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Outsourcing SEO Completely - Is it worth it?

by Stormheart
6 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Let's face it - offsite SEO (link building, linking strategies) is a boatload of work: Article marketing, blog posting, forum posting, video creation and posting, rss feeds, social bookmarks, and so on. If you are starting to achieve success in your online business, you probably have multiple websites, all of which need much or all of the above (in addition to hopefully getting natural linking going via great content).

At what point does it make sense just to hire an SEO firm in order to outsource your offsite seo entirely? Has anyone here had success in doing so? Obviously there is the cost factor, but if your online business is to the point where it is spinning off some decent change, and you are ranking for a lot of keywords on the 2nd page or below the fold on page 1, would it make sense just to hire an SEO company to drive 30 - 40 moderate traffic keywords (30k to 300k mo) to the top 5?
#completely #outsourcing #seo #worth
  • Profile picture of the author Jim Gillum
    No...because...there are other methods to drive traffic that work well....they too take work but can result in a more targeted traffic stream....
    And as you say SEO firms "cost"...
    If you put the effort into learning SEO you can use that knowledge to SEO everything you produce......
    And consider this......#1 rank does not guarantee any profit...man other factors....
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonmorgan
    Well, the average work day is 8 hours. What are you doing for those 8 hours a day? Do you have a day job or are you looking to live a permanent vacation?

    Most of the tasks you listed would be getting your site running and established tasks. Once most of that work is completed your sites shouldn't require as much attention and only routine maintenance.

    If you're trying to do all of those tasks for multiple sites at the same time you've probably over-extended yourself.

    Now, there is nothing necessarily wrong with outsourcing and a lot of people swear by it. A lot of people also swear at the the poor work done by their outsourcers.

    I don't outsource, but if I did I would only use them for certain tasks and not rely on them 100% for all of my SEO work.

    Even somebody with a day job should be able to set aside enough time to work on the important tasks like site maintenance and content. These are your sites and your money so you should have the motivation to want to be hands-on with them.

    Outsource the monkey work like backlink spamming... however, I do all of my own monkey work

    If you're making great money, don't be a cheap ass and help out the economy by hiring some poor local schmuck for $10 an hour to take care of the monkey work.

    I do think that hiring a knowledgeable SEO firm to help you get your gameplan together and elevate your business to the next level can be a beneficial move. But don't rely on them long term because then you'll become dependent on them. Let them teach you how to fish... as the old saying would go.
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    • Profile picture of the author Stormheart
      Originally Posted by jasonmorgan View Post

      Well, the average work day is 8 hours. What are you doing for those 8 hours a day? Do you have a day job or are you looking to live a permanent vacation?

      If you're trying to do all of those tasks for multiple sites at the same time you've probably over-extended yourself.
      Thanks for the great feedback, Jason. Yes, I still have a day job. And yes, I am overextended. The 10 sites and content for one of my niches is complete, and the offsite stuff ranges from a few well-distributed articles for the newer sites to a full seo package of what I detailed above for the most established site. I basically want to take the strategy that has worked on my most established sites and apply it to all of them. Just wondering if it would be better or faster to continue that myself, to outsource the whole thing, or just to outsource the monkey work while keeping control of the strategy. The strategy is pretty basic (The SEO Method), my biggest concern with using an SEO firm is finding one that follows the same sort of strategy and that will deliver good ROI.

      Originally Posted by jasonmorgan View Post


      Even somebody with a day job should be able to set aside enough time to work on the important tasks like site maintenance and content. These are your sites and your money so you should have the motivation to want to be hands-on with them.
      I'm motivated all right lol I put in 30 to 40 hours a week on top of my day job and have since I launched my first site 15 months ago. It will take me another year to be able to quit my day job, at current growth rates and in light of the amount of work that needs done for my offsite seo (I have a project management spreadsheet for all my sites and have mapped out all the offsite work that needs done to the hour).

      I'd like to shave 6 months off of that. So my real question is how to best reinvest profits into growing the business faster (ppc is of some value in my niche, but ROI drops off pretty quickly past a certain point, and doesn't convert nearly as well as organic for me anyways). Or if I should be more patient and continue with what I already know is working and keep full control.

      I have read a lot here and in other educational materials on growing traffic, but haven't seen to much written by people who just outsourced their SEO completely, so I was curious

      Thanks again for your feedback.
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  • Profile picture of the author actionplanbiz
    i wouldnt go to a seo firm, its prolly cheaper to start your own little team
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  • Profile picture of the author TimScott
    When I'm outsourcing I basically look at it like this, everything that is a grind, or that I'm not great at, I'll hire someone else that is...That way, i can focus on the stuff I am good at, like market research, and copywriting.

    I never outsource everything to one company or firm, because in my opinion, different companies/freelancers are better in certain areas than others. For ex, I use different companies for contextual, blog commenting, book marking type of back linking, because I found each one is better at just one service. So I'd take some time, and find one thing that you really don't like doing that someone else could do for you. Make a list of like 10 companies, and test them out. Find the one that works, and utilize them for that task.

    Thats how I did it, and I went from 8 hour grinds down to a very productive 2 hour a days, to maintain and expand my business
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonmorgan
    I think Tim Scott has the best solution. Break down all of the tasks that need to be done and then prioritize what you can / should do yourself and what tasks can be outsourced.

    Since you do have a day job, outsourcing something like profile backlinks (as an example) makes sense. It's very time consuming, not complicated and something that doesn't require a lot of brains to do.

    You do need to be careful if you do hire somebody. There are a lot of guys out there who bought a couple of backlink packets and WSO's and now think they are SEO experts.

    how to best reinvest profits into growing the business faster
    My initial budget about two years ago was using only money that I was making from some freelance graphics work I did about 8 years ago. It's disposable income that is deposited into a paypal account every month (still getting paid ). This kept my traditional paycheck in the clear and I didn't have to justify wasting any real money on my IM hobby.

    So I would say, only invest into IM what you have already made with IM. If you make $100 this month, then $100 is your IM spending limit. Keep your traditional paycheck separate... well, this depends on how much you make but I'll assume that you are like I was and don't have a lot of disposable income to gamble away.

    Today, my budget hasn't changed much. I'm still using that paypal account to pay for my domains, hosting and occasional tools and all of my IM money pays the bills, replacing my former day job.
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