Eclipse

Knowing when to hire an SEO Company depends on factors like your website’s health, business goals, and available resources. If you’re lacking SEO expertise or time, it’s crucial to seek professional help. An experienced SEO team can boost your visibility and rankings on search engines like Google. This could lead to more organic traffic and better results for your digital marketing strategy.

A worried businessman in need of an SEO company.

Signs You Need to Hire An SEO Company

It’s Time To Develop Or Enhance Your SEO Approach

SEO encompasses several strategies, from keyword research to content optimization and technical SEO. A professional agency can create a tailored SEO strategy to boost your site’s performance. They’ll prioritize key recommendations that align with your digital marketing and business goals. By focusing on both immediate improvements and long-term gains, agencies help you stay competitive in the digital space. This holistic approach ensures comprehensive optimization, from on-page SEO to improving user experience, which drives results across multiple channels.

Your Website Isn’t Generating Traffic Or Achieving Expected Outcomes

Investing in SEO offers strong returns, but it demands careful planning and execution. An experienced SEO Company can help you optimize your resources and uncover high-impact opportunities for better results. With their expertise, they ensure your digital marketing strategy aligns with your business goals and attracts relevant traffic. They can also provide you with insights into trends and industry shifts, keeping your strategies up-to-date. If an algorithm update has hurt your website’s rankings or visibility, an SEO company can identify the root cause. Their tailored approach helps to quickly address these issues and restore your rankings. By continuously fine-tuning your SEO strategy, they work to keep your website performing at its best for the long term.

You Lack Sufficient Internal Expertise

If your in-house team lacks expertise in SEO or digital marketing, hiring an agency can bridge the gap. These professionals bring specialized knowledge and experience to enhance your website’s visibility, whether through organic SEO efforts or paid campaigns like Google Ads. With their skills, they can craft tailored strategies that align with your business goals and industry needs. By utilizing the latest SEO techniques, they help drive qualified traffic and improve your search engine rankings. Partnering with an SEO company ensures you stay ahead of competitors and reach your target audience effectively.

You’re Seeking to Grow Your Company

As your business grows, so do your SEO needs. An experienced agency can scale their services to meet your evolving requirements. Whether you’re entering new markets, launching products, or aiming to expand your audience, they adapt your strategy accordingly. Their expertise ensures that all aspects of SEO, from content to technical optimizations, are fine-tuned for growth. By staying proactive, the agency helps you maintain a competitive edge in a constantly changing digital landscape.

You’re Overhauling or Making Significant Modifications to Your Website

If you’re considering a web design overhaul, website redesign, replatforming, or significant changes, hiring an SEO agency is highly recommended. Migrations can be complex, and if not handled correctly, they can negatively impact your site’s performance and revenue. An SEO agency ensures that your SEO strategy is seamlessly integrated into the process, preserving your rankings and traffic. They’ll manage critical elements like redirects, site structure, and content optimization to avoid potential pitfalls. By prioritizing SEO throughout the project, they help ensure your website continues to perform well on search engines before, during, and after the changes.

You Are Allocating Resources to Different Marketing Platforms

SEO on its own rarely delivers optimal results. It performs best when integrated with PPC, PR, email, social media, and brand advocacy. While SEO can improve site structure and optimize content, it may take a long time to see substantial results without support from other channels. An effective SEO company or consulting service should embrace collaboration with these channels, sharing data and insights to create a unified, data-driven strategy. This holistic approach helps accelerate growth, boosts authority, and drives relevant traffic to your site, ensuring faster, more sustainable SEO success.

A businessman in agreement with an SEO company

What Should You Think About Before Selecting an SEO Company?

Before selecting an SEO agency, it’s essential to find a partner that aligns with your business needs and sets the stage for long-term success. A strong agency relationship is built on mutual effort, and to achieve optimal results, you must be prepared to actively engage. It’s important to ensure your business goals are in sync with their approach and that open communication is prioritized. Here are some key factors to consider before hiring an SEO company to ensure you make the right choice for your business.

You Have In-House Resources Focused on SEO

Before deciding to hire an SEO agency, ensure you have the internal resources to implement their recommendations effectively. Gone are the days when you could simply hire an SEO agency and expect results with no internal effort. For SEO to be successful, you must be willing to dedicate both time and resources. This includes adjusting your content, improving technical aspects, and continuously monitoring progress. If you aren’t prepared to act on the advice given, there’s little value in paying for it. It’s also crucial to secure buy-in from leadership, so SEO becomes a priority amid your company’s other ongoing initiatives. When everyone is aligned and committed, you’ll see more meaningful and lasting results.

Access to Data & Clear Visibility

Providing your agency with access to key website data and keeping them informed about internal updates is essential for aligning the SEO strategy with your business goals. A top-tier SEO or digital marketing agency will want to address any data integrity issues before setting goals or moving forward with the project. Whether it’s fixing double-counted sessions, setting up proper ecommerce tracking, or understanding your conversion funnel, clear and accurate data is critical. With reliable tracking in place, your SEO strategy can be built on a strong foundation. If you’re unsure about your website analytics or tracking, consider reviewing your measurement strategy, or reach out to our expert Analytics team for guidance.

