Internet Search Marketing

Outsource vs. In-house Search Engine Marketing

A Search Engine Marketing (SEM) company specializes in marketing strategies designed to increase your website’s ranking within popular search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services are essential for companies looking to increase their website traffic, product sales and overall business profit. Due to the increased access and use of online resources, businesses are now finding that internet marketing SEO services are an essential part of the company’s overall marketing plan.

Many companies find it hard to decide wether to outsoure their SEM services or bring it in-house. Hiring a professional SEM firm can seem costly, but it is a critical business decision that will ensure the best return on your investment. Many companies lack critical information about SEM services and assume money is best spent on an in-house SEO expert.

This article will show you why hiring a professional SEM consulting firm is essential for your company’s Search Engine Marketing success.

SEM Expert Knowledge

As a regular part of their day to day business, SEM firms are required to frequently research the field due to the nature of Search Engine Optimization:

Each search engine varies in the way they accept submissions of websites
The criteria for ranking pages differ for each search engine
Search engines regularly change their algorithms for ranking pages even within categories
Software does not exist to automate this process and provide continuity across all search engines

SEM consulting firms are more likely to be aware of current trends and changing information within the SEM industry. Professional SEM firms also have the advantage of continuously working on a wide range of sites, to understand what trends are working and what tactics need to be implemented.

In-house SEO specialists may not have the necessary expert knowledge or awareness of changing industry trends due to time, cost and lack of other resources. Not having this information may result in mistakes and even small errors can be costly. Following misguided SEO techniques can cause websites to be penalized and removed from major search engines, resulting in a loss of visitors, sales and profit.

Range of SEO Services Required

An SEO expert will need to view the company from a macro perspective, and unify the business needs of sales, marketing and IT. Most companies find that they are unable to utilize the personnel already employed within these departments to function as proficient SEO specialists.

Marketing personnel may understand the audience and techniques to attract their customers; however marketing experts tend to lack the technical knowledge of web programming.
On the other hand, good programmers rarely understand the target audience, marketing strategies, or have the linguistic abilities and business skills that an SEO expert must possess.

An SEO specialist must work collaboratively with the sales and marketing personnel to identify and target appropriate strategies. An in-house SEO expert may be unable to provide the objectivity and honesty that an outside professional SEM firm offers. It is the consultant’s job to find problems and fix them, whereas an in-house SEO specialist may be unable to tell a co-worker their work on the website is less than useful.

Many companies find it becomes necessary to hire a separate SEO specialist, rather than relying on personnel already employed within the company. Search Engine Marketing requires knowledge in a wide variety of tasks, including:

Web design and development
Programming
Copywriting - including rewriting and developing new pages
Marketing
Link optimization
Website submissions
Tracking, evaluating and maintaining websites
Analyzing web traffic reports

An in-house SEO expert would be required to wear many hats, and this list of responsibilities can be overwhelming. Professional SEM firms typically have many SEO specialists, and rarely does one person perform all of the SEO services.

Resources for Effective SEO Services - Time

Search Engine Marketing services are incredibly time consuming, and on average it may take anywhere from 3-6 months to complete the majority of SEO work. Much work is required at the onset of the project – establish the target audience, specify key phrases and optimization techniques. Even after the initial strategy is implemented, the SEO expert will be required to monitor progress and expand the campaign to meet changing company needs, as well as satisfying SEM industry trends.

It is rare that an in-house expert will have the time to optimize hundreds of pages, write content, create meta tags, find and exchange both reciprocal on on-way in bound links, run traffic reports and complete other SEO tasks in a timely fashion. It is even more uncommon to find an in-house SEO specialist from a different department such as marketing or web development that would be able to complete SEO services within an appropriate time frame. A professional SEM firm with multiple, highly trained staff members can quickly accomplish what might take one SEO expert months to complete. Time is also essential so your company is not losing business to competitor websites that have already obtained expert Search Engine Optimization.

Resources for Effective SEO Services - Cost

Cost is typically the bottom line in most business decisions, and hiring a professional SEM firm can be a big investment. Hiring an in-house SEO specialist may seem to be a more cost-effective choice; however, this decision could be costly.

The average, salary for an SEO expert (in-house) is about $86K according to salary.com, and this cost does not including benefits like insurance and paid time off. It typically takes 3-6 months of training and experience to determine if a new employee will be effective for your company. A three month salary for an in-house SEO specialist would cost the company ~$22K; a large expense for an employee that you may decide is wrong for your company.

Now suppose your in-house SEO expert implements a poor SEM strategy. Not only has your company spent over $20,000 on the SEO specialist’s salary, but you will also need to spend more money to fix the damage that was done. Websites that violate the terms of service of major search engines can be penalized and completely removed from the search engine. This results in further expenses, as revenue is lost when potential customers cannot find your website.

The average SEO professional firm charges anywhere from $5K –$ 35K, for a staff of highly trained professionals. Even at the high end, hiring a professional SEO company is more cost efficient than hiring an in-house SEO professional.

Conclusion

SEM services are important to your business growth. A professional SEM firm has the knowledge, time, resources and expertise to conduct Search Engine Optimization services for your website that are guaranteed to have a positive effect on your bottom line.

If you would like a free high level evaluation of your website please call us at 1-847-680-8811 or fill out our online form.