The marketing budgets are in, and your boss says that search engine optimization (SEO) will be a priority this year. Great! But then the question becomes, who will complete the SEO work needed to grow organic revenue?
Most businesses have two options when selecting who will work on their SEO strategy: building an in-house SEO team or hiring an SEO agency. While there often isn’t a clear answer to which is better, it’s important to factor in the benefits and drawbacks of working with both types of teams. Oftentimes it will come down to a few key factors within your business, but arming yourself with the knowledge about how each team works can make the decision much easier.
Agency Benefits
Working with an agency is a great option for many companies, regardless of their size or budget. There are many different types of agencies, so it’s important to understand what you need from your agency.
There are agencies that solely work on SEO, digital marketing agencies that have SEO departments, and even niche SEO agencies that specialize in specific SEO elements like Digital PR or link building. But no matter what type of agency you need, working with a quality agency has several benefits.
Expertise
Agencies are great resources to have in your corner because they are stockpiled with experts. SEO agencies that live and breathe SEO every day have professionals who are deeply ingrained in the SEO industry. Many SEO professionals start in agencies where they are in an environment where they can level up their SEO knowledge base really quickly.
And with great talent, agencies should have leadership that knows exactly what to look for in an SEO professional. When you’re hiring an SEO agency, you are hiring a team who will be working on your website. Getting talent when you may not exactly know what to look for in an SEO professional is a huge bonus because if you’re working with a quality agency, they will have vetted those professionals for you.
Experience
Similarly to the expertise you are getting, oftentimes these experts have years of SEO experience. These are professionals who have been through the ups and downs of every Google update and can walk you through any issues that could be plaguing your website.
With years of experience, they can refer to a wide variety of websites, projects, and situations where they have seen success. They can build on the knowledge they’ve gained to help grow your organic presence, especially if you’re in a niche industry.
Affordability
SEO agencies are typically more affordable than hiring an SEO team, and that’s not just because of how much money it costs to hire someone for a new role. There are also the benefits that need to be provided to employees and the office space to house them. In addition, SEO professionals need tools that tend to have yearly costs — you won’t need to account for that when paying for agency support.
Resources
On top of the aforementioned tools, you will be accessing a lot of different resources that you may not be aware of in an SEO program. Your agency could have a lot of connections that can help solve problems, both internally and externally within the industry. If you’re looking into a digital agency where SEO is one arm of the agency, having access to different departments can be a valuable resource because they might be able to address questions that fall outside of the scope of SEO. They will also be able to work with other departments to develop joint strategies to benefit both programs.
Agency Disadvantages
There are a couple of disadvantages to going with an SEO agency that need to be mentioned. However, it’s important to do your research on any agency that you may be considering to work with. Some of these disadvantages can be highlighted during the research process, and can be avoided altogether.
Selection Process
Choosing an agency can be an arduous process, particularly if you are looking for an SEO-specific agency. The main reason for this is that there are some weak SEO agencies out there who don’t produce high-quality strategies and deliverables. Doing your homework in this step is crucial, because a bad SEO agency can ruin your organic search performance with spammy SEO practices or by taking dangerous shortcuts to see big SEO gains short term that get penalized in the long run.
Asking the right questions is crucial in this stage. Interview the agency and ask them about how they create their SEO strategies. If they start talking about buying links, creating AI content en masse, or even guaranteeing results, run the other direction. These agencies can do more harm than good by implementing black-hat SEO tactics that could come back to haunt you during one of Google’s frequent algorithm updates.
Communication
Most of the time, this isn’t necessarily a problem if you are working with a responsive agency. But there are agencies that do not communicate regularly with their clients, which is a major red flag. Having regular check-ins and addressing any concerns is vital for any good working relationship.
The other thing to keep in mind is that you want an SEO team that is communicating transparently and isn’t hiding anything. Agencies that hide poor performance or aren’t communicating issues with the teams they are working with are a big problem because small issues can lead to worse issues later.