You’re Seeking Sustainable, Long-Term Growth

Unless there’s an obvious fix on your site, like blocking it entirely with your robots.txt file, SEO primarily focuses on long-term growth and value. SEO takes time to build momentum and requires consistent effort across various channels. If you’re looking for immediate traffic, paid search is a more effective solution for quick results. It provides immediate visibility while you work on building organic search presence. It’s crucial to understand that collaborating with an SEO agency is a two-way partnership—both sides must actively contribute for successful outcomes. With clear communication and shared goals, you’ll create a strategy that aligns with both short- and long-term objectives. By combining strategic SEO with other digital marketing efforts, you can achieve sustainable growth and enhanced visibility over time.

You Have Sufficient Budget to Back It

While investing in quality SEO services is crucial, ensure the cost aligns with both your budget and expected ROI. For a medium or large-sized business, a typical 12-month project can cost $120K or more. This investment generally covers technical SEO, a dedicated team, project planning, strategy development, goal-setting, and content strategy. If that budget doesn’t fit within your financial plan, hiring a skilled in-house SEO expert might not be cheaper either, once you factor in salary, benefits, and other fixed costs.

If your budget doesn’t support a full-service agency, consider working with an experienced individual consultant. A skilled consultant can provide valuable insights and give your site the boost it needs, often at a more manageable cost. This approach allows you to improve your SEO without committing to the full scale of a larger agency project.

Increase in online rankings as a result of SEO investment

Is Investing in an SEO Agency Worth the Expense?

What is the Price of Hiring an SEO Agency or Package?

Agencies typically charge between $500 and $15,000 per month, depending on your site’s needs. Costs vary based on factors like whether you’re a smaller local business, a medium-sized business expanding regionally, or an enterprise targeting international customers. When evaluating agencies, it’s essential to choose a reputable one that offers quality service. To make an informed decision, get multiple quotes and compare the services included, along with the projected ROI. This ensures you understand what you’re investing in and helps you select the best option for your business goals.

What is the cost of hiring an SEO professional?

As of 2023, a full-time SEO Manager typically earns between $59,000 and $74,000 annually. When you factor in benefits and additional costs, the total expense for an in-house SEO manager could approach $100K (source). For a senior SEO manager with proven success and a solid track record, salaries can often exceed this range significantly. Hiring an in-house expert can be a costly option, especially for smaller businesses or those with limited budgets. Therefore, carefully evaluating your business’s needs and goals will help you determine if this investment is the right move.

Do You Need to Hire an SEO Agency?

Ultimately, if you’re focused on boosting your website traffic and revenue, the right time to hire an SEO agency is when your organization has the necessary resources and finds a partner that prioritizes both revenue and long-term strategy. A reputable agency will work with you to align SEO efforts with your business objectives, driving sustainable growth. By choosing an agency that understands the importance of long-term success, you’ll set the stage for lasting improvements in both visibility and profitability

Conclusion

Hiring an SEO agency is a smart move if your website is underperforming, you lack SEO expertise, or your internal resources are limited. An experienced agency can craft a tailored strategy to boost traffic, improve search rankings, and align SEO efforts with your business goals. This holistic approach ensures long-term growth by focusing on both immediate and sustainable improvements across technical SEO, content, and user experience.

Before selecting an agency, ensure your business is ready to invest time, resources, and budget into a long-term SEO strategy. Clear communication, access to data, and internal alignment are key to success. If your company is committed to growing its online presence, hiring an SEO agency can drive significant, lasting results.

FAQs

How do I measure the effectiveness of an SEO agency’s work?

Track key performance indicators (KPIs) like traffic growth, rankings, and conversion rates to evaluate SEO success.

What are the common SEO mistakes to avoid when working with an agency?

Avoid unclear communication, setting unrealistic expectations, and neglecting on-site optimizations like content and technical SEO.

How long will it take to see results after hiring an SEO agency?

SEO is a long-term strategy; expect noticeable results in 3-6 months, depending on competition and existing website health.

What specific services are typically included in an SEO agency’s package?

Common services include keyword research, on-page optimization, backlink building, content strategy, and technical SEO audits.

Can an SEO agency help with local SEO and improving my business’s presence in local search results?

Yes, agencies specialize in optimizing local search visibility by targeting location-based keywords, building local citations, and enhancing Google My Business profiles.

Users Also Say

[d*l***d*

As someone who makes a living off SEO (I run affiliate websites so I don’t sell SEO services), SEO can definitely help your business. As it was written by others, since your activity targets a very small area, I would focus on local seo. You can probably find a lot about it that you can implement yourself on your website. Make sure your site is properly crawlable by google (you can check that in google search console), set-up your Google My Business listing. If you want to go deeper, you can get a trial version of ahrefs.com, this will allow you to see how your competitors are getting traffic from google (it gives you an estimate of which pages of their sites are getting traffic and for which keywords).

11***7

“SEO companies are useful if you want to get into content marketing. I work at an agency, and in my experience freelancers can’t come close to creating content as well as us since we just have more resources (in-house writing teams with experience in multiple verticals, in-house creative and dev teams for infographics, calculators, quizzes, etc.). “

t*a***d***1

“I think the most important thing to do is make sure you are getting reviews. Reviews impact decisions so much when people are looking for basically anything but especially doctors.”