Your own website is one of the main marketing tools in most business sectors. For it to work effectively and bring profit to the owner, the resource must attract a significant number of visitors who make up the target audience. The primary method of attracting such visitors is SEO or search engine optimization. You can perform SEO work yourself, hire freelancers, or contact an agency. Let's figure out which option is preferable in each case.
Main Aspects of SEO
SEO involves increasing the ranking of website pages in search engine results for specific target queries that characterize the business of the resource owner. The function of an SEO specialist is to align the site and its individual pages with the criteria of search engine algorithms like Google and Bing. This is a comprehensive, fairly large-scale job that covers the following aspects:
- Content Optimization: Each page features texts written according to technical specifications based on the semantic core. This allows you to optimize content for search queries by which the site is promoted. At the same time, the texts should be interesting and useful to the reader. Optimized photos, graphics, and videos are also placed on the pages.
- Technical SEO: Involves optimizing the site's code, improving its structure, and eliminating errors. Necessary settings are made, high page loading speed is ensured, and malicious software is detected and removed. These works improve the site's performance, which is highly valued by both users and search engines.
- Backlinks: One of the factors in ranking web pages by search engines is the number of external links leading to them. An important aspect of SEO is obtaining such links. At the same time, working with links should be carried out considering a set of requirements to avoid negative results like search engine bans.
- Local SEO: Modern search engine algorithms use local search, which takes into account the user's location. This should definitely be paid attention to, especially for companies that operate in a specific region and have offline sales points. Local SEO involves promotion through geo-dependent queries, the use of geoservices, local directories, etc.
Successful promotion allows you to get a large volume of targeted traffic: users who are looking for your products or services in search engines and are initially interested in them visit the site. This gives a high conversion rate and allows you to increase profits. A site with good traffic works to improve your company's image and becomes an important communication channel with clients. Thanks to this, it turns into an effective tool that enhances business stability.
DIY SEO
Many website owners, especially at the initial stage of resource development, decide to promote independently. There is enough information on SEO available online. Based on it, you can build a promotion strategy and start implementing it.
Advantages of Self-Promotion
Self-approach to website SEO has several advantages:
- Cost Savings: Since all work is done by yourself, you don't have to pay external contractors. The cost of SEO services is not the highest compared to other marketing services, but it can be quite significant for a new business. Saved funds can be directed to purchasing goods, advertising, and other expenses. If the resource promotion bears fruit, the profit will be greater, considering the reduced expenses.
- Control Over the Process: Being the sole executor of SEO work, you fully control the entire process. This eliminates risks that arise when collaborating with unscrupulous contractors. The site owner is most interested in its success, so they will invest not only the necessary funds but also all efforts into promotion
Disadvantages
Alongside the advantages, DIY SEO has several significant disadvantages:
- Time Consumption: SEO is meticulous work. It requires a lot of time and effort, constant attention—not only at the beginning but also during site operation. Regular work is needed to maintain and improve its positions. Therefore, focusing on SEO may come at the expense of solving the main business tasks, and without such focus, it will not be possible to achieve success in promoting the resource.
- Need for Learning: Without sufficient knowledge, you won't be able to promote the site. Therefore, you need to allocate expenses and time for training in advance. Moreover, it's important to find quality courses and materials because the SEO world is constantly changing. Knowledge that was relevant a year ago is likely useless today.
- Risk of Errors: If you are not a qualified SEO specialist, you will almost inevitably make mistakes and omissions when promoting the site. This can lead to serious consequences. Errors in SEO, at best, reduce the effectiveness of resource promotion. It doesn't reach the target positions within the expected time frame, meaning you don't get traffic and don't increase sales. The incurred costs turn out to be in vain. In the worst case, the site may get banned by the search engine and simply won't appear in the results. Removing such a restriction will be very difficult, and you will still need the help of a specialist.
What to Consider
If you plan to promote your site independently, special attention should be paid to training. Take online courses, study thematic SEO articles. Don't forget to learn in the process—try to find answers to arising questions, experiment, and implement new approaches.
