**by Barry Bowman**
B2B managers need to figure out the best way to manage SEO efforts.
One key decision is whether to bring SEO in-house or outsource. Your
choices usually look something like this:
Hire an in-house SEO employee
Work with an individual SEO consultant
Outsource to a search engine marketing (SEM) agency
Typically this decision is not conducted using a proper cost/benefit
analysis comparing costs to the total value you're receiving. If you
think in terms of price only, from lowest to highest, the SEO
consultant is typically your cheapest option and the agency the most
expensive. But, should you base your decision on price alone?
Let's take a look at some of the pros and cons associated with each
option.
Hire an in-house SEO employee
Pros:
All B2B marketers should have someone on board who fully understands
SEO and internet marketing in general.
An in-house SEO usually has direct access to internal resources for
quick turnaround of necessary changes to a website.
This person usually understands the vertical they operate in better
than someone from the outside.
They are much more concerned with their company's success and
bottom-line results knowing their job depends on the direct success of
their efforts.
The in-house person will more than likely guard the company against
using tactics that could get the company site banned from the search
engines.
An intermediate level SEO will at minimum cost around $75,000/yr. >
$60,000 salary + $15,000 in benefits or $6,250/mo. Expect to pay
$100k+ for advanced level SEOs.
Cons:
In-house SEOs are rarely only working on website optimization. More
often than not, the SEO employee is wearing several hats.
In-house SEOs are extremely susceptible to "going elsewhere"
once they've honed their skills. SEO experts are in demand! Commonly
they will be approached by the competition, an agency, or seek the
opportunity to start their own business.
Rarely does an in-house SEO have all the necessary skill
requirements such as marketing strategy development, analytics
experience, conversion improvement skills, copywriting
experience—and the list goes on.
Work with an individual SEO consultant
Pros:
Assuming we're talking about a qualified, experienced consultant,
this person is solely focused on SEO, knowing what's happening in the
industry, ensuring that the techniques they're using will bring the
greatest benefit to their client.
The SEO consultant understands that they have to be more than just a
traffic generator. An increase in visibility must convert to qualified
visitors and finally leads/sales.
The smart SEO will belong to a large network of search marketers and
will have relationships with different networks allowing them to
easily negotiate links purchases and find the best places to help
promote their client.
There are no out-of-pocket expenses to the client to keep the
consultant trained or certified in their discipline.
A qualified SEO consultant will at minimum charge between $100 –
$200/hr. Monthly contracts range from $3000 – $7500/mo.
Cons:
Individual consultants are usually serving many firms, so the time
dedicated to your company may only be 10-33% of their total time.
Most SEO consultants are very good at their discipline of SEO but
lack additional skills required to generate the maximum ROI for a B2B
client in a specific vertical.
If traffic is the only thing you're concerned with, the SEO
consultant can certainly add value. But, it is usually outside of the
SEO consultants' expertise to increase overall website ROI.
Outsource to a search marketing agency
Pros:
A solid, experienced agency, especially one who specializes in B2B
search marketing, will usually have a much broader perspective and
greater experience because of the many different types of clients they
work with.
Agencies usually have more "tips and tricks" at their disposal
to generate results in ways not known to beginner and intermediate
optimizers.
Agencies work across multiple disciplines such as SEO, PPC, web
design, web conversion improvement, analytics, copywriting, email
marketing, etc. and therefore have the expertise and resources at
their disposal to help their clients achieve the greatest success.
Agency personnel usually will have a much broader set of industry
resources and contacts to reach out to in order to provide solutions
to sometimes complicated issues.
More often than not, you can hire a SEM Agency, a team of internet
marketing professionals, for the annual cost of one in-house
specialist.
Typical agency fees for SEO range between $5,000 – $20,000/mo or
more depending on the scope of the project.
It's much easier to cancel your contract with an agency than it is
to let go of an employee who may be involved in multiple areas of the
company.
Cons:
Oftentimes, agencies do not have required access to internal IT
resources for a quick turnaround in SEO implementation tasks.
Compliance and legal issues may hinder the agency's ability to
execute the most optimal search marketing plan on a timely basis.
Agencies must rely on an internal person for proper communication
and to be the liaison with IT.
Frankly, I believe the best option, if you can afford it, is to have
both an intermediate SEO manager in-house and hire an expert search
marketing agency for all the reasons stated above. The bottom line is
that your optimal choice will depend on your business, your goals and
your budget.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.
Barry Bowman <http://searchengineland.com/author/barry-bowman/>
is VP of SEO Operations of Boulder Colorado-based SmartSearch
Marketing <http://SmartSearchMarketing.com>
, has over 10 years of SEO experience working with many well-known
brand names.
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