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do you outsource keyword research?

by supafly84
13 replies
  • SEO
    • |
or is it a stupid idea?
#keyword #outsource #research
  • Profile picture of the author TristanPerry
    I think that keyword research is fairly easy to do yourself, and it's a crucial step - I would prefer to do it myself than have someone else do it.

    Also you can do keyword research using free tools and software, no need to buy really expensive software.

    I find that outsourcing is good where the software required is expensive (and it doesn't really make sense to buy the software all for yourself) and/or the task is really repetitive. But this isn't the case with keyword research, IMO.
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    • Profile picture of the author supafly84
      Originally Posted by TristanPerry View Post

      I think that keyword research is fairly easy to do yourself, and it's a crucial step - I would prefer to do it myself than have someone else do it.

      Also you can do keyword research using free tools and software, no need to buy really expensive software.

      I find that outsourcing is good where the software required is expensive (and it doesn't really make sense to buy the software all for yourself) and/or the task is really repetitive. But this isn't the case with keyword research, IMO.
      you think keyword research if easy? you must be good

      like what software are you talking about?
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      • Profile picture of the author Brett Hitchcock
        Originally Posted by supafly84 View Post

        you think keyword research if easy? you must be good

        like what software are you talking about?
        I use Market Samurai and Longtail Pro.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Addams
    That's one of the few things I don't outsource. Plenty of software available to make the job easier.

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    • Profile picture of the author Brett Hitchcock
      I don't outsource either. Software makes it a lot easier.
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  • Profile picture of the author FreedomBlogger
    I personally have never outsourced my keyword research or even think about it.

    I would agree that it is a simple and easy process!

    I personally use tools like the google keyword planner and market samurai ...I also use Google.com to find easy keywords to rank for. I got my own tricks up my sleeve using the search engine Google.com

    My 2cents.

    I wish you the best of the best!

    Cheers!
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by supafly84 View Post

      do you outsource keyword research? or is it a stupid idea?
      That depends on your own skills (and available time).

      In the days when I used keyword-research, I often outsourced it to a professional, who had better and more up-to-date knowledge of the subject than I had, then, as well as access to software I didn't have.

      Especially in these days of such a global market, with so many highly-skilled service-providers in South-East Asia (and some other parts of the world) willing and able to do professional work of this kind for a few dollars, it would make little sense for quite a lot of people to spend endless hours "doing their own".

      Whether it's worth doing at all, is a different matter, of course.

      I often suggest to people that they shouldn't put too much time and effort into trying to attract SEO traffic, for two main reasons ...

      1. It's very precarious and makes your business Google-dependent, and any business that's Google-dependent is no more than one algorithm-change away from a potential accident (or even a potential disaster), as so many Warriors have been finding out over the last year or two, some of them to their very great cost;

      2. For me, search engine traffic, in every single one of my niches, has been uniformly the worst-converting traffic out of everything I've ever tried - search engine visitors to all my websites typically stay the least time, view the fewest pages, opt in the least often and actually buy anything by far the least often.

      I admit I do get tons of search engine traffic to all my main sites (because high rankings for multiple keywords happen to be a minor side-benefit of the main targeted traffic-generation method I use) but I'd hate to have to make a living just from that traffic. If you have a good look round the forum, you'll also see plenty of other Warriors making exactly this point.

      .
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  • Profile picture of the author Lightlysalted
    It's down to personal choice but I like to do this myself. That way I can guarantee that I've investigated all possible keyword combinations.
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  • Profile picture of the author JordanManchev
    The only good reason for outsourcing your keyword research is as a comparison of your own kwr. There are always possibilities to get a good idea from an outsider.
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  • Profile picture of the author Work1099
    Originally Posted by supafly84 View Post

    or is it a stupid idea?
    This depends on your goals for yourself. If you want to build an automated business ... appreciate that would mean everything gets outsourced at some point. Everything.

    If it's appropriate for you to outsource your keyword research or not at this moment depends on your situation. You'll have to make that call.

    Something to keep in mind, though, is that keyword research is a foundational element of an SEM campaign. If it's done right, everything else is easier as a result. If it's not done up to standard, everything else will be less likely to succeed as a result.

    For this reason, it's probably not one of the first things you'd want to outsource (anyone who knows how to do it at a world-class level is going to be expensive ... and you definitely want to prioritize having it done well above many other aspects in your business. So, it's not worth outsourcing until your profits are sufficient to pay such a person).
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  • Profile picture of the author Anthony Martello
    The difficulty and amount of time it takes also depends on how many pages you plan to optimize on your site and how many sites you are building.

    If you are doing keyword research for one 5 page site then many of the existing tools out there are fine. But once you go above that number, then it becomes increasingly time consuming grouping all your keywords and mapping them to the target pages.

    How many sites do you optimize each month and how many pages per site?

    You may be more productive outsourcing the work if those number are more than a few. But I agree that a good tool can go a long way.
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  • Profile picture of the author IMLab
    Originally Posted by supafly84 View Post

    or is it a stupid idea?
    It is always good to do multiple keywords researches at the same time. Do your own first then hire other specialists to scale up those keywords for you if you have the right budget for that. For most beginners, this is a good technique to make sure you are targeting the right set of keywords.

    In our SEO agency, we assign the job of keyword research to multiple SEO specialists to get as many good keywords as we can before filtering them down. That allows us to have a golden list of suitable and profitable keywords for our clients.
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