Search Engine Optimization

This is a guest post from Amanda DiSilvestro of ResourceNation.com

It is no secret that SEO is crucial to the success of a small business, but what many do not realize is that there are different ways to fulfill this crucial need. Many new business owners work with SEO on their own; meaning they decide which keywords to target, focus on getting back-links and have worry about Google rankings and penalties. However, many more established companies choose to use an SEO agency. Consider some of the positives and negatives to each:

In-House SEO

1.In-House SEO Advantages

Control – You have complete control, so you will be able to change things instantly if you ever change your mind. Sometimes it can be time consuming to create an SEO strategy and then have to go back and change it, but if you do it yourself you know you will have it the way you want it right away.

Experts – You will be able to hire the SEO expert who you think knows your target audience and industry the best. Agencies sometimes worry about a lot of different types of companies, but bringing someone in-house will help keep them focused.

2.In House Disadvantages

Risky – There is a chance that you could get SEO wrong. Sometimes SEO can be confusing, and it takes a long time to master. If you don’t hire an expert or you hire someone new, there are places where you can make mistakes. It’s important that you understand HTML, keyword research tools, and keyword tracking tools and much more.

Expensive – Some people are swayed into giving SEO a try on their own because they think it is inexpensive, but the truth is the right tools will cost you. It is important that you have the right software to complete keyword research and tracking, and this can sometimes cost up to $1000.

Time – It takes a great amount of time to master SEO, but it also takes a great amount of time to see results. This means that if you’re making a mistake, you probably won’t realize it until a good amount of time has passed.

SEO Agency

1.SEO Agency Advantages

Fast and Simple – The agency will do all the work, so all you will need to do is look it over and make sure you agree with the approach.

Stay Focused – If you hire a SEO agency you will not need to change the focus of your business in any way. You will not need to use any office resources for a new employee. The agency will work for you without disrupting business.

2.SEO Agency Disadvantages

Cost – Although this is a disadvantage to in-house SEO as well, it’s still a part of hiring a SEO Agency. The cost of an SEO agency varies depending upon your expectations and workload, but in general it will cost approximately $200-$5,000 per month.

Miscommunication – You run the risk of miscommunication when working with a SEO agency. You will be in charge of telling them your internet marketing goals, objectives, budget, and giving them deadlines. Therefore, it is important that you are organized and comfortable talking with people. You need to make sure you know what you want, and then make sure that the company follows through. It’s also a good idea to do a full background check on the company to make sure that they have had success and will be offering you real experts to help your efforts.

The most important thing to remember is that SEO is important—very important. You want to make sure that you know exactly what you are doing and that you are not cutting corners when it comes to SEO. If you’re starting a small business and just getting your feet wet with SEO, it is going to take some time before you see results. However, once you do start seeing results you will also likely begin seeing an increase in online traffic.

About the Author
Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to credit card processing. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including medical billing software to small businesses and entrepreneurs for one of the leading b2b lead generation websites, Resource Nation.

Bringing in an in-house expert to handle your SEO is a great way to make sure your SEO campaign is both effective and strategically aligned with the rest of your marketing efforts. An in-house employee is going to know your business, your brand and your goals better than just about anyone. You get to work with them on a day-to-day basis, so they are fully immersed in the company’s culture. The line of communication between your in-house SEO expert and the rest of your employees is wide open, so problems associated with miscommunication are mostly avoided.

But just having your SEO in-house doesn’t always mean smooth sailing.

Here are 4 things you can do to make sure your in-house SEO expert is as effective as they can be:

1. Incorporate SEO into your marketing plan from the beginning
The next time you reevaluate your marketing strategy, be sure that your in-house SEO is included. The best way to make sure that your SEO is consistent with other marketing efforts (and those other efforts are optimized for SEO) is to keep SEO in-mind every step of the way. Your in-house SEO employee will help find ways to leverage all your other marketing (both online and off) for SEO.

2. Make them part of your marketing team
SEO really is 80% marketing. Sure, there are some technical aspects of SEO when it comes to building a website that is optimized for SEO, but for the most part SEO is a marketing tactic. Don’t ship your in-house SEO guy off to the IT department. They’ll be much more effective working alongside your PR, strategy and creative employees.

3. Let them teach your other employees
Your in-house SEO expert can’t be everywhere at once. And what is better than one SEO expert? A department of SEO experts! Since almost everything you do can be leveraged for SEO, having your in-house expert train the rest of your staff can help them do their job and easily incorporate elements of SEO.

