You want your business needs to be on the first page of Google results. SEO can help you achieve that. Digital marketing agencies work hard to develop the necessary skills to do it right. Is SEO something that you can do on your own? Certainly. But before you settle on it, you should know all the pros and cons of hiring an SEO consultant vs. learning SEO yourself.
The benefits of having a professional guide
The biggest benefit of hiring an SEO consultant is that they have experience and are connected. They can immediately start improving your website, working on your content optimization, setting up Google Ads for your moving company, planning campaigns on social media, and more. All these things require different sets of skills. SEO consultants can help guide your team in making these improvements. If you want to do your own SEO, on the other hand, it’ll take a while for you to learn the basics and get started.
Consultants are also more flexible than digital marketing agencies. They’ll often work odd hours, be available on weekends, and work for lower rates. When debating between hiring an SEO consultant vs. learning SEO, you should know that consultants go through extensive online SEO training to bring their clients the best results.
The downsides of SEO consultants
Because they typically work alone, consultants offer limited services. A consultant may, for example, do an SEO audit of your website and give you guidance on what needs to be improved. But then they’d expect you to either improve that yourself or pay them for another consult.
If you want to generate and convert top moving leads consistently, you’ll need to have someone working with you on a more permanent basis. And a consultant can end up costing quite a bit in the long run. You also have to understand that consultants have multiple clients. So, you might not always be their priority if another client has a more urgent issue.
Hiring an SEO consultant vs. learning SEO: the benefits of developing your own skills
There are many benefits to learning SEO yourself instead of hiring a professional for your business. To begin with, learning SEO is an investment. It’s an investment in your skills, your CV, and your future.
Adding another skill to your repertoire is always a good thing. And if you’re good at it, you can even make money off SEO work outside of your business down the line. Nowadays, you can easily get training that teaches you everything you need to know about SEO, so long as you are willing to commit the necessary time and effort.
Becoming your own SEO expert is also more cost-effective in the long run. Instead of paying someone else every month, you’ll be doing your own work. Your most significant expense will be paying for the training courses. Of course, you can also learn for free – through practice.
Nobody knows your business as well as you do. So, it’ll be much easier for you to develop marketing campaigns and SEO strategies that fit your needs than it would be for a consultant who is a complete stranger. After all, you know what your goals and capabilities are. This will help you better tailor your SEO to your business.
The downsides of learning SEO yourself
For starters, it will take time to learn all the nuances of SEO. You can’t expect to just jump into it with no prior experience and have great results within days. It doesn’t help that SEO for moving companies includes a lot of very different marketing aspects. You’ll need to have:
- long-term strategy;
- a short-term plan;
- optimized content;
- social media presence;
- and more.
Also, SEO is a lot of work when you’re doing it alone. You’ll have to juggle a lot of balls if you want to be successful. Not only is this difficult, but it is also more stressful than hiring a consultant.
Other options to consider
It’s important to remember that hiring an SEO consultant vs. learning SEO are not your only options. Hiring a digital marketing agency or an in-house SEO gives you all the benefits of a consultant plus the actual work on your SEO strategy.
