5 Top Reasons to Hire an SEO Freelancer
I have wondered many times why we website owners go about trying to implement search engine optimization (SEO) strategies when the majority of us haven’t got a clue about what we are doing?! Hopefully, you will consider my top reasons to hire an SEO freelancer.
I for one finally came to the conclusion that I did not have enough knowledge or expertise to continue to blunder around fooling myself that this was something I could do.
Just building a website foundation and writing content only, will not bring your business the success that you may think that it will. A website without the proper search engine optimization (SEO) will be like a fish flopping out of the water – going nowhere fast.
SEO has been a vital line of attack for the success of your business website for quite a long time now and it seems to be getting even more important with more and more people opting to use their mobile devices more than their desktops or even laptops. The convenience of the mobile device size has allowed it to be the most portable access to the internet than any other electronic device.
Having the appropriate SEO for your website will generate a lot of value to it. It could just be that attempting to perform SEO tasks on our websites is not something that the majority of us should be doing. Maybe this is something that we should seriously think about as we begin to build the foundation of our websites.
From my own unsuccessful experience with attempting to perform the SEO tasks on my own website, I would be the first to say do-it-yourself-SEO is not the best way to go. I will attempt to explain my reasons for believing that statement.
Reasons Why Novice Should Stay Away
Many are under the impression that if you watch a few videos and research a few articles that’s all that’s needed to gain a clear understanding of how to process SEO tasks. Not so!
1. SEO tasks are not easy — There are so many technical aspects particular to your websites such as backlinking and content optimization that must be considered. Some people think that they can get by with just a limited amount of knowledge, but that is not the case. If you are going to implement SEO tasks, you will need a high level of knowledge to do it successfully.
2. The regulations keep changing – By the time you have become self-taught using training videos, books, and those research articles, Google decides to initiate changes to the algorithms making what you thought you learned obsolete. Google doesn’t even tell you about some of the changes.
Conducting your business as an affiliate marketer surely takes up your time and resources without having to find a way to keep up with all the many SEO changes yourself and then learn what to do with them. This is outside of your wheelhouse and is better left to the SEO professionals. Those SEO experts will also have the knowledge to scrutinize the updates that Google tries to keep under the radar.
It takes a lot of ongoing time to implement SEO strategies and to do it right. Most marketers just don’t have the time required to work the SEO campaigns on a regular basis.
3. SEO mistakes can hurt your business – There are some SEO actions that can damage your rank in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) or could even get you penalized by Google. Without the proper SEO expertise, these are a few mistakes that could emerge.
• Keyword stuffing
• Use of keywords not related to the topic
• Duplicate content
• Fake backlinks
• Cloaking
Those who have been well trained in SEO techniques will know how to steer clear of these unnecessary mistakes and will know how to repair these errors if you have already made them.
4. SEO professionals maintain the necessary tools – As an affiliate marketer, you most likely aren’t even aware of many of the resource tools used by the SEO professionals. Additionally, your budget may not bear the expenses of purchasing the tools needed to effectively perform the required tasks, particularly if you are just starting out.
SEO software is typically complicated and generally even seeing the analytics doesn’t allow us to know what it means for our SEO or tells us how to fix the issues. But, the professionals will know.
5. SEO professionals know how to perform competitor analysis – A SEO professional will be able to discover what the best approach is that will let you stand apart from your competition.
6. No Search Engine Presence – If your website can’t be found within the first three pages of the SERP and it’s been around for a while, that is an obvious indication that something has gone wrong. It means your SEO campaign isn’t up to par and there is work to be done. To have a chance of success, your pages need to rank well.
7. A great looking website, but there’s no traffic – It’s great to build a good looking website with a nice, clean design, a navigation menu that’s easy to use and loads of valuable content that is useful to your visitors. But, what good is it if no one ever sees it? Getting traffic to your website is a “must have” in order to succeed. This most likely happened because as a marketer, you didn’t have enough expertise to effectuate a solid SEO campaign, to begin with.
As an affiliate marketer, we wear many hats to carry out the many tasks that are needed in order to move our online business into the realm of success. Sometimes, wearing too many hats can mean we are just a jack of all trades and a master of none. We have to know our own limitations.
