The 4 Big Problems With Outsourcing SEO

Recent years have seen a huge expansion in the number of web pages occupying the internet, with user generated content stepping into the forefront and securing the same search engine rankings once only occupied by established businesses.

With businesses increasingly relying on the reach of the internet to drive sales, it has now become practically impossible to launch any online business activity without having at least some understanding of SEO, and its importance to the success of your online presence.

The real problem here is that the average business owner, or entrepreneur, either just doesn’t understand what SEO is, or just doesn’t have the time to implement the fundamentals. This is understandable of course, given the obvious other pressures and challenges facing any new start up, and the inherent time and mental resource such projects demand.

This is why many businesses seek to outsource there SEO requirements through the use of third parties. There certainly isn’t any shortage of “experienced SEO specialists”, as is evident from any visit to the latest IT, telecoms or online marketing event. Therefore, the problem is not so much how to find such a company, but finding the right company!

For those just starting out with their SEO experience, it is very easy at this point to become overwhelmed with facts and figures from companies competing for your attention, and it is typical to be faced with a myriad of companies all promising No1 position on Google for keyword X and keyword Y. So here’s essential Lesson Number 1 – they say that to everyone!

It’s unfortunate but it’s true. SEO isn’t easy and never will be, it’s based on a plethora of assumptions about how search engines work and what makes them tick (i.e. how to go about getting you to that No1 position). Like any competing market place, your success is also based largely on the amount of competition that you face within the market place (where in this case the market place is the highly competitive world of online search).

So here comes Lesson Number 2 – only you (not the SEO company) truly understands your products, services and your competitive environment. While this means that you should always be sceptical of anyone who promises you amazing positioning just based on an initial conversation, it does also give you enough ammunition to really weed out the good from the bad.

Any SEO company of worth should be able to clearly define exactly what they are going to do in order to really understand you, your market and what you are trying to achieve. Ask them how they are going to ensure that they achieve what you want and not just offer a generic set of steps they follow with any other of their (probably numerous) clients.

So Lesson Number 3 – when you invite SEO companies to tender for your business, make sure you ask clear questions about how exactly they will go about achieving the rankings that you desire. Don’t let them cover this with a generic “oh various things” - ask what specifically they will do, even if you don’t fully understand the answers. From this, it will be evident whether the person you are meeting has really looked into your company background, understands a little about the industry and has a clear strategic plan developed for your business. Typically SEO companies will introduce a generic presentation about “customer focus, commitment etc”, and then attend to the matter of payment as soon as possible!

This brings us to our final general lesson when choosing an SEO company.
A significant factor in your search engine positioning relates to how many sites (or how many quality sites) point to, or ‘link to’ your site and what key phrases they use to link to you.

Lesson Number 4 – always make it clear that you don’t want paid for links or links from sites wholly owned by the SEO company. First of all, Google is no fan of paid links, it will ignore them where it recognises them and often look upon your site negatively. The second scenario is that Google doesn’t notice that you are using paid for links and / or you have other links to your site from websites owned or affiliated to your SEO company. Ok, but this then introduces the problem of dependency.

For instance, assume that you have links from sites owned by the SEO company and do indeed achieve a level of success in the search engine rankings. Based on the notion that you will typically be paying a fixed monthly fee to the SEO company, what happens if you decide to leave them? Well, they remove the links, use the space for new customers and your site falls backwards because its success was wholly dependant on those links.

This is why all links should come from sites where you have reassurance that the link will not be removed if you decide to end the contract – in other words ensure that the work you are paying for is final, not temporary!