“Why hire an SEO agency when I have a marketing team who can learn SEO on Google and do it themselves…?”
This was a question I was politely asked this week during an SEO consultation. We prefer it when a potential client pushes back and asks difficult questions as it provides you the opportunity to answer them and provide some needed clarity.
The answer for me is simple:
Over many years of doing this Lilac James has seen many business owners and marketing professionals trying to drive ambitious SEO goals themselves and we have seen mixed results but NEVER exceptional results.
Whilst there is an abundance of information on SEO freely available on Google and YouTube it is very difficult to discern what is credible and what is not.
Because every website is different, it is even harder to identify what exactly needs doing and in what order of priority it should be done in.
People using this method to develop their SEO are faced with an abundance of information, with no means of knowing what is relevant to them and what is not or even what is reliable and what it not.
Also, because SEO changes so quickly, you also run the risk of pulling up out of date information that at best has minimal effect and at worst sets you backwards or earns you a Google Penalty.
It’s like taking a car journey and asking 50 people for directions at various points of the journey, some may give you accurate information, others may not and you’ll not know who to listen to. If you follow really bad directions you may crash and you spend much of your time either going nowhere or going backwards.
Here is my visualisation of this journey, I never was good at art but you get the idea…
We’ve seen many businesses that invest a significant amount of time, effort and energy into developing the SEO in house with self taught staff, only to realise a few results and give up..
We’ve seen several clients do very well with their SEO, only to then plateau and become unsure how to push forward to the next level and meet their objectives.
Unfortunately we’ve seen several clients suffer crashes, which come in the way of Google Penalties, a complete delisting from Google search results due to following poor practice and black hat SEO techniques. Others have relaunched their websites without considering SEO and reset their domain authorities and started their rankings from scratch which has been catastrophic.
At Lilac James we offer two main SEO services, a mentoring service which guides you through the process of developing your SEO, training you as we go, developing your skills and experience, quality assuring your work to ensure everything is done correctly. Consider this like having a driving instructor in the car. Eventually, after a while you can part ways with the instructor, knowing you have absorbed enough of their knowledge to be a successful driver long into the future.
The slight wiggle in the line represents how we’ll keep you on track, ensuring you’re targeting the correct keywords with high quality SEO.
The other service is a ‘done for you’ service where we take ownership of your SEO development, driving it towards agreed objectives so you or your team can concentrate on other matters. Keeping with the car analogy, this option is like hiring an experienced driver to take the journey for you. They’ll take the most effective route and get there in one piece with zero fuss.
This option will always deliver the swiftest results. My immaculately drawn stick person is your marketing professional, now free to focus on other matters.
So yes, you can do your SEO in house, using Google and YouTube tutorials to develop yourself or your team, but this strategy is fraught with risk and runs a real possibility of getting very few results for the reasons I highlight above.
If you would like to explore what Lilac James can do for your SEO, we have a range of solutions to meet client needs. We offer a free SEO consultation so you’ve got nothing to lose by getting in touch, we have a value led sales process where we secure sales by demonstrating our expertise and what we can do, not by spamming you with marketing and sales messaging.
I hope you enjoyed my art as much as I did making it 😉
Jamie Stenton
Business Development Manager
Lilac James Co.