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Consultant, In-House or Firm: Which is best for your SEO needs?

By: Mr SEO Businesses that are active on the world wide web, no matter how great or small, are beginning to realize the necessity of search engine optimization. As with almost all things Internet related, however, their are a number of considerations to be made which can affect the level of success they achieve. One of the biggest areas of concern is how to go about finding the best solution for optimizing a web presence.

For small businesses and individuals, there are a number of free resources on the web that, with minimal consulting and a lot of time invested, can help produce effective results. SEO isn't rocket science after all, but one has to be marginally adept at understanding the principles behind it in order to properly optimize even the smallest and simplest of sites. SEO free resources, depending on the source, are generally good primers for the small business owner, though consulting should come into play after the initial optimization effort is underway.
Free resources are free for a reason. The reason is that they seldom offer the finite details necessary to rank well for competitive terms, which makes consulting services a bargain for the small business owner as they put the last pieces of the optimization puzzle into place. This is, at least in theory, how many small business owners achieve decent rankings for their site. The reality, though, is that few have the time to perform the work necessary to rank well. From keyword research, content, Meta tags and back link development to reporting and adjustment of multiple parameters, SEO is a time consuming endeavor. For this reason, most small business owners hire firms to perform their optimization as putting someone on the payroll full time isn't an expenditure that falls within their budget.

For mid-sized companies all the way up to large corporations, there are two options: hire someone in-house or contract with an SEO firm. Companies tend to lean toward hiring in-house SEO's for two main reasons. The first is the reduced cost of services and the second is that they gain the false sense of having better control over their optimization efforts. The first reason is valid, as many SEO firms are really SEM firms in disguise, and want to treat optimization as though it should be a perpetual, ongoing investment like PPC. They want to contract businesses for extended lengths of time with outlandish penalties for opting out early. They also tend to charge exorbitant monthly or bi-weekly fees that might lead some clients to guess if they are paying an expensive Manhattan or downtown L.A. mortgage. Not all SEO firms operate this way, however, and finding one to suit your needs and budget can be accomplished with a little searching.

As for companies having the false sense of better control over their optimization efforts, this is simply a holdout from the traditional business model that doesn’t stand up to the information age we live in. Hiring an SEO in-house because you feel that having him or her at arms length is an advantage is akin to setting up a kitchen in your office so that you can have more access to food preparation than ordering takeout can provide. The problems is that , like large scale food preparation, SEO requires a team effort. A souse chef is not a baker any more than an SEO guru is a content writer, developer, programmer, designer or submission specialist.

This is why competent firms will always be able to provide far better service than an in-house individual. Staying on top of changes to search engine algorithms, setting and adjusting Meta tags, designing search engine friendly navigation, writing well optimized content and building back links through multiple means is simply not possible for one individual working 9 to 5, or 24 hours a day for that matter.