SEO Outsourcing or Do it yourself?

For the job of search engine optimization which makes more sense to you doing it yourself, outsource or a combination of each? -Admin-Asst

What's the highest and best use of your time? What's your time worth? What's the cost to outsource? Do the math. :) -Mikey

Slam dunk! Whatever the task, first ask yourself is this the best use of your time. If you can get it done better and cheaper by outsourcing leverage your time and money to your advantage. -Houston

Here is a better question:

Do you want your reputation damaged by outsourcing SEO to inexperienced firms/individuals? Do you want your site banned because you were unaware of what the basics of SEO practices are? -Tahjia C.

It is fair to take for granted that a question like this assumes you would be hiring a professional and reputable firm? -Liberty

If you know how to do it, and have the time to stay on top of it, do it yourself. But that depends on how many hats you are already wearing at your company.

If you outsource it, make sure you check references and rankings of their clients for quality keywords.

Most of the SEO experts out there do not know what they are doing, but the ones that do can really help your business grow.

FYI... Before anyone starts to PM me about my comment of most SEO's not knowing what they are doing, I started an SEO company from scratch and made 7 figures doing it before I sold it for a good chunk of change. So I have a great grasp of the industry. Just do your research like you would anything else when hiring an SEO. -SalesBuzz.com

That is a great piece of advice actually. I own a company, where we do household services and I have my sales reps go door-to-door to gain sales.

In addition, I am now looking into mastering telemarketing, along with needing leads. But, I think SEO is very valuable for the actual web site.

I also co-own a web site prosalesguide.com, and the other owner does the SEO. So, right there we are lucky, and he is quite good at it. -Jumpman

when it comes to SEO, I say do it yourself. There is a lot to grasp but it can all be picked. I have been reading multiple forums on seo for the last month and feel that i have a great base of knowlege. For my sites, I know nobody will work harder to promote then to me. -b2brep

If someone asks you; should I outsource my sales or should I do it myself? The first question you would probably ask is whether this person has any sales skills. The next question would be balancing time and costs, but without any skills the option for outsourcing is the only way to go. -ChannelSales

I have to question the tactics of some SEO's. IE working on taking over an SEO account from one of my competitors (apparently a reputable company). What I found was shocking!!!!!!

Did a back link check, they had one inbound link, & three outbound links. Guess where these outbound links were pointing. You got it .....back to the SEO.

Moving on..........Did a keyword check. I asked my potential client who was being optimized, their company or their SEO.
Every keyword that you can use to optimize an SEO site was used & not the target business (luxury home building).

This SEO company had the gall to not only link their landing page but linked their web site in depth.

Checked their alt image attributes.......guess what they said.....You got it....the name of the SEO company (again).

Checked their Meta Tags..........not even close. Their description tag & keyword tag were inversed. I asked my client if they were trying to rank for (luxury)........as some of you know....that ain't going to happen. I will not debate Meta tag use.

Checked their (H1) use. I guess they believe (H1) doesn't matter

Checked for relevant key words within their site.........not one

The moral of the story I hope is clear. Do your homework & do a lot of it. Take the Google Keyword test to start.
Understand that SEO work is not a one time affair. You got to do every day !!!!!!

If you want to be in the SEO business, know what side of the fence you want to stand on.....white hat, black hat.......or somewhere in between. In between is good.

Brush up on your english skills. What you will find is, you will need to write effective copy every day. Why, because you will have to take your keywords ( either you are shooting for high hanging fruit or low hanging fruit) & integrate these key words into your copy & make it sound appealing.

Understand you must control more than one site. Thats right, you will need to own more than one web site to optimize your principle site.Hint, use the same key words in your peripheral sites as you are in your primary site......Just don't duplicate your site

If you decide to outsource,Know who you are working with. Just because you have been doing business with them for years doesen't mean they are any good at what they are doing.......or honest for that matter. Tell your webmaster/seo to take their follow through links off of your site, or kindly inform them that you expect them to pay for the advertisement.

Now that is off my chest......I can get back to submitting some articles.

j.p.o -DIAMONDSTAR

I think doing yourself is the best idea because no one will work harder at promoting your own business than yourself.

However, if you are familar and comfortable with the person that you want help from, than go for it. But, make sure you give them some type of incentives, such as if the site gains more traffic and revenue, you can offer them a piece of the pie.

When you offer someone a piece of the pie, they tend to treat your business or any business in that manner as their own. -Jumpman

Oooooooohhhhhhh SalesBuz how awful saying that most seo companies don't know what they're doing...how COULD you say such a thing.

Probably because you are absolutley right.

They punt SEO like it is a black art. SEO is unbelievably simple.

There are about 4 or 5 things you need to do to get a page ranking well. Most of it is just common sense. Some of it is the odd little known trick and the rest of it (the boring bit) is just a few repetitive exercises.

I get calls from SEO companys telling me thay can get me to number one on google all the time. I ask thewm what particular search term they think I should rank for and they are utterly lost.

They know nothing about using lucrative long tail keywords and THEY are supposed to be the experts.

Very well said sir. -helisell

Ok here are my answers.

1. Why should an SEO firm tell me what keywords I should rank for?

They shouldn't....but for one of my sites it seems obvious what I would like to rank for and yet is is not obvious when you get to know my industry.

The last SEO guy implied that he already knew what I ought to rank for. He had no understanding that the term he suggested was completely untargetted and inappropriate.

2. How do I know what terms my competitors rank for?
Well that's easy. I just search and see if they show up. (it really is very easy) I use allintitle:xyz search term. This shows me how many pages are actually trying to rank for that particular term

3. How do I know how competitive my search term is?
I research it. Alexa is 'old hat' there are many tools available to figure out how competitive a search tarm is and what the likelyhood of monetizing it is.

4.Am I ranking from root domains OR from sub-domains.
Both.

5. How many times was my search term queried yesterday?
Well I have dozens of different search terms from many sites so I'll pick one and check using googles' keyword search tool (actual data)

OK yesterday (as near as it is possible to be accurate - not Alexa btw) one of my main search terms was searched worldwide 2466 times. I rank 1 and 2 on Google for this phrase.
Once for the root domain and once for one of the internal pages. This search term got me 129 new subscribers (plus some sales). 15% of the subscribers will buy and spend an average of $61 over the coming 12 months. It is a three word search phrase.

The thing is I am not even bragging. I am NOT VERY GOOD at this stuff compared with other people I've met. I'm just trying to let folks know that it is not difficult to rank on the search engines. -helisell