If you want your company to stay on par with success and growth, you must follow the path of SEO. However, you must understand that search engine optimization is a process. Therefore, it often requires professional assistance. And at this point, most business owners come across a fundamental question. How to move forward? So, today we’re finding out what is a better option in the battle of hiring an SEO consultant vs. learning SEO.
In this article, we’ll give answers to the following questions:
- Should you hire an SEO consultant?
- Can you learn to do SEO?
- Do you have to pay for SEO?
One thing you need to remember is that you’re an expert on running your business. But, you probably don’t know much about content-led link building. And that’s what the SEO experts are for. However, before you start jumping to conclusions, let us help you learn how to evaluate the situation.
Hiring an SEO consultant
Firstly, we will deal with the frequently asked questions when it comes to the SEO consultants and agencies in general. So, what kind of services they provide, and even in this part of the article, you’ll know if hiring a consulting is the right thing to do for you.
In essence, SEO companies use the best practices of search engine optimization to improve organic rankings and increase the number of relevant visitors on the site. SEO consultant, on the other hand, is someone who analyzes and reviews all the things regarding the SEO and finds the best path for a company to follow. Hiring a reputable agency will, of course, mean getting a consultant in bulk. So, in the industry, these two terms usually refer to the same thing.
What exactly does an SEO company do?
The job of an agency is to improve your site’s content and its availability. The purpose of this is to align your service offerings with existing user demand. And when you put it like that, it does sound simple. However, there’s a lot to learn before you can do this.
For starters, there are always coding improvements to be done that will improve the technical aspect of SEO on your website. And additionally, a reputable company like Link Department will build links to your site from relevant third-party websites.
To help you understand how everything is done, we’ll explain it in an example. Imagine having a car repair shop. So, the company will do the competitor keyword research. This is to find out how people are searching for car repair shops in your area.
The next thing would be customizing the services on your website. After they do this, the searchers’ intent behind the relevant keywords will be addressed directly. They will also add content to make your website the most helpful among the competitors in the area.
Most SEO firms will also create a content marketing strategy that answers all the questions related to your services. So, for a car repair shop, these might involve diagnostic your car, maintenance tips, or tips on preparing your car for the journey.
How to tell if everything is working properly
Maybe the reason why you’re wondering about which is better when it comes to hiring an SEO consultant vs. learning SEO is that you’re already working with an agency, but you’re not sure if it’s doing you any good. And your doubts are easily understandable.
The work of an SEO company may not be obvious, but the right strategy will improve your bottom line. However, since you’re not paying anyone to execute a certain task, determining if everything functions can be difficult.
To best measure the success of an SEO agency, compare organically sourced customers each quarter. Now, since we’re talking about organic customer acquisition, it’s reasonable for the first six months to remain stagnant. But you should see an improvement within nine months. Of course, always use all the tips you can to get better results with a link building agency. This can be the difference between wasting your hard-earned money and staying on top of everything.
Can you learn to do it yourself?
Like anything else in life, learning how to do SEO is possible. On the other hand, according to the researchers, you’ll only be able to reach 40% effectiveness. Now you’re wondering where did they get this 40% from. And we’ll explain.
The SEO generally splits into three groups: on-page optimization, content marketing, and link building. All of these are very time-consuming. Therefore, realistically you’ll only be able to deal with the on-page SEO by yourself. You won’t have any time left for the other two segments.
No small to mid-sized business owner can afford to learn how to build links to his website. So, the best thing you can do is to follow tips for entrepreneurs to best utilize SEO for startups and hire a company. This is the only way you can produce ROI.
This is not necessarily bad news. If you want, you can be in charge of your own on-page SEO. This will get you a 40% improvement, and the rest you can outsource. Just make sure to get this seriously, and you won’t have any problems.
So, which is a better solution?
At the end of the day, hiring an SEO consultant vs. learning SEO comes to just one factor. And that is the level of competition in your industry. If you do it yourself and see little to no progress after a year, all the chances are that the industry is too competitive for your work. This is the point at which you’ll want to turn to an SEO company that you’ve thoroughly vetted.