How to Know When to Outsource SEO

SEO has replaced TV and print advertising as the most important marketing technique, and businesses can rise or fall depending on how their content performs on the world's largest search engines.

There are very few exceptions to this rule. Sometimes, your search performance may be solid without tweaking your marketing techniques. And some B2B companies rely more on word of mouth or traditional advertising. But that's a minority. Most online companies can benefit from optimising their search performance, as a quick SEO audit will show.

So how can you win the race for search engine visibility? How can you position your content and products to reach people who are seeking them? Outsourcing SEO could be the solution, and here are some reasons why.

Reasons to make the switch to SEO outsourcing

1. Not all businesses are equipped to master SEO

The first major reason to outsource SEO work is simple: most companies are well set up to sell the products they make or the services they provide, but they are not as skilled at creating digital content that reaches customers that matter.

This is partly due to the complexity involved in SEO. Achieving high search ranks is about more than keywords. As Google algorithms shift and new technologies like voice search become mainstream, the route to SEO success changes constantly. To keep up with those changes requires focus and expertise - two things that ordinary businesses can't guarantee.

2. If you can't write like the pros, focus on your core strengths

Another strong reason to outsource SEO content production is that SEO content demands certain skills from creators. Writing well is something that comes naturally to many marketers, and even medium sized firms may have a few fluent writers to author their web pages or blogs. But writing well and satisfying SEO requirements? That's a different story.

If you've tried to promote a corporate blog and failed, or your landing pages have fallen short, you'll appreciate the value of writing which relates to both human readers and search engine crawlers. Outsourcing to agencies with the ability to strike this balance is often the only solution.

3. Outsourcing SEO can lead to cost savings

If you don't outsource SEO, you'll still need to pay for SEO marketing. That's unavoidable in today's marketplace. But in-house marketing isn't always a cheaper alternative to outsourcing. In fact, if internal teams are not efficient and properly trained, their mistakes can lead to duplicated work and sub-optimal outcomes. And that will always dent your bottom line.

Outsourcing can ensure that even huge batches of work (such as product description databases) are processed to a high level of skill and at minimal cost. You may lose a little control, but the cost savings will be huge.

4. Outsourced SEO can be a much more efficient, quicker solution

Speed is another huge benefit associated with outsourced SEO. Again, this mainly comes down to differences in skill levels. A team of 20 outsourced professional writers and SEO analysts can usually work through bulk content orders faster than internal marketers, simply because all of their focus can be devoted to the task.

External agencies can mobilise talent pools with more flexible working practices than salaried workers as well. This ensures that tasks can be completed rapidly, whenever content creation is needed. And in a dynamic, ever-changing marketing environment, that's a huge advantage.

5. Keynote from greatcontent's COO Izabela Wisniewska

If you know German, don't miss Izabela's keynote "Content Outsourcing vs. Inhouse Content Creation" recorded at Marketing Underground in Berlin.

Find the right partner for SEO outsourcing

All of those reasons make outsourced SEO appealing. But there are potential drawbacks, and we need to take them into consideration.

Sometimes, companies can feel a loss of control when they outsource, putting their brand identity at risk. In other cases, they may choose the wrong partners for outsourcing, resulting in poor quality outcomes which can actually damage SEO performance.

That's not an argument against SEO outsourcing. Instead, companies should choose partners with the skills, track record, and collaborative attitude to execute SEO marketing projects properly. At greatcontent, that's all in the job description. So if you want to outsource SEO marketing without the stress, get in touch. We're always happy to help.

Text: Sam Urquhart
Image: timJ on unsplash.com