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So, you’ve been charged with the task of generating better search results and you’re investigating your options now. Lets pretend for now, that the only thing you had to consider is natural search engine optimization, for purposes of keeping this post as short as possible.

You have basically 4 options, each has it’s own pros and cons.

• Do the research and work internally.
• Hire a consultant.
• Hire a one man SEO shop.
• Hire a professional SEO firm.

SEO In House:

Chances are that if you have the skills in house to handle SEO, you’ve already made this decision and brought on the necessary talent. I say this because you’re not likely to randomly find true SEO knowledge in an existing web development or traditional marketing department. It really is it’s own skill set.

SEO Consultants:

With regard to the option of hiring an independent SEO consultant or one-man SEO shop (and yes, they can be quite different). There are some great advantages to this option. The first of which is usually cost. There’s a lot to be said for the lack of overhead, and some one man bands do a fine job.

The first step to making a good decision is discerning the difference. What it comes down to, is a consultant is just that, a consultant. They are going to tell you what you need to do or have done. In contrast, an SEO Shop should actually perform the service for you, not just hand you a “to do list”.

So, if you’ve got a lot of web development talent, some pretty good copywriters and marketing folks, a consultant might just fit the bill nicely, assuming your team is willing to do some learning and legwork.

One Man SEO Shops:

Regarding one man SEO Shops, those that actually perform the service; if that’s the route you’re considering I would encourage you to consider your in-house team and determine which parts of the overall SEO strategy they’ll be able to take on. Because at the end of the day, a true SEO strategy is likely to involve a little of each of the following things (at least): research, web development, copy writing, marketing, analytics and so on. The likelihood of finding one individual who can effectively fill all of those roles is very slim. So, when you engage a one man SEO shop, do your best to find out what their strengths really are, and be sure to have a backup plan in place for filling in the gaps. Hopefully, the financial savings on the shop’s costs will offset the work you’ll need to do internally.

Then comes the option of a professional SEO firm. Of course, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I am of course very biased in this direction. With that disclaimer out of the way:

Using a Full Service SEO Firm:
The primary disadvantage of using a professional SEO shop will of course be cost. Because they’re likely to have at least 5 to 10 employees, legitimate office space, a marketing budget etc. they will cost more. In addition, another concern you might have is whether or not they might end up working with one or more of your competitors. The bigger they are and the better they are at what they do, the more likely this is to happen.

Now, to the up side of working with a full service SEO shop:

• Skill Sets: As a client, you’re able to tap into several skill sets (research, optimization techniques, copy writing, analytics,etc.) with one simple budget.
• Ability to Implement: A professional shop should be able to not only recommend strategies, but take them through implementation and on into tracking the results.
• Delivery Times: Having a staff of search marketers should give the company the ability to serve multiple clients at one time and expand and contract with the scope of projects.
• Accountability: When the responsibility for the various tasks of Search Marketing is consolidated on one vendor/partner, evaluating your ROI becomes a much simpler process.

A quick Recap:

Hire a consultant if: You’re confident that you have the skills in house, but need some direction.
Hire a one man SEO Shop if: You either have minimal needs, or have some but not all of the skills in house.
Hire a full service SEO Shop if: You either aren’t sure where to start, or you have high expectations and need to deliver results.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Search Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.