SEO Company vs Employing a SEO Person
Discussion
Maybe I'm just in a s
tty mood today (well, I certainly am!) but I'm contemplating getting rid of our SEO company and employing a SEO person full time in house.
My main concern really is whether one person would be able to cover all the SEO bases for us and I'm interested in your thoughts on this topic.
I've always thought that by having a company where you're one of x customers at least you have different people specialising in different areas. I guess I have viewed that saying I want to employ a person to do SEO is the equivalent of saying I want a builder to build my house and if that chap would be able to do the plumbing as well as he can build walls etc. Am I wrong?!
The short term plan would be to have someone concentrating on the SEO 100% initially and then drop back to a lesser amount over a period of time and use their related skills elsewhere in the business. I assume once a strategy is in place and underway with the on-site stuff squared away it doesn't require quite the same input? I guess, I assume SEO is very much front loaded - a lot of initial ground work and then an ongoing tickling of things as opposed to full time forever.
tty mood today (well, I certainly am!) but I'm contemplating getting rid of our SEO company and employing a SEO person full time in house.My main concern really is whether one person would be able to cover all the SEO bases for us and I'm interested in your thoughts on this topic.
I've always thought that by having a company where you're one of x customers at least you have different people specialising in different areas. I guess I have viewed that saying I want to employ a person to do SEO is the equivalent of saying I want a builder to build my house and if that chap would be able to do the plumbing as well as he can build walls etc. Am I wrong?!
The short term plan would be to have someone concentrating on the SEO 100% initially and then drop back to a lesser amount over a period of time and use their related skills elsewhere in the business. I assume once a strategy is in place and underway with the on-site stuff squared away it doesn't require quite the same input? I guess, I assume SEO is very much front loaded - a lot of initial ground work and then an ongoing tickling of things as opposed to full time forever.
The ongoing work is usually a lot more than the initial on-site stuff. Creating lots of content for your blog and others, seeding it socially, doing online PR, building and managing the link profile, blogger outreach, Conversion Rate and Uability testing, etc. there is lots to do each month, even if you aren't adding new products/services every so often.
In our SEO teams you have a real mix of skills. The typical client project would have:
1. An SEO specialist/tech person, who does keyword research, code changes, analytical work, etc.
2. An account manager who does blogger outreach, social stuff, online PR, etc
3. A lead copywriter who does keyword optimisation across the site and writes blogs.
4. A secondary writer who also blogs and does guest blog posts and press releases.
5. A researcher who keeps an eye on topical news sites, blogs, forums, etc for the AM to jump on.
6. A CRO person, if applicable.
It's hard to find all of those areas in one person. I know as I used to be an in-house SEO and my weakness was the writing.
In our SEO teams you have a real mix of skills. The typical client project would have:
1. An SEO specialist/tech person, who does keyword research, code changes, analytical work, etc.
2. An account manager who does blogger outreach, social stuff, online PR, etc
3. A lead copywriter who does keyword optimisation across the site and writes blogs.
4. A secondary writer who also blogs and does guest blog posts and press releases.
5. A researcher who keeps an eye on topical news sites, blogs, forums, etc for the AM to jump on.
6. A CRO person, if applicable.
It's hard to find all of those areas in one person. I know as I used to be an in-house SEO and my weakness was the writing.
Dick Dastardly said:
The ongoing work is usually a lot more than the initial on-site stuff. Creating lots of content for your blog and others, seeding it socially, doing online PR, building and managing the link profile, blogger outreach, Conversion Rate and Uability testing, etc. there is lots to do each month, even if you aren't adding new products/services every so often.
In our SEO teams you have a real mix of skills. The typical client project would have:
1. An SEO specialist/tech person, who does keyword research, code changes, analytical work, etc.
2. An account manager who does blogger outreach, social stuff, online PR, etc
3. A lead copywriter who does keyword optimisation across the site and writes blogs.
4. A secondary writer who also blogs and does guest blog posts and press releases.
5. A researcher who keeps an eye on topical news sites, blogs, forums, etc for the AM to jump on.
6. A CRO person, if applicable.
It's hard to find all of those areas in one person. I know as I used to be an in-house SEO and my weakness was the writing.
