that fit your budget.
You want to scale up: You may have an in-house marketing and SEO team but you require extra hands to help you scale up your content marketing and SEO game. Here, digital marketing agencies can help you scale your marketing campaigns so that you don’t have to hire more employees.

SEO Outsourcing Options

Once you decide to outsource your SEO operations, you have three clear outsourcing options to choose from. Let’s understand each.

SEO Freelancers

The global freelancer SEO services market is surging and it’s expected to touch $19.54 billion by 2026.

Hiring an SEO freelancer is one of the most affordable outsourcing options if you don’t have enough marketing budget.

For example, you’re running a small direct-to-customer (D2C) eCommerce startup on Shopify and managing the content management system on your own. But you want an expert to audit your site from the SEO perspective.

In this case, a freelancer is an ideal choice since the scope of your SEO project is limited and low-scale.

However, they can’t deliver for large-scale projects that require a team. That’s because a freelancer usually operates individually and has multiple clients accounts to manage. So they can only dedicate limited time to your project.

Therefore, the freelancing option may work for small/medium businesses or small projects, but not for enterprises and large-scale campaigns.

SEO Agency

SEO agencies exclusively focus on SEO services and can help you achieve your SEO goals with their established processes, expertise, and resources. Unlike a freelancer, an agency usually has a decent team size to handle projects of different sizes and scales.

Let’s say, you’re a mid-sized real estate company based out of Sydney and have in-house digital marketers and SEO. However, your organic traffic and ranking are not growing consistently in line with your business goals.

Since you already have a marketing team, you can work with a specialised SEO agency to analyse and revise your SEO strategy. And you can outsource your major SEO functions to them to get your desired results.

The only downside of working with an SEO company is that they can’t help you with non-SEO tasks like website design & development, PPC advertising, social media marketing, etc.

Full-service Digital Marketing Agency

A full-service digital marketing agency can not only help you with your SEO but also oversee all the aspects of online marketing for your brand.

When you work with a freelancer, you just get the experience and knowledge of one person. And in the case of an SEO agency, you get the expertise of multiple SEO professionals. But when you work with a full-service agency, you can leverage the expertise and creativity of a team of professionals who are experts in different verticals of digital marketing including SEO.

For example, you have copywriters, content marketers, SEOs, graphic designers, PPC specialists, web designers, social media marketers, etc. — all under one roof. Moreover, these professionals would’ve worked with a range of clients within and outside your industry.

Also, they would’ve helped other businesses solve similar marketing challenges that you’re facing. Thus, their on-field experience can be a goldmine for your brand.

So, if you have a decent marketing budget and require end-to-end digital marketing solutions in addition to SEO services, a full-service agency is your best bet.

Benefits of Outsourcing SEO

Now, let’s take a look at some of the key benefits of outsourcing your SEO to an external professional or agency.

Saves your Time

Although SEO is crucial for your brand’s online presence, it’s a time-consuming process. It requires you to stay on top of the upcoming SEO trends and changes in search engine algorithms.

When you outsource your SEO tasks to a competent third-party SEO, they handle all the tedious SEO processes. And you (or your marketing team) can invest more time in SEO analytics and other important business activities.

Cost-effective

As per the survey data from Salary Expert, the median salary of an SEO consultant in Australia is AUD 104,393 per year. Now, imagine the costs if you want to build an SEO team.

Case in point: Hiring expert SEO professionals full-time can be an expensive affair for your business.

In addition to paying them monthly salaries, you also have to pay for insurance and other benefits. Besides, you’d also have to invest in various SEO and marketing tools that your in-house SEO team may need. All these can add up to sizeable recurring overheads.

While building an in-house team gives you more control over your data and processes, it can be a huge expenditure for small and mid-sized businesses.

On the other hand, when you outsource SEO to an agency, you don’t have to incur the above-mentioned overheads. You just have to pay for the projects or the predetermined monthly retainer fees.

Thus, SEO outsourcing is much more cost-effective than hiring in-house SEO specialists.

Staffing Consistency

In-house SEO teams are usually made up of a few employees — depending on the size of the company. When any of the team members quit, other staff are burdened with additional work until you find a replacement.

Even if you get the new hire quickly, they’d need to be trained for your processes before they can start contributing productively. This can affect your team’s productivity and also slow down operations.

But you don’t have to face such challenges when you outsource your SEO to an agency since they tend to have a large team. So even if someone leaves, other SEO specialists can take over your project seamlessly.