Truly learning and coming to understand the ins and outs of SEO can take many months to get a handle on. Also, the learning aspects are never-ending because Google’s frequent changes in algorithms require constant learning of new SEO techniques to work with those changes.
Many marketers get discouraged after a long time of no success. Therefore, many are also tempted into using black hat SEO methods to quickly improve the rankings of their websites, which can be detrimental to their reputation and their business.
An SEO professional can deal with website speed, keywords, link building architecture, optimization and much more. They will invest many hours in making your website the best it can be because they have the expertise to do so.
SEO professionals know the soundness of denouncing those artificial and unsavory techniques as well as to uncover any that have been used. SEO experts will be able to naturally improve your ranking by sticking to Google’s best practices.
Should you continue to attempt to implement SEO processes on your own you could very well inadvertently participate in black hat SEO without knowing that is what you are doing.
Best Practices
Considerations for Hiring SEO Pro
Making the decision to hire an SEO professional is a big step for a small online business. When first starting out, affiliate marketers have an extremely small budget if any at all. It is expected that we will willingly attempt to complete all the tasks ourselves in the beginning.
We will try to juggle everything alone. As time marches on we will start to see that our websites are not ranking in the SERP, but we keep struggling to do something about it. So that we can stop digging ourselves further into the hole, maybe we should at least see some of the benefits of hiring an SEO professional.
1. Time Saver – The work of an affiliate marketer can initially be never-ending. Our best time should be spent on tasks that will continue to move our businesses forward. Our best time should be utilized for attending those tasks that we are most knowledgeable and where our expertise is, growing our businesses.
2. Gain Concrete Results – An SEO technician can provide an audit to locate any problems with your SEO campaigns such as high bounce rates, page rankings, keywords and any other technical concerns.
3. Doing it the Right Way – Have you ever met that person who thinks that they know how to do everything from fixing their own cars, their plumbing problems to performing their own SEO tasks? Then, there are those who understand that there are professionals who know more about SEO than we do and they accept that one person can’t do it all and do it all right. SEO technicians can perform the tasks a lot faster than we can because they know exactly what they are doing and how it should be done.
4. SEO Pros can keep up with changes – Google consistently changes the algorithms at the drop of a hat. They try to stay in front of those people who always try to get around the rules. Good SEO technicians will always be on top of their game, quickly grasping the way of Google’s frequent changes. These professionals keep up with all search engine changes.
5. Save on SEO tools – If you were to purchase only 5 SEO tools for a fairly low cost, you would probably spend about $146.00 each month, according to SmallBizTrends.com. If you are just starting out you probably think that is too much for you to spend. When you calculate the yearly cost, it comes to about $1,752.00. That is a big chunk out of a budget. Many marketers are still trying to make that amount in a month, so they definitely can’t afford to purchase the tools required to perform SEO tasks. The tools don’t do the work; the SEO professional does the hard work.
Conclusion
As reflected above, there are many reasons why it would be a good move to hire an SEO freelancer to perform the necessary SEO tasks on your website. Doing this process yourself does not ensure an adequate outcome. The benefit of hiring an expert is a good way to maximize your time to grow your business and can be more comfortable with results that will work for you.
SEO professionals will already have systems and processes in place. You will be provided with regular reports of the actions being taken. Doing the work your self can cause your online business to become stagnant and not grow as you would like it to. This will make you frustrated when you don’t receive the results that you want.
More importantly, there is the possibility of you losing out on opportunities to gain business in a shorter duration of time.
If there is any way you can find a way to fit hiring an SEO professional into your budget, I would recommend it. From my own experience, I can say it definitely took a load of worry and frustration off my shoulders.
If you are going to hire someone, make sure you do your due diligence by looking for a credible and legitimate professional. It’s just like hiring someone to do home improvements in your house. You don’t just hire anyone to do the job. Unfortunately, there are scammers in all aspects of a business.
Be leery of using companies that have just gone into business and may be using people who are just starting out in the world of SEO. Make sure you ask the right questions. If they give you a 100% guarantee to get you in the first position on the first page, keep asking questions because no one can really guarantee that will happen.