Lastly, communication with agencies is typically more difficult because you are working with an external team. Internal teams are much easier to navigate because most of the time you can either quickly chat a question or stick your head over a cubicle and get a response.
In-House Benefits
On the other side of the coin, you can bring your SEO team in-house. Having an internal team running your SEO presents several benefits that you don’t get from the agency side, most of which center around the amount of granularity you want to have in running your program.
Focus
When you hire internally, you are getting an employee (or team) that is solely devoted to your websites. With agencies, SEO managers and teams often work on multiple accounts, which can spread teams thin if they don’t have good processes in place. If your team is only working on one website, the depth you can go into is often much greater. They’ll know the website inside and out because they’ll work on it day in and day out.
Control
Ultimately, you have more control over everything SEO-related if you hire internally because you are the one dictating the strategy and prioritizing what needs to get done first. Every SEO program should be customized based on business goals and current performance, but weaker SEO agencies have playbooks that they won’t deviate from, regardless of your goals. Internal teams can typically pivot more quickly if there are performance issues that need to be addressed right away or if goals change.
The other benefit of having an in-house team is that your team will ultimately have access to the website and control how content or technical changes are being implemented. Agencies sometimes request to have access to the backend so they can make changes without having to rely on the extra step of going back and forth. However, this can be dangerous. The agency could break something or implement things that aren’t to your brand’s quality standards and tone and voice guidelines. In rare cases, agencies with full access can lock you out of your own website if the relationship sours. In-house teams avoid this completely.
Industry Expertise
Agencies may have a resource who has worked in your specific industry in the past, but oftentimes this isn’t the case. Having a plethora of industry experts a chat or email away makes tasks like expert content creation easier.
But it also makes building out your SEO strategy easier, because the competitive research may have been done for you already. Having the team in-house means you don’t have to teach your agency partners the intricacies of how your industry works. You can roll the SEO knowledge and industry knowledge into one person or team.
Company Expertise
If you work for a large company, chances are that there are people who work for the company who have been there for decades and have a wealth of knowledge about the industry and what the company has done in the past. These types of people simply don’t exist at agencies, and agencies will most likely never have face time with these people. This can also come into play if your company has particular technical quirks or a really old development set-up that an agency might not know how to navigate. Having experts within a particular system that your team can work with will be vital to the success of any SEO program.
In-House Disadvantages
Similar to how there are disadvantages at agencies, in-house SEO teams also have their weak points.
Hiring
Hiring qualified SEO talent is extremely difficult. And if you don’t have a clear idea of what you are looking for in an SEO candidate, it’s going to be even more difficult. Not only do you need to have someone who has the SEO knowledge, but finding that person with the soft skills to fit seamlessly into your business can be a challenge.
And this is just if you’re hiring one person. If you have a larger company and a larger budget to hire multiple people, you’ll ideally want to hire someone who can manage the SEO program but also have content writers who understand how to write for SEO. To take it a step further, having someone to handle the technical SEO can help you even more. Hiring all of these people could cost you a lot of time and resources.
Expensive
Which leads to the expenses of having the team in-house. Not only do you have to pay for the salaries and benefits of the employees, but you also have to equip them with the tools necessary to succeed. You also have to factor in training your employees and continuing to develop them. Oftentimes, hiring an agency is much cheaper in the long run.
Agency or In-house Team?
Ultimately, there is no perfect answer as to whether you should hire an agency or keep your SEO in-house. In the best-case scenario, you can afford both an in-house SEO expert and an agency to get the best of both worlds. This scenario usually produces the best results because you get the benefit of the agency’s breadth of expertise and experience but you also have a knowledgeable in-house expert to strategize with the agency and implement.
However, many times the decision is made for you if you’re given a limited budget. But no matter what decision is made, make sure your decision focuses on the long-term success of your program.
SEO is a long game, and sacrificing the long-term success of your website with short-sighted decisions is going to be an issue whether you hire in-house or an agency. Weigh the pros and cons of each, and whichever path you choose, make sure to do your research on the people you are working with to make sure they have the expertise and experience to manage your SEO program.
