SEO through Agency v/s In-house

This is the dilemma that many online businesses have to ponder over. Should they hire an SEO team or should they build up an in-house team to handle the search engine department? There are various factors at play here. Flexibility, ROI and spectrum of services are some of the considerations on the table. Having an in-house SEO team will get you higher flexibility because you can change directions or make modifications to your SEO plan by judging the success or failure of your efforts. On the other hand, an in-house SEO team may not be able to compete with an SEO agency when it comes to the range of services that it can provide.

It will be better if you look at this debate from your company’s point of view. For start-ups with shoestring budgets, an SEO agency is the best option. You can work on a pay-per-service basis. Engage the agency only for those services which you absolutely need. It keeps the budgets low. If start-ups and small scale companies go for the in-house SEO model, they will have to contend with steeper bills to hire and engage SEO experts. You need larger office space for that as well, not to mention a whole host of other expenditures like computers, servers, etc. SEO agencies can help you not just with the daily running of your business’s online chapter but also counsel on emerging trends.

For larger businesses and enterprise organizations, having an in-house SEO team is better than hiring an agency. With your own team, flexibility is the key point. Because budget is usually not a constraint in such organizations, you can afford to bring SEO experts aboard and build up a team for long-term benefits. In the long run, the use of an in-house SEO team will also look good on the ROI scale. As for the range of services, you can train your existing SEO employees on what’s hot by investing in training sessions. This way, you can target specific services which your company needs and gloss over others that are not relevant to your domain of business. An in-house SEO team for large organizations with branches spread out ensures that there are no conflicts of interests or misunderstandings about SEO objectives.