Sorry, to clarify what I meant about the front loading of the work is not only the on-site stuff, but also putting the plan together and the foundations for the off-site moving forward.In our SEO teams you have a real mix of skills. The typical client project would have:
1. An SEO specialist/tech person, who does keyword research, code changes, analytical work, etc.
2. An account manager who does blogger outreach, social stuff, online PR, etc
3. A lead copywriter who does keyword optimisation across the site and writes blogs.
4. A secondary writer who also blogs and does guest blog posts and press releases.
5. A researcher who keeps an eye on topical news sites, blogs, forums, etc for the AM to jump on.
6. A CRO person, if applicable.
It's hard to find all of those areas in one person. I know as I used to be an in-house SEO and my weakness was the writing.
We're actually very good in house at the writing bit...
I think you need to look at the costs involved, how many hours and what actual work are you getting from the agency.
Hiring a half decent SEO person is going to cost in excess of £30K a year plus other employment costs, varying slightly on where you are based, if you are paying more than that for an agency then you might be right to consider in-house.
Hiring a half decent SEO person is going to cost in excess of £30K a year plus other employment costs, varying slightly on where you are based, if you are paying more than that for an agency then you might be right to consider in-house.
I'm probably not alone in reading this thread with interest. We too use an SEO company and I've always struggled in that they seem a bit vague and woolly in terms of what they do and the relative effectiveness of each element. You're in the wonderful position of being in a world where no one really knows the truth, it's all about guesswork.
I do feel there is a load of padding out in SEO.
In my own situation I can write copy far better than any SEO copywriter because it's my business, my subject, something I understand. Hopefully I can also string a few words together in a way which make people want to read them. I'm currently being paid to write for a magazine.
I've largely ignored all the stuff written by our SEO company on the basis no one is every going to actually read the stuff, it's purely there for a Google Bot to crawl.
Henry
I do feel there is a load of padding out in SEO.
Dick Dastardly said:
In our SEO teams you have a real mix of skills. The typical client project would have:
1. An SEO specialist/tech person, who does keyword research, code changes, analytical work, etc.
OK, Some of that looks like one off stuff or once every 6-12 months. You're not going to target new keywords every month. You need probably 6 months min for a set of words. Would your website creating / hosting company not do a lot of the donkey work on the site?1. An SEO specialist/tech person, who does keyword research, code changes, analytical work, etc.
Dick Dastardly said:
2. An account manager who does blogger outreach, social stuff, online PR, etc
My guess is that this role could well be carried out by the writerDick Dastardly said:
3. A lead copywriter who does keyword optimisation across the site and writes blogs.
Surely the keyword optimisation requirement is set by person 1. So a writer.Dick Dastardly said:
4. A secondary writer who also blogs and does guest blog posts and press releases.
So a writer, see 3.Dick Dastardly said:
5. A researcher who keeps an eye on topical news sites, blogs, forums, etc for the AM to jump on.
Surely the writer does this as part of their inspiration in terms of what to write about?Dick Dastardly said:
6. A CRO person, if applicable.
I wonder if that's something the website creator / host can involve themselves in? A good website creator needs to be aware of the whole SEO / CRO process and so multi-disciplinary crossover?In my own situation I can write copy far better than any SEO copywriter because it's my business, my subject, something I understand. Hopefully I can also string a few words together in a way which make people want to read them. I'm currently being paid to write for a magazine.
I've largely ignored all the stuff written by our SEO company on the basis no one is every going to actually read the stuff, it's purely there for a Google Bot to crawl.
Dick Dastardly said:
It's hard to find all of those areas in one person. I know as I used to be an in-house SEO and my weakness was the writing.
So, given I can write copy the only other person I would need is you and my website construction / hosting people ?Henry
Stevanos said:
I think you need to look at the costs involved, how many hours and what actual work are you getting from the agency.
Hiring a half decent SEO person is going to cost in excess of £30K a year plus other employment costs, varying slightly on where you are based, if you are paying more than that for an agency then you might be right to consider in-house.
