Search engine optimization or more commonly referred to as SEO has undoubtedly become an invaluable marketing tool. The main reason for SEO being such an irreplaceable element within the scope of marketing is because SEO is capable of driving organic traffic towards websites which simply boils down to having more exposure to potential clients. SEO is even more important to smaller businesses or businesses that run ecommerce sites; however, there is the issue of the cost of SEOs which generally leads to business owners trying to do SEO by themselves.
In most cases these DIY warriors scour through the internet for information on how to pull off SEO effectively, well there is good and bad news about SEO DIY. The good news is that, yes some do manage to pull it off successfully; the bad news is that only 3.2 % are successful whilst the remaining 96.8 % ends up scraping their initiatives, in worse case scenarios, some scrap their business along with their SEOs. Now, if you are confident that you belong to the 3.2 % success pile, by all means go for it, it will save your money, but not your time, and this is where another element lies that you need to weigh, spend time on SEO or spend time on your business?
Generally, among the reasons that business owners undertake SEO functions on their own is directly attributed to lower marketing budgets. This scenario is usually due to the misperception that has been built around the SEO experts, a genuine search engine optimization company is usually able to develop SEO strategies that are applicable to businesses of any size.
The difference would be the speed at which the SEO elements ‘take effect’ larger budgets get you to page one on search engines quickly, lower budgets will take longer, but eventually the business will get there and following that, maintaining your position costs less, unless you have 10 new rivals that enter the market and go crazy about their SEO, which is a very unlikely scenario.
Another solution is to divide the SEO work between you and the SEO professional hired which would lower the cost and simultaneously allow business owners to still focus on their business.
There are a variety of SEO concepts that business owners could implement on their own. The basics could be handled by the business owner whilst the more complex elements of SEO could be handed over to the SEO expert. For instance, the business owner could set a baseline for organic searches, identify relevant keywords associated with their business, and publish content that has been optimized by the professional SEO company.
Leave the analysis of backlinks, technical issues and content development to the SEO company. Discuss with the SEO counterpart on how you could help and reduce cost for the business. The point of an SEO objective is to get the exposure your business needs and gambling on it on your own with insufficient expertise, would not just be a waste of time and money, but it could do harm to your business, the best way to go about it is to consult an SEO expert and take it from there.
