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Hi David Hood here, the Dallas SEO Geek.
This video is about SEO Consultant Vs. In-House SEO. Which one do you hire or where do you go? First of all, you can kind of have both but as far as if you’re considering what are the advantages and disadvantages of either one, that’s where I’m going to go over right here. Which one is best for your company? I think that there’s one option that’s hands down much better in almost every case and I’m going to go over that and tell you why I think that’s the case.
IN HOUSE EXAMPLES
Here are some In-House examples that I’ve been aware of and seen. I know someone who owns a roofing company. Before they hired me, they were paying someone full-time to do SEO and not getting results. They were probably paying him about $40, 000 a year, maybe $45,000 with some benefits and not getting any results. Now he’s paying me substantially less than that and getting more results. He’s willing to pay for it but the people who want to go over why this is a common thing. People who hire In-House SEO and just not get the return that they should get on SEO.
There’s another one wherein a Real Estate School, I trained him how to do it himself. This is early on when I was doing SEO and I regret doing it because in the end, he did it wrong. The money that he gave me, he could have spent better in paying me to do a handful of tasks for him. It ended up hurting him. I regret training him so this is isn’t the only time that I’ve been asked to train.
Recently, I did have another request to train someone who they’ve already hired as an In-House person. I did an analysis and I just thought that this is just not worth it for either one of us. I spent a lot of time finding out what works and being paid in an hourly rate to train someone on it is not something that I’m really interested in. But not only that, they expected me to train them in four to eight hours in maybe two days tops. That’s just not going to happen because there’s so much that I know. Not only that but, I constantly think about SEO and I’m constantly spending time growing and getting better.
They should have just hired me and they would still have that full-time person and they’re hiring me at a lower price than what they’re paying to her. But if they paid me with what they’re paying her then they would get so much more results. This is a big company with two or three dozens of national locations and they still hired an In-House. They’re doing kind of both but they would get so much more from the money if they just hired and spent half the money that they’re spending in total on me and then they would just get so much more.
IN-HOUSE PROS
I’m going to go over why I think that they would get a lot more value and why this is true in almost every case. First, let’s look at the PRO’s. I understand why people want to have an In-House. You get full control over them and you have someone who got your residentials at heart and In-house, you
constantly call them, they’re always under what you can do.
But that’s about where the benefits stop. I can’t think of anything else. I get it that it’s just isn’t the best way to go. You wouldn’t know this unless you knew as much about SEO. I could see of someone who didn’t understand SEO and think of it as really simple. They just hire someone to train them for a little bit and they would get it. While some of the concepts are simple, knowing what really works and what doesn’t work and understanding the process of how Google thinks is not simple. It takes a lot of experience, a lot of time, a lot of testing, and a lot of ability to understand.
SEO CONSULTANT PRO’s
Really Great SEO People
When we talk about hiring an SEO Consultant PRO’s. First of all, you’re not going to get a really great SEO person for $40,000 or even a $100,000 a year. The reason is that really great SEO people know that they could make a lot more money than that on their own. Alright? Think about that for a second. If your budget is $50,000, it’s just a little bit above average and even if you had a $75,000 a year budget to pay someone to be your full-time SEO person, you’re still not going to attract the really top talent. It’s just not nearly enough. You would have to pay them a little more than that. There is one way that I think you can attract them but I still don’t think that it’s the best way.
In really with SEO, all the benefits go to the top people. The top three results get about 60% – 75% of the clicks depending on several factors. It doesn’t help very much for you to have an OK person at SEO because being at the bottom of the first page or second on the third page for a long period of time isn’t doing you good. Maybe if you were nowhere and then you get there, then you’re having positive progress. But that by itself, sitting there for a long time isn’t going to end in bringing money in your pocket by in large.
Costs – Tools and Benefits
There’s also this Cost thing. I use a lot of tools that make me better at my job. A lot of tools that I pay a one-time fee or a monthly fee and I can use them for all my clients. You would have to pay the same amount to your one-person whose using it for you. It’s essentially more efficient for me to buy the tools and you to hire me to use the tools for you. That’s a big thing. I probably pay about $1,000 a month or more depending on several factors on the tools that I use because there’s a lot of tools that help me to be able to analyze things better and find the best places to link.
Also, you don’t have too many benefits. I don’t think benefits are expensive. Maybe you can get someone else to not pay you benefits but by on large people are going to expect benefits.
Results Oriented
The other point is I’m much more results oriented. If I don’t provide results, you fire me. It’s much easier for you. You just stop paying me and then we’re done. But it’s obviously harder to fire someone that’s in your house. They’re probably not as incentivize to provide the kind of level of results that I am. I know that if I provide you with results, you’re going to keep paying me and you’re going to keep coming back and probably buy more services or more parts for your company, maybe a different company, or wherever. I’m highly to provide results and as I imagine, many other SEO Consultants are.
Training
Here’s the other thing. I have a lot of time and a lot of money researching training. There’s a lot of bad information products out there. I test a lot of them. Some of them are bad and some of them are good. There’s a small percentage that is really good and I find those and test them. I also spend a lot of time testing sites. I’ve got a bunch of sites and all I do with them is test different techniques. I’m constantly developing my processes and understanding what Google is actually doing. That kind of goes back to the costs a little bit.
There’s a lot of things like R and D type costs that I shoulder to help run companies that may understand what’s really going on. The level of training is you’re just not going to get it. You can send them all the SEO conferences you want, five times a year and they’re not going to be nearly as good as me or any other full-time SEO Consultant, at least whose very good that’s got some real rankings that they can show.
The PRO’s far outweigh the CON’s. Here’s the kicker, It Costs You Less Money. It kind of blows online sometimes when I think people want to have just an In-House or they try to train their In-House people. I understand that if you’ve already got them, then you’ve got them. But at the same time, I’ve seen people analyzed the differences and they don’t get the level of work and knowledge, an experience that it takes to be a really good SEO person.
GETTING TOP SEO TALENT AT YOUR COMPANY
Alright, if you want one tip in potentially getting a top-level SEO talent. Other than paying them $500,000 a year potentially, even the best people still want some of that. There’s one way that I see that is probably the best and that is to treat them like salespeople with the commission. Especially if you have a big product that sells in the big market and they can see that they can make a lot of money by ranking you, then their performance is tied to how well they do. Even then, I could see it not being in their best interest. I might accept an offer like that or probably not depending on the details. But if you really want a talented SEO in your company, this is the way I would go about it.
Try to find someone and try to really offer them and say look “We’re willing to pay for results so we give you a salary to keep you protected. Okay, that’s nice.” And then beyond that, what we’re going to do is for every sale that comes through your website from an organic search, which you can track, you are going to get a piece of that.
That’s basically what we are. We’re like direct salespeople but the way we attract clients is very different than traditional SEO people. I’m able to find an X number of people to come to your site, to be exposed to
your brand, and potentially make an order. That’s why you should treat us like salespeople and that’s how we should be paid like salespeople. Anyway, if you have any questions, just feel free to shoot me an email or give me a call and I’m happy to help you out and help you understand what the differences are and maybe going to more detail about SEO Consultant Vs. In-House SEO.
My name is David Hood. I’m the Dallas SEO Geek. Thanks for watching.