That was the point of the thread! I'm aware of the order of magnitude it'll cost to get someone in, but will one person be enough?Hiring a half decent SEO person is going to cost in excess of £30K a year plus other employment costs, varying slightly on where you are based, if you are paying more than that for an agency then you might be right to consider in-house.
As Henry-F says, whilst SEO companies do give an indication of what work is being done, I've never found they go into the fine detail of what they're doing on a day to day basis, hence the question. If it is usual that a single person is able to carry out most/all of the different aspects of SEO then it'd be worth considering as we could gain extra value from them elsewhere within the business. If, however, it usually requires a team of 3 people with different skill sets, then perhaps not.
When you build a website, from experience, the good developers usually aren't great at design, and the good designers don't write the best code.
The Moose said:
That was the point of the thread! I'm aware of the order of magnitude it'll cost to get someone in, but will one person be enough?
As Henry-F says, whilst SEO companies do give an indication of what work is being done, I've never found they go into the fine detail of what they're doing on a day to day basis, hence the question. If it is usual that a single person is able to carry out most/all of the different aspects of SEO then it'd be worth considering as we could gain extra value from them elsewhere within the business. If, however, it usually requires a team of 3 people with different skill sets, then perhaps not.
When you build a website, from experience, the good developers usually aren't great at design, and the good designers don't write the best code.
You would almost certainly get much better value for money having an in-house SEO, their time would be yours. Generally in SEO agencies their time is spread across multiple clients and whichever client shouts the loudest gets the most attention. One other point, an SEO will come with additional costs, they need special tools and may need to outsource certain tasks such as content creation or spend money on link acquisition etc. As Henry-F says, whilst SEO companies do give an indication of what work is being done, I've never found they go into the fine detail of what they're doing on a day to day basis, hence the question. If it is usual that a single person is able to carry out most/all of the different aspects of SEO then it'd be worth considering as we could gain extra value from them elsewhere within the business. If, however, it usually requires a team of 3 people with different skill sets, then perhaps not.
When you build a website, from experience, the good developers usually aren't great at design, and the good designers don't write the best code.
We are at the same stage, we have been quoted £35k for a e-marketing package that includes SEO but in addition to our adwords budget (but includes managing adwords).
What I think we are going to do is use a SEO company to do an Analytics report maybe weekly / monthly and a "to do" list for the SEO / promotion of the site and employ a person to do SEO or take a person and train them up admittedly it will not be as good as a dedicated company initially but over time a better bang per buck I feel.
What I think we are going to do is use a SEO company to do an Analytics report maybe weekly / monthly and a "to do" list for the SEO / promotion of the site and employ a person to do SEO or take a person and train them up admittedly it will not be as good as a dedicated company initially but over time a better bang per buck I feel.
The requirements for modern SEO are far in excess of what an individual could do for you or anyone. An agency will use specialists for each area of SEO and therefore will be able to offer you a much more complete solution. A content researcher is unlikely to be a skilled copywriter and a keyword specialist etc. Worse, if you don’t employ someone with the right credentials then you’ll spend all your time training them (assuming you know how to SEO) and they may never deliver the hoped-for results.
However, take a step back first and ask yourself the most important question:
‘What is in it for me?'
You need to first consider where you are today, and what the potential is. We spend most of our energy up front focusing on the goals and then engineering the right plan of action - which will involve a mix of SEO, PPC, Social, Content and so on - but for every client the mix is different.
So, do you know what the opportunity is? What **could** you achieve in a year? How are you measuring success? Rankings or conversions? Assuming you are also undertaking PPC, how cost effective does SEO have to be in terms of conversions? It must be comparable or better.
I appreciate you may know this but given SEO is a moving target, i.e. Google continually changes its algorithms to avoid SEO specialists ‘working the system’ for their clients. Therefore, SEO work, not just because of the content, is a constantly evolving discipline needing continuous commitment.
SEO is a costly channel, like any other, and for many businesses it is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - it lures the attention, but doesn’t actually exist! It is difficult to measure, hard to predict and often reliant on not just the effectiveness of your agency, but also on Google’s (and to a lesser extent Bings) whims and fancy.
