Whether you’re a local business serving the Fox Cities or a large company with an international audience, SEO is incredibly important to stay competitive. In this article, we’ll tell you why search engine optimization (SEO) is important, as well as go into the details about hiring an agency versus hiring someone in-house to take care of your SEO efforts.
Why Do I Need SEO in the First Place?
Web searches are a constant in everyone’s daily lives. It’s estimated that Google alone processes about 70,000 search queries per second. SEO is one of the most important ways to get in front of the right people that are searching for goods or services that you can provide to them. With an effective SEO program in place, you’ll start climbing the ranks in Google and other major search engines, getting ahead of your competition and bringing in new (and returning) business.
How Long Do I Need to Keep Doing SEO?
SEO is never done. It’s not something that you can just set and forget.
The first thing to remember is that search engines like Google are constantly changing their algorithms to determine what makes a website relevant to searchers. If you don’t have someone on top of the latest trends and algorithm updates, your business will suffer and your competitors will outrank you.
Secondly, both users and search engines value websites that are updated frequently. If it looks like your website hasn’t been changed in a long time, not only will it start to lose its ranking, but web visitors will start to question if you’re even still active.
In-House SEO Specialist vs. Marketing Agency
If you’re thinking about bringing your SEO in-house, there are a few things you should consider:
- The cost of hiring on a full-time employee (salary, benefits, etc.)
- Recruiting (and retaining) talent is an issue for many companies – it usually takes a long time to not only find the right person for the job, it can take awhile to onboard them. Then you also have to worry about starting the process all over if the employee finds another opportunity.
- You might not have access to industry knowledge and specialized tools that a full team at an agency has.
Having an in-house SEO specialist does allow one person to fully focus on your business alone. However, it’s common for employees that are working in the same company to get “tunnel vision”. Having that outside perspective that an agency provides is incredibly valuable.
When you go with a digital marketing agency, you get immediate access to a full team of talented individuals that will be looking at your business with unique perspectives that are finding ways to make you succeed. If you’re starting your marketing strategy with SEO and want to grow into other areas like paid advertising or social media advertising, your agency will already be prepared to jump in and get started. Most agencies also already have access to the latest SEO tools to ensure your marketing program is successful.
Get in Touch with Our Digital Marketing Team
The team at E/Power Marketing is made up of experienced professionals in the digital marketing industry from SEO to paid ads, social media, content marketing, and more!