Access to Expertise and Established Processes

When you partner with experienced SEO professionals (freelancers or agencies), you get access to their expertise and years of experience. So you don’t have to build your SEO strategy from scratch.

Besides, these agencies create their SOPs from their vast experience working with clients from different industries. So they are well aware of what works and what doesn’t work in a specific niche.

This can come in handy for you — especially if you’re a small business or startup. You can achieve faster results by partnering with an experienced SEO consultant or agency.

How to Outsource SEO the Right Way?

If you’ve decided to outsource your SEO and are wondering how to do it the right way, here’s the step-by-step process.

1. Decide your SEO Goals

Before outsourcing your SEO, you need to know what exactly you want to achieve from it. For instance, you may want to:

Increase your visibility on SERPs
Rank for your niche keywords
Drive more traffic to your website
Generate more leads
Increase your sales, etc.

While it’s easy to get caught up in chasing vanity metrics (numbers that look good but don’t contribute anything to your revenue), make sure you set SEO goals that are aligned with your overall business goals.

So do your homework and decide your SEO goals before you talk to external professionals or agencies.

2. Determine the SEO Functions you Want to Outsource

As mentioned earlier, you can outsource some parts or entire SEO operations to a third party. So, based on your SEO goals, check what tasks you can handle successfully in-house and where you need external help.

For example, you have a marketing & SEO team that handles content creation, on-page, and technical SEO, but can’t build backlinks at scale. In such a case, you may want to outsource link-building to an agency.

At the same time, if you’re just starting out and don’t have a team yet, you’d want to outsource your entire SEO and content marketing operations to a digital marketing agency.

3. Find out the Agencies that Offer the Services you Need

Next, research and find out the top agencies that offer the SEO services you require and can help you achieve your goals.

You’d get the idea from their website whether they provide your preferred SEO services. Checking this aspect before contacting them would help you save time and shortlist potential agencies.

4. Evaluate the Agencies to Check the Right Fit

Once you’ve shortlisted some agencies, set up a meeting or consultation call with them to see which agency is the best fit for your business.

Here are some questions you must ask the SEO services providers:

Have you worked in our industry before?
Can you share some information about the results you achieved for your past clients?
How will you improve our search engine rankings & organic traffic?
How much involvement would we need to have in this project/campaign?
How will you keep us informed about changes you make to our website?
How often do you send progress reports & what does it look like?
Why should we hire you over other SEO companies? etc.

In addition to the above questions, also observe these red flags during your conversation with the agency:

Are they genuinely interested in helping you achieve your goals or they’re desperate to onboard one more client?
Do they guarantee #1 position for your target keywords? If they’re promising such results without backing them up with any strategy or explanation, stay away from them. Reputed agencies would never make such claims since they know that achieving top spots in SERPs depends on many factors.

Make sure you talk to all (or most) of the shortlisted agencies before you make up your mind.

Also, refer to their case studies, client testimonials, and online reviews. In fact, you can also consider talking to their existing or previous clients to get feedback.

5. Agree on the SEO Strategy

Once you sign a contract, they’d start your onboarding process. At this stage, you can discuss your goals and expectations with the SEO strategist assigned to you.

Based on your goals and initial discussions, a strategist will map out a custom SEO strategy for your business. You need to ensure that the strategy is in line with your objectives. It’s crucial that you and the agency, both are on the same page before executing the strategy.

6. Track Progress

Lastly, it’s important to keep tracking your progress at regular intervals. You need to stay on top of the reporting schedule and periodic meetings with the agency.

During these discussions, you may ask questions about the performance of your campaigns and future plans. If you’re not getting your desired results, you can bring it to your agency’s notice and fine-tune your strategy accordingly.

On the other hand, if you’re hitting your goals consistently, you may want to set higher goals and achieve them with the agency’s help.

Ready to Outsource your SEO?

SEO is no longer a choice if you want to succeed in the digital-first business world.

If done right, SEO can not only help you establish a strong digital presence, but also open the floodgates of customers and revenue for your business.

A competent agency can help you achieve your business goals with their years of experience and acquired expertise in SEO. So make sure you follow the tips shared in this article and work with the agency that is the best fit for your business.

To make things easier for you, let’s start with a free consultation. We’ve helped thousands of businesses like yours to scale up with our proven digital marketing prowess. Talk soon!

Authors

Hardy Desai

Hardy is the visionary founder of Supple Digital, a boutique SEO agency based in Melbourne, Australia. With a profound understanding of the digital landscape and a deep passion for innovation, Hardy has steered Supple Digital to become a leading name in the SEO domain.