Call to Action
I have provided you with many reasons to hire an SEO professional. The next thing you should do is learn what questions to ask when you interview people for the job.
I would love to hear about your personal experience with trying to implement SEO for your website.
Please feel free to contact me if you need help with anything. Just make a comment below or you can always get in touch with me through wealthyaffiliate.com (here is a link to my profile).
Verna
Founder of Your Trusted Affiliate
momstrustedaffiliate.com
email: verna@momstrustedaffiliate.com
SEO can be complicated for the new people and I am one of them so I know. I also know it is like you said, somewhat expensive. The points you make for SEO expert help is legit and really had me thinking. I know when it comes time it will be something to look at for sure. Thanks for such an enlightening article.
Hi there,
I’m glad you found my article to be useful. Finding a SEO technician can be expensive. In your search, if they offer a very cheap price, run the other way. Those are usually not the good ones and you probably won’t know that they weren’t worth the costs until long after you paid them because it takes a while to see the rewards from off-page SEO strategies.
The first one I hired was from India and it cost me $400 for three months of work. Each month was a phase on work to be completed. I broke the work down in 3 phases (1 month for each phase). That way I didn’t have to pay the $400 in a lump sum. I broke it down into 3 payments (about $133.00 each month). That was easier than having to pay it all at once.
Some companies charge thousands of dollars, but you can always use a freelancer and it wouldn’t be that expensive.
I struggled a long time trying to implement off page SEO without the technical knowledge that is needed to do so. So, I wanted people to understand that they should go as long as I did before realizing that they don’t have to ability to do it themselves. I wasted hours trying to do it myself without any success.
You just have to make sure you do a complete interview with the possible candidates and ask the right questions. I am actually in the process of writing an article about what questions to ask when interviewing an SEO technician. These questions can definitely weed out the bad apples for you. Check back here in a couple of weeks and I should have that one up by then.
Thanks for checking out my article. Let me know if I can help you with anything. Come back soon to check out the new article so you know what to ask in the interviews.
Cheers,
Verna
I tend to agree with you, because as a beginner in the affiliate marketing world, I myself can’t really afford to make too many mistakes.
And being a beginner makes me prone to these kinds of mistakes. That’s why I agree with you that having an SEO freelancer by my side to solve the SEO part of the website for me would be a blessing.
Hi Aless,
You know I understand that not all newbies can afford to take the step of outsourcing tasks, but I recommend that if there is any way it can be done, it should be done. It will save us a lot of time and trouble. Face it, most of us when we started the affiliate marketing business didn’t think we would have to understand all that SEO stuff. Some may get it, but many won’t be able to. That doesn’t mean you can’t mover forward. It only means you have to find another way to move forward that works for you.
As you said, we can’t afford to make too many mistakes.
I spent months trying to figure all that SEO stuff out until I realized that it was something that I couldn’t do successfully so I found the right person who could!!
Thanks for dropping by to check out my article. Check out my follow up article about what to ask a potential candidate for SEO hire.
Hope to hear from you soon. Let me know if there is anything I can help you with.
Cheers,
Verna
Hello Verna, I am a freelancer and a seo executive too, I think this would be a very useful post for newbies to SEO. You’ve amazingly explained about seo, thanks a lot
Regards,
Manan
Hi Manan,
When I write an article I try to think about some of the struggles I had when I started in affiliate marketing. This particular article was created from my lack of knowledge and skills as an SEO tech. I was lead to believe that doing SEO tasks were my responsibility, especially if I couldn’t afford to hire on expert. After much wasted time and frustration, I finally accepted the limitations regarding my SEO skills and hired someone to do what they knew best.
Unfortunately, I see many courses that make newbies think that performing SEO tasks are easy for them to do. They may get a grasp of the on-page SEO, but for most new affiliate marketers they have no clue regarding the off-page SEO.
Thank you for reviewing my article and I’m glad you thought I was on the right track with it. I always try to keep thing real and not lead anyone down the wrong road.
Hope to see you around again soon.
Cheers,
Verna