However - for growth and ROI: give me PPC, Remarketing and Email, coupled with a strong focus on CRO any day. It’s more measurable, more immediate and generates greater returns.
However, take a step back first and ask yourself the most important question:
‘What is in it for me?'
You need to first consider where you are today, and what the potential is. We spend most of our energy up front focusing on the goals and then engineering the right plan of action - which will involve a mix of SEO, PPC, Social, Content and so on - but for every client the mix is different.
So, do you know what the opportunity is? What **could** you achieve in a year? How are you measuring success? Rankings or conversions? Assuming you are also undertaking PPC, how cost effective does SEO have to be in terms of conversions? It must be comparable or better.
I appreciate you may know this but given SEO is a moving target, i.e. Google continually changes its algorithms to avoid SEO specialists ‘working the system’ for their clients. Therefore, SEO work, not just because of the content, is a constantly evolving discipline needing continuous commitment.
SEO is a costly channel, like any other, and for many businesses it is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - it lures the attention, but doesn’t actually exist! It is difficult to measure, hard to predict and often reliant on not just the effectiveness of your agency, but also on Google’s (and to a lesser extent Bings) whims and fancy.
However - for growth and ROI: give me PPC, Remarketing and Email, coupled with a strong focus on CRO any day. It’s more measurable, more immediate and generates greater returns.
Frimley111R said:
However - for growth and ROI: give me PPC, Remarketing and Email, coupled with a strong focus on CRO any day. It’s more measurable, more immediate and generates greater returns.
That's a good point in that spending £35k on PPC may do more than SEO - I have no idea if true but you could easily trial it over a few months to gauge effect. The appeal with SEO over pay per click of course is the fact you reap the benefits for a long time afterwards.
Yes, I know the goalposts keep getting moved but if you can achieve the top of page 1 through legitimate means having structured your website and ancillary products accordingly then it's likely you will stay on page 1 for some time. Each day at midnight Google resets the clock on PPC and you do it all over again.
There is certainly an argument to say if you reap ten pounds for every pound spent on PPC then it doesn't matter. Just keep paying the man the money.
With SEO I think success is measured solely on Google ranking results. The SEO companies are keen to steer you away from that notion and involve PPC management, conversion rates and so on but only because the failure to achieve Google sucess means you can call them a fraud.
We have used 2 SEO companies over the years. The first one seemed to be doing well until they failed to acknowledge a disastrous Penguin crash. The second one has had tens of thousands of pounds off us and we are effectively no better off than we started. We still don't feature on Google anywhere !
The worrying thing is they are supposed to be a decent legitimate company as opposed to a bucket shop. Based on our results I would recommend businesses run a mile. We are into them for so much money that we are damned if we do , damned if we don't.
Henry
Yes, I know the goalposts keep getting moved but if you can achieve the top of page 1 through legitimate means having structured your website and ancillary products accordingly then it's likely you will stay on page 1 for some time. Each day at midnight Google resets the clock on PPC and you do it all over again.
There is certainly an argument to say if you reap ten pounds for every pound spent on PPC then it doesn't matter. Just keep paying the man the money.
With SEO I think success is measured solely on Google ranking results. The SEO companies are keen to steer you away from that notion and involve PPC management, conversion rates and so on but only because the failure to achieve Google sucess means you can call them a fraud.
We have used 2 SEO companies over the years. The first one seemed to be doing well until they failed to acknowledge a disastrous Penguin crash. The second one has had tens of thousands of pounds off us and we are effectively no better off than we started. We still don't feature on Google anywhere !
The worrying thing is they are supposed to be a decent legitimate company as opposed to a bucket shop. Based on our results I would recommend businesses run a mile. We are into them for so much money that we are damned if we do , damned if we don't.
Henry
Henry-F said:
The appeal with SEO over pay per click of course is the fact you reap the benefits for a long time afterwards.
Yes, I know the goalposts keep getting moved but if you can achieve the top of page 1 through legitimate means having structured your website and ancillary products accordingly then it's likely you will stay on page 1 for some time. Each day at midnight Google resets the clock on PPC and you do it all over again.
There is certainly an argument to say if you reap ten pounds for every pound spent on PPC then it doesn't matter. Just keep paying the man the money.
