Digital Marketing: Deciding Between In-house and Agency
Jeffrey Beal recently posted an article entitled “Outsource SEO vs In-house SEO”, in which he argues the benefits of using an agency over bringing search in-house. He makes several points; some of which I agree and many of which I don’t.
Overall, I don’t think it’s possible to say that one is better than the other. Both have distinct advantages and limitations. The important aspect to understand is that the decision between taking SEO in-house and using an agency must be made at the organizational level. That’s why I’ve created a basic decision tree that can help frame the issue for organizations looking to make an informed decision. This tree is a bit oversimplified, but is a good starting point for making an informed assessment.
In-house SEO Decision Tree
Beal on hiring an in-house SEO expert:
“His or her base salary according to Salary.com on average would be $85,703. That is $7141.92 a month and roughly $42 an hour. This is for one individual with hopes that they bear positive results. Let’s say they do not. It will take 3 to 6 months to start to truly see if the individual is an asset or not. That is $21,425.76 if you decide to let the individual go in just the third month. Not to include cost of taxes and benefits. And if successful, your company just paid $85,703 per year for SEO.”
Beal makes one large assumption that I don’t like: in-house SEO is to be performed by one person and it has to be a new hire. Why not train an underutilized staff member that might be in jeopardy of losing his/her job? Also, why not segment the process between content producers and tech leads? Under this scenario, the only additional expense would come from an outside training and a 3rd party auditing process.
Also, the notion of a one-man SEO is an antiquated model at best. Quality SEO is a combination of technical know-how, savvy PR/marketing, and fresh content. These require combined efforts of multiple departments within a company, not the unilateral actions of one person.
Again, many companies have seen wonderful results from their agency. Others see diminishing results over time for relatively high agency costs. Every situation is unique. The best advice I can give is to have an independent third party SEO audit to determine true ROI. Audit your agency and, either way, you might be surprised by the results.