4. Use their expertise to uncover valuable insights
Working in SEO sharpens one’s abilities to dig through mountains of analytics for that key piece of information. How are your consumer’s searching for your product? What kind of conversion rate is your company blog producing? Which social network is best for communicating with your target audience? SEO can answer all these questions and more. Get the most out of your in-house SEO and let them find you great insights.

Not every company can afford to hire a full-time in-house SEO employee, but SEO is an incredibly important component of building your online brand. If none of your current employees have the knowledge and expertise to handle your SEO, consider bringing in an SEO consultant to teach them. Or you could hire an outside SEO firm to handle your SEO campaign for you. The bottom line is that you have to be doing SEO, and it should be handled by someone who knows how!

If your company is lucky enough (or profitable enough or large enough) to have an in-house marketing department, why not consider adding an SEO expert to the team? Having your SEO handled in-house is great because it seamlessly falls in lines with your other marketing efforts. Your in-house SEO employee is going to be fully immersed in the culture of your company and values of your brand. They will know your business better than any outside SEO agency ever could, simply because they are there every day, working in the trenches with the rest of the marketing staff.

But hiring an employee to handle your SEO involves asking the right set of questions, some of which may differ from your standard hiring procedure. Here are a few things to ask a potential hire during the interview:

“What does SEO mean to you?”
If they answer with “SEO means search engine optimization. Getting your site to rank well,” they aren’t technically wrong. But SEO is much more complex than that. SEO is not only about ranking well in the search engines, it’s about building your online presence overall. This includes brand awareness, connecting with customers, becoming an authority in the industry and more. Your new in-house SEO employee should understand and be able to explain that to you.

“If I wrote you a blank check, what would you do with it?”
Don’t expect them to give you an SEO strategy right then and there, but they should have a rough outline of what your company needs to be doing to better compete online. It shows they’ve done their homework. They know what you company is or isn’t doing and how to do it better. They should be excited to work with your brand and it should be evident in their answer. The more ideas they have, the better. It shows their experience and excitement for SEO.

“How do you stay ahead of the game?”
SEO is constantly evolving. As the Internet continues to grow and new technology is changing the way people communicate online, SEO has to roll with the punches and adapt. Your new SEO employee should know this about their field. What resources do they turn to for industry news? Where do they go to learn? A good SEO expert is always looking for the newest way to help your site succeed.

Of course your in-house SEO employee has to have previous experience with SEO. They should also be decent writers, as a lot of SEO centers on content. They don’t have to be the best writers on your marketing staff (that’s what copywriters are for) but they need to be able to take a well-written piece of content and make it SEO friendly without detracting from the overall message or style of the content.

You’ll likely find that a good SEO candidate has a strong background in marketing. While technical skills are useful, SEO is really 80% marketing. They have to understand branding, the various aspects of a marketing campaign and how your company connects with its consumers.

The great thing about building your business through SEO has been for smaller businesses, it is really a level the playing field and allows everyone to be competitive. You could be a business that doesn’t have a tremendous marketing budget and really make a significant impact online with a little elbow grease. All you need to do is make some time and learn the craft of marketing a website in the online space and you can quickly gain some much needed visibility through your SEO efforts in house. Offline you didn’t really have that choice, you either paid for the effort or it didn’t happen and the online space has really changed the way businesses now communicate with the masses.

Just because you do not have a 1 million dollar yearly PPC budget doesn’t mean that you can’t make a significant impact online. Writing some press releases, articles and getting active in your social space doesn’t cost you anything but time. Often times the biggest challenges are finding an employee in your company that can help you market your business and pull together your SEO efforts online. Go through your current employees and shift some roles and responsibilities around in order to give an employee some new room to help you spread your message in the web space. Chances are you have an employee sitting around at your business that should be helping you market your business online over what they might be doing now. Sometimes all you might need is to send that employee to some basic search engine marketing training to give them that extra knowledge on how to grow your business online in order to really help you. If you are not capable of hiring a search marketing employee and have not begun to do anything online you need to start to think about making this type of shift. Your business can’t afford to wait any longer sitting dormant online.

Chances are your competitors have already found a way to market themselves to your exact audience in the online space. Sitting around and waiting for things to change on their own will not help your brand grow in the search results. You have to start marketing yourself now and building your in house SEO resources. Go through your employees and find which one spends time online and could really be able to help you, you will be happy you did.