With SEO I think success is measured solely on Google ranking results. The SEO companies are keen to steer you away from that notion and involve PPC management, conversion rates and so on but only because the failure to achieve Google sucess means you can call them a fraud.
We have used 2 SEO companies over the years. The first one seemed to be doing well until they failed to acknowledge a disastrous Penguin crash. The second one has had tens of thousands of pounds off us and we are effectively no better off than we started. We still don't feature on Google anywhere !
The worrying thing is they are supposed to be a decent legitimate company as opposed to a bucket shop. Based on our results I would recommend businesses run a mile. We are into them for so much money that we are damned if we do , damned if we don't.
Henry
Had nose out of interest and I would hate to see your PPC bill as for really generic terms you are top or second eg home cctv, house cctv - still as you say if every click makes you £10Yes, I know the goalposts keep getting moved but if you can achieve the top of page 1 through legitimate means having structured your website and ancillary products accordingly then it's likely you will stay on page 1 for some time. Each day at midnight Google resets the clock on PPC and you do it all over again.
There is certainly an argument to say if you reap ten pounds for every pound spent on PPC then it doesn't matter. Just keep paying the man the money.
With SEO I think success is measured solely on Google ranking results. The SEO companies are keen to steer you away from that notion and involve PPC management, conversion rates and so on but only because the failure to achieve Google sucess means you can call them a fraud.
We have used 2 SEO companies over the years. The first one seemed to be doing well until they failed to acknowledge a disastrous Penguin crash. The second one has had tens of thousands of pounds off us and we are effectively no better off than we started. We still don't feature on Google anywhere !
The worrying thing is they are supposed to be a decent legitimate company as opposed to a bucket shop. Based on our results I would recommend businesses run a mile. We are into them for so much money that we are damned if we do , damned if we don't.
Henry
DSLiverpool said:
Henry-F said:
The appeal with SEO over pay per click of course is the fact you reap the benefits for a long time afterwards.
Yes, I know the goalposts keep getting moved but if you can achieve the top of page 1 through legitimate means having structured your website and ancillary products accordingly then it's likely you will stay on page 1 for some time. Each day at midnight Google resets the clock on PPC and you do it all over again.
There is certainly an argument to say if you reap ten pounds for every pound spent on PPC then it doesn't matter. Just keep paying the man the money.
With SEO I think success is measured solely on Google ranking results. The SEO companies are keen to steer you away from that notion and involve PPC management, conversion rates and so on but only because the failure to achieve Google sucess means you can call them a fraud.
We have used 2 SEO companies over the years. The first one seemed to be doing well until they failed to acknowledge a disastrous Penguin crash. The second one has had tens of thousands of pounds off us and we are effectively no better off than we started. We still don't feature on Google anywhere !
The worrying thing is they are supposed to be a decent legitimate company as opposed to a bucket shop. Based on our results I would recommend businesses run a mile. We are into them for so much money that we are damned if we do , damned if we don't.
Henry
Had nose out of interest and I would hate to see your PPC bill as for really generic terms you are top or second eg home cctv, house cctv - still as you say if every click makes you £10Yes, I know the goalposts keep getting moved but if you can achieve the top of page 1 through legitimate means having structured your website and ancillary products accordingly then it's likely you will stay on page 1 for some time. Each day at midnight Google resets the clock on PPC and you do it all over again.
There is certainly an argument to say if you reap ten pounds for every pound spent on PPC then it doesn't matter. Just keep paying the man the money.
With SEO I think success is measured solely on Google ranking results. The SEO companies are keen to steer you away from that notion and involve PPC management, conversion rates and so on but only because the failure to achieve Google sucess means you can call them a fraud.
We have used 2 SEO companies over the years. The first one seemed to be doing well until they failed to acknowledge a disastrous Penguin crash. The second one has had tens of thousands of pounds off us and we are effectively no better off than we started. We still don't feature on Google anywhere !
The worrying thing is they are supposed to be a decent legitimate company as opposed to a bucket shop. Based on our results I would recommend businesses run a mile. We are into them for so much money that we are damned if we do , damned if we don't.
