The Big, Bad List of Pre-SEO Questions You Need to Answer, Part V

March 23, 2009 · Filed Under SEO

In this post, Stoney deGuyter puts forth some interesting questions about outsourcing your SEO/SEM to a consultant. The answers are skewed, however, he misses many of the advantages and methods of using a one person consultant. He, of course, desires that you hire his firm for your job when a one person consultant can provide excellent results at one-third or less of the cost of using a consulting firm. I have added counterpoint information in italics to his answers.

from Stoney deGuyter at Search Engine Guide
We spent the first half of this series addressing questions of in-sourcing your search marketing efforts. We answered questions related to doing all the SEO yourself, Sub-contracting out some of your SEO to a third party, hiring an in-house SEO with experience, or training someone to manage your SEO in-house. By running through this list and answering these questions for yourself you’ll be able to make an informed decision on whether or not doing SEO in-house is the right course of action for you.

But before you go and and decide to do your SEO in-house, lets look at questions related to outsourcing your SEO campaigns. Being able to weigh the pros and cons of both paths will ensure you are seeing the bigger picture and understand the potential consequences before moving forward.

Questions you need answered if you outsource your search marketing:

Question 33: Do I hire a firm or a consultant? When outsourcing your campaign this is the first big question you need to answer. Consultants and firms can act and react very differently, giving you more or less attention depending on the circumstances.

Question 34: Do I hire a SEM consultant? SEO/SEM consultants are, by and large, a one person operation. Typically that person does the job of many, or outsourcing tasks as needs arise. You typically only have to deal with one point of contact, so there is no getting lost in a maze of “who’s in charge” but there is rarely ever a “higher-authority” to appeal to if the contract isn’t sufficiently meeting your needs.

The exception is when you hire an independent contractor through a service such as Elance, Odesk, Guru and RentACoder. These services have a feedback method for the customer and the service provider. If the work doesn’t meet your standards you can provide negative feedback that will impact the provider’s future prospects of securing future work. Since the consultant’s livelihood depends on satisfying every customer they are more likely to take extra care in meeting needs. Whereas, someone that is simply employed by a firm has no personal stake in the outcome. If that job disappears they move onto the next one.

Question 35: Can a consultant do everything I need or do I have to do it myself? More often than not, consulting means that you’ll have to do most of the work yourself. The consultant is just there to, well, consult. They’ll perform the necessary research in order to provide you a list of things that you need to do. You’re paying them for their knowledge and the information they can provide you but the implementation of many of their findings will be entirely on you.

This is not completely accurate. Many independents can and do perform much of the work. You pay extra for that work the same as though you had hired a SEO firm. You set the specifications for the work, post it on one or more of the sites mentioned in 34. Qualified providers will bid on the job and you choose the one you feel with.

Question 36: Will a consultant have all the skills necessary to complete the job? Consultants are typically a one person operation therefore, this is a valid question. While there are many components to SEO that a person can become accomplished at, there are some aspects that require more specialized education or expertise. One person can only do so much and be able to do it well.

This depends on the work needed. Many SEO/SEM consultants can provide all of the SEO/SEM needs. They may not be web or graphics designers but we’re talking SEO/SEM in these posts. Also, these folks may belong to a team of freelancers on the sites mentioned earlier.

Question 37: Will the consultant sub work out to other consultants? You need to know in advance what will happen if the consultant you hired isn’t particularly skilled at some areas that will be important to your success. Not all SEO/SEM consultants are experts in copywriting, PPC or link building. If you need work in one of these areas they will do one of three things:

1) provide you with the recommendation to find an expert to manage it for you (yet another consultant to hire,)

2) they’ll do the work themselves at a sub-par level,

3) they’ll sub-the work out to people they trust.

As mentioned earlier, many consultants belong to teams of independent experts that they work with on a routine basis. An independents cannot afford to produce “sub-par” work if they intend to continue working.

Question 38: Will I be forced to pay additional fees for sub-contractors? If additional sub-contractors get involved at the request of the original contractor you hired, you’ll want to know who’s paying their fees. Before you sign any contract find out if those fees are included in the original contracting quote or if their fees for service are an additional expense for you. This isn’t something you want to be surprised by later.

READ the contract before you agree to it. Keep in mind, you set the job specs and price.

Question 39: Will a consultant spend enough quality time on my account? Every person has their limitations. A single person can only spend so many hours a day on a single account. Most consultants manage more than one account at a time, which means they have to juggle all the work that needs to be done between them. This isn’t necessarily a problem, provided the consultant knows their cap on how much work they can effectively perform. However if they like the prospect of signing the next contract then this can lead to too much work and too little time. When that happens something has to give and you’ll want to make sure it isn’t you.

This is another reason for outsourcing your work through Elance, Odesk, etc. These services require the provider to maintain work logs of each hourly project. Fixed price jobs don’t require the logs. However, you set the completion time and date for the provider to get paid for fixed price work. Odesk has software you can use to spy on your provider as they are working.

Question 40: Will I be able to get a hold of a consultant when I need them during business hours? Your SEO consultant should be available during business hours, but most people consult because it gives them freedoms they would not have in an office. That means that during business hours they may be homeschooling their kids, driving their kids to practice, out skiing, or sleeping because they do most of their work during the midnight hours. While most communications can be accomplished via email, it’s nice to know that you can get in touch with the consultant when you need them. Make sure the consultant’s hours of availability matches your communication comfort level.

Independent contractors aren’t called independent for nothing! However, this issue should be handled during the interview. In fact, some independents may be available at times when a consulting company is closed. I have no idea why Stoney believes they do most of their work “during the midnight hours”. If you hire a consultant on the other side of the world that may true. So, only hire consultants that work in the time zone(s) you want.

The decision to hire a consultant isn’t always an easy one. As we’ve seen, there are a lot of factors that must be considered before deciding if a consultant will serve your needs better than a SEO firm would. In the next installment we’ll look at the questions that pertain to hiring a firm, analyzing the pros and cons to help you get better understanding of what’s in store if that’s the route you choose.

See Questions 1-11
See Questions 12-17
See Questions 18-24
See Questions 25-32
See Questions 41-47

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