Hiring a Specialist or Agency
The standard approach for most business owners is to involve professionals for website SEO. This can be a private specialist (freelancer) or an SEO agency. In this case, you fully delegate the tasks of promoting your resource to an external executor. The freelancer or agency performs the necessary work on the site and regularly provides detailed reports.
Advantages of Working with Professionals
Involving external executors provides several advantages:
- They Already Have Experience and Knowledge: With this approach, you know that professionals are promoting your site. They have the necessary knowledge and sufficient skills, and they understand well what needs to be done to bring the resource to the top of the results for the required queries. This ensures high promotion efficiency.
- They Have Access to Specialized Tools and Data: There are a number of special services and programs that help solve various routine SEO tasks, such as compiling a semantic core, SEO audit, competitor analysis, selection of search queries, and LSI phrases, etc. Many of them are paid, and learning them takes a lot of time. Therefore, if you are not a specialized specialist, mastering this toolkit may be impractical. But professionals can achieve excellent results with their help.
- They Will Save You Time: The complex and voluminous work of SEO is fully transferred to an external executor. You don't need to delve into its complex aspects, spend your own time and effort. This allows you to fully focus on solving your business's main tasks without being distracted by non-core work.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantages of this approach include:
- Service Cost: This is the most obvious minus. Involving external executors always requires additional expenses. If you have a limited budget, this can create a noticeable burden, which may be especially relevant for small new businesses. At the same time, professional SEO provides a high financial result, which allows you to recoup the incurred costs multiple times.
- Risk of Choosing Unreliable Contractors: Delegating tasks to external specialists is always associated with the risk of encountering an unscrupulous executor. They may miss deadlines, perform work poorly, not comply with other agreed conditions, and not respond to messages and calls. This leads to reduced SEO effectiveness, causes the client to worry, waste time and money without achieving the expected result.
- Possibility of Disagreements: If an external executor works on SEO, be prepared that their vision of many aspects may not coincide with your ideas. It's important to fully trust the hired contractor. To do this, study their portfolio, communicate with the manager who will lead your project, and find out how interaction on the project will occur.
What to Consider
If you hire an external contractor for site promotion, choose carefully and trust only proven freelancers and companies.
Increased risks arise when working with freelancers. Therefore, try to involve specialists willing to work under a contract. Preference should be given to verified optimizers with a good reputation and successful cases. It's best to select a freelancer based on recommendations.
When choosing an SEO agency, check the company's reputation, read real client reviews about cooperation, study examples of implemented projects and the results achieved. Familiarize yourself with the agency's approach to work, make sure it completely suits you. Study the tariff plans, pricing principles, special offers, and guarantees.
Hybrid Approach
Along with the two main principles of organizing website SEO, there is also a hybrid approach. It assumes that the owner performs the main or significant part of SEO work independently, while specific complex tasks are delegated to professionals. For example, a contractor may be involved in compiling the semantic core, performing analytical tasks, conducting an SEO audit.
The hybrid approach allows combining the advantages and largely leveling the disadvantages of DIY SEO and optimization with the help of specialists. This method is suitable for you if you have the necessary knowledge and skills, have sufficient time to solve the main tasks, but at the same time need professional support for more complex aspects.
Conclusion
Each approach has its pros and cons that need to be considered when choosing a promotion strategy.
Self-performing SEO work is suitable for small business owners who have the necessary skills and time or are willing to master this direction. Do not engage in promotion independently if your business belongs to a highly competitive niche. In this case, it will be very difficult to achieve results on your own, and you will spend a lot of time and effort.
Companies that can allocate a relatively small budget for SEO can turn to freelancers. Or get consultation on search promotion, strategy, and trend monitoring from an agency, and then implement the recommendations independently
For promoting a company website operating in medium or large businesses or in a highly competitive field, for promoting online stores, internet services, portals, or other large sites, it's better to contact a reliable SEO agency.
If you need professional SEO promotion of your site or help from qualified SEO specialists on specific issues, contact us in any convenient way. We will be happy to help, consult, or audit the current state of the site LA-Marketing.us