Henry
Henry, sounds like you have been very unlucky with your online partners despite your best efforts. SEO success should really be measured by conversions, not simply by rankings. Anyone can get a company to the top of page one of next-to-never-used-search-terms. Also, even if you made it to the top of a more general search term ranking you're always fighting competitors who are doing the same. With PPC at least you know what you are paying what you are getting.
Frimley111R said:
Yes but a click is only a click is not a sale. How many clicks convert to enquiries and then sales or straight to direct sales? How good is the website at converting people? Of course what can make a difference is the margin of products or services.
Of course, that is correct, however if you spend £1,000 on PPC and from those clicks you make £10,000 profit then it's surely not a bad investment.Right enough, each click won't bring you £10 of profit - it's a spread across your PPC driven visits.
You do then obviously then need to work on increasing the conversion rate to make yourself more profitable at the same time refining your PPC campaign.
With regards to the SEO, if you're on page 1 for your key terms, you hope you can draw people away from your high-paying key words so they click on your natural rankings instead. There are also people who don't use the 'sponsored listings' so this also allows you to put your site in front of them.
Henry-F said:
The appeal with SEO over pay per click of course is the fact you reap the benefits for a long time afterwards.
Yes, I know the goalposts keep getting moved but if you can achieve the top of page 1 through legitimate means having structured your website and ancillary products accordingly then it's likely you will stay on page 1 for some time. Each day at midnight Google resets the clock on PPC and you do it all over again.
There is certainly an argument to say if you reap ten pounds for every pound spent on PPC then it doesn't matter. Just keep paying the man the money.
With SEO I think success is measured solely on Google ranking results. The SEO companies are keen to steer you away from that notion and involve PPC management, conversion rates and so on but only because the failure to achieve Google sucess means you can call them a fraud.
We have used 2 SEO companies over the years. The first one seemed to be doing well until they failed to acknowledge a disastrous Penguin crash. The second one has had tens of thousands of pounds off us and we are effectively no better off than we started. We still don't feature on Google anywhere !
The worrying thing is they are supposed to be a decent legitimate company as opposed to a bucket shop. Based on our results I would recommend businesses run a mile. We are into them for so much money that we are damned if we do , damned if we don't.
Henry
I take it you got bumped from Google in April 2013 and are only just getting back in? That looks like a painful one!!!Yes, I know the goalposts keep getting moved but if you can achieve the top of page 1 through legitimate means having structured your website and ancillary products accordingly then it's likely you will stay on page 1 for some time. Each day at midnight Google resets the clock on PPC and you do it all over again.
There is certainly an argument to say if you reap ten pounds for every pound spent on PPC then it doesn't matter. Just keep paying the man the money.
With SEO I think success is measured solely on Google ranking results. The SEO companies are keen to steer you away from that notion and involve PPC management, conversion rates and so on but only because the failure to achieve Google sucess means you can call them a fraud.
We have used 2 SEO companies over the years. The first one seemed to be doing well until they failed to acknowledge a disastrous Penguin crash. The second one has had tens of thousands of pounds off us and we are effectively no better off than we started. We still don't feature on Google anywhere !
The worrying thing is they are supposed to be a decent legitimate company as opposed to a bucket shop. Based on our results I would recommend businesses run a mile. We are into them for so much money that we are damned if we do , damned if we don't.
Henry
Whilst were talking Panda and Penguin one of my sites was hit in Jan 2013 we left it and got a new site and new URL and we just ignored the old site its still live but with a none follow link to the new site - well its started to get orders again which is A, surprising and B, a pain as it has all old stock on we don't sell anymore.
Even a dead site can reanimate .......................
Even a dead site can reanimate .......................
Right - made a decision, for now we are recruiting a under 22 year old e-tailing apprentice who will learn everything we do plus go on at least one SEO course possibly night learning I don't know.
Once he or she is in place we will look to place the new site SEO with the intention of external company augmented by apprentice should offer our new site a good start.
I am assuming we get a decent candidate, I shall report back.
Once he or she is in place we will look to place the new site SEO with the intention of external company augmented by apprentice should offer our new site a good start.
I am assuming we get a decent candidate, I shall report back.
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