What Should You Consider Before Doing  SEO In-House?

The emergence of the internet has revolutionized information availability in various sectors. To say, in brief, the world is a button away. With this, numerous companies offering the same services and products on the digital platform have also emerged, each seeking customers’ attention.  Any website owner

Attracting users to your site, also referred to as organic traffic, is 50 percent success for your business. However, this comes at a cost; investing in search engine optimization (SEO). There are two options for developing SEO. You can choose to outsource for the service or do it internally (In-house SEO). Each has its benefits and disadvantages. But in either case, an SEO expert must be involved to get the best results.

Below we look at the important considerations to make before choosing to develop SEO in-house.

1. Budget

Internal development and execution of an SEO strategy requires a more substantial budget compared to outsourcing. This is because it involves building a holistic team. In the same manner, we assess the cost of building a house before embarking on the actual construction; you must calculate and set aside an adequate amount for this process. Remember the right budget facilitates building a proper team that will work efficiently. Sometimes you will have to hire a marketing professional to train your staff depending on the deficiencies. Of course, the cost will be lower when you have an SEO expert in your firm already.

2. Organizational structure

The structure of the company in terms of leadership is fundamental for SEO plan success. When you have a large company with various managers, the factors at play for the execution of a strategy are different from those of a small company. Large-scale SEO plan requires proper scaling of the campaigns to achieve the desired results, especially if various individuals control different portions of the website. You must, therefore, have an experienced expert working on your SEO plan when your company has numerous branches that operate different sections of the site independently. For smaller companies, execution of an SEO plan can be pretty straightforward, so it shouldn't be a source of worry. Another advantage for small businesses is the effective execution of SEO updates or changes in line with rapidly changing search engine algorithms.

3. Capabilities of the leaders

In-house SEO requires a team that is well-integrated for the success of the plan. But remember, the team members have different levels of knowledge and abilities. As the one responsible for setting up the team and assigning leadership roles, you must consider the skills and work experiences of each. Making a person who has barely one year of experience in programming a software development manager may have severe ramifications for the project. Again, you need a combination of team workers and individual contributors in the leadership to increase the likelihood of success.

4. Role of each member

The SEO team has various members that perform different functions. Each must be well-versed with his/her responsibilities.  SEO manager is the one at the top of the team and is tasked with setting the plan, strategies and generally giving project directions.  A team worker with relevant skills perfectly suits this role. An SEO specialist, on the other hand, has an individual responsibility of handling SEO projects for enhancing performance ranging from social media optimization, on-page content optimization to many others. Other members of the team include link builder, social media manager and content writer. Their functions are inter-dependent but must be rightly stated to avoid any confusion.

5. Your site metrics

A set of parameters defines every website, and you must first establish your site's in relation to the industry. The various metrics that determine the success of your digital marketing strategy include SEO metrics, content metrics, etc. The purpose of SEO is to boost your online presence, and you need to assess the performance of your site regularly. You must therefore have analysis tools that will check your website's status, and this will help you to determine the team's effort. These analysis tools will only be valuable when you understand the metrics of your site. Also creating a report from the analysis and discussing it with the SEO team leadership helps determine the next necessary action.

A thorough analysis of your metrics before starting an in-house SEO plan is very crucial. It enables you to determine the core purpose of the strategy to be employed. This will reduce cost as you will know the needs and hire appropriate personnel. For example, when you need to develop individual programs, priority is given to programme developer and not a content writer.

6.Project need assessment

When you have thought of building an in-house SEO team, you must also take into account the process and the necessary tools required for the execution.  Once you know you will have the right leadership in place, the only limitation to the team’s performance would be unavailability of the appropriate digital tools. For example, link building, content optimization, keyword research and internal architecture all require different tools that must be well established for SEO strategy success.

7. Market competition

Smaller companies are mostly disadvantaged because of the financial prowess of larger business against whom they are competing. Before developing your SEO, it is necessary that you analyze each competitor’s performance and find out their strengths and weaknesses.  This can help redefine your SEO strategy and even rise in ranking above large firms.

With the rapidly changing search engine algorithms, you need a dedicated team that is solely dedicated to driving organic traffic to your site. For this reason, in-house SEO is becoming more popular. However, before settling on internal SEO services rather than outsourcing, you must make certain considerations. These include budget, size of your company, the labour present, site metrics and others.  Ignoring any factor may have detrimental effects on the success of your SEO strategy, leading to hefty loses.