Let’s face it. At some point, you might have sat down and thought, “Why hire a local SEO company?” You probably can’t find any reason to outsource your SEO campaign.
You can manage your local SEO alone or recruit an in-house team. But know that hiring an in-house team is going to cost you more money. Additionally, you might struggle to run your business and do SEO simultaneously.
First and foremost, let’s assume you have admitted that local SEO is important. According to research, 97% of consumers search online to find local businesses.
So, a local company that neglects local SEO will likely have a terrible local online presence. That means, it might be difficult or impossible for local potential customers to find such a company.
Here, I will show you why you need to hire a local SEO company and why you might not need one. So, keep reading for more details on the subject.
What Is Local SEO?
Local SEO is a search engine optimization strategy implemented to help local businesses improve their online visibility, making it easier for potential customers to find the business online.
A local SEO expert uses a combination of strategies to improve a business’s performance in local search. An example is by creating a well-optimized Google Business Profile for your company.
We live in a fast-paced world where people want to get things done quickly. Your potential customers are seeking ways to search and find their desired products or services quickly and conveniently.
Search engines have made it easier for users to find information about businesses, products, or services. And people enjoy searching the internet for things. When they search, they find what they are looking for and stumble on other information that can help them to make buying decisions.
So, if you have been neglecting local search engine optimization, you have been making a terrible mistake. A business that invests in SEO today will have a strong competitive edge in the future.
The future can be the next day, week, month, or few years. But when you invest in SEO, you’re setting up your business for massive online success in the future.
Who Needs To Hire A Local SEO Company?
Most businesses don’t have to hire a local SEO company because they don’t need one. That’s why we have local SEO and national SEO.
In local SEO, you’re targeting a specific geographical area or neighborhood. You’re targeting the business’ service area or where you’re operating.
In the case of national SEO, you’re targeting a wider audience. You’re targeting the entire country, several continents, or the world. Your audience is wider, and you’re a global brand.
A company like Amazon is a global brand. Amazon doesn’t need to target local consumers, though it provides services to them. Amazon targets people from around the world. They have customers from the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and all over the world.
So, who needs to hire a local search engine optimization company? Who needs local SEO services?
If you have a small or medium-scale business, you need local SEO. Companies serving a local area or neighborhood need local SEO.
Here are some businesses that need local search engine optimization:
- Gyms
- Law firm services
- Professional services
- Medical providers
- Real estate agents
- Restaurants
- Home Services
- Pet services
- Landscapers
- Cleaning services
- Automobile dealers
- Repair service providers
- Metal roofing companies
- Electrical service providers
The list goes on and on. If you have a business and a physical office or store, and you serve a geographical area, you need local SEO.
Local SEO will help potential customers know about your business and products. It will help them find your address, learn more about your company and products, access your phone number, and contact you.
Impressively, local SEO leads boast a 15% close rate. So, when you optimize your website for local search, you’re giving your business a huge opportunity to generate more sales.
There are numerous benefits local search engine optimization can grant your business. But for now, let’s discuss why hiring a local SEO agency is a wise choice for your business.
Why Hire A Local SEO Company: Must-Know Reasons
We will discuss why you don’t need to hire an SEO company or may not need one. But before we dive into that, let’s discuss how hiring a local search optimization firm can benefit your local company.
1: Putting together an in-house local SEO team isn’t cost-effective:
In business, you can increase profit by lowering the cost of production and other expenses. That’s why you see most companies outsourcing some of their tasks.
SEO is a long-term project, so having an in-house team will be the wisest thing a business can do. But when you factor in the overhead costs, benefits, bonuses, and other expenses, you’ll understand why outsourcing is the best option.
Hiring an in-house SEO expert can cost you up to $150,000 yearly.
Let me give you a clear breakdown:
Cost of Hiring an in-house SEO expert
- Yearly salary: $60,000 to $120,000
- Benefits: Examples include 401K matching, health insurance, etc. All these add 30% to your salary cost.
- Hiring cost: You’ll spend around $1500 – $2000 to post your vacancy on job forums.
- Software and tools required: You’ll need a range of tools. These include keyword research tools, website monitoring tools, plagiarism checkers, Grammar checkers, ranking trackers, etc.
- Training: SEO is dynamic. It changes often, so you’ll need your employees to get the required training to keep up-to-date. For this, expect to spend around $3000 – $5000 annually. That’s the minimum you should expect to spend.
- Other expenses include office space, utility bills, computers, and equipment.
When you add up the quoted figures, you’ll discover you’re spending over $150,000 on one in-house SEO expert. So, imagine having two SEO experts working to improve your online visibility. That means you’ll be spending over $300,000 per year for two employees alone. Unfortunately, most small and medium-scale businesses cannot afford to spend much on SEO alone.
So, a small or medium-scale startup that has to pay $150,000 a year to hire an in-house SEO has no choice but to seek an alternative. And are there alternatives? Yes, there are.
Here is an unbiased breakdown of what hiring a local SEO company will cost. From the breakdown, you can draw your conclusion.
Cost of Hiring a local SEO company:
- Salary: You don’t pay a basic salary to a local SEO expert from an SEO company. Instead, you sign a contract with the SEO agency for a duration you know your budget can carry you. But since most SEO agencies don’t charge a fortune, you can partner with them for the long term.
- Benefits: No local SEO agency will ask you to pay them a certain benefit. You won’t pay even a penny on benefits. Now, you have saved money and still have an expert running your SEO campaign. No health benefit, 401K matching, etc. So, when you hire a local SEO professional, you’ll save the benefits you were supposed to be paying an in-house SEO expert.
- Hiring cost: You don’t spend a penny to hire a local SEO agency. Search for a local search engine optimization firm online, visit the website, contact them, and choose a package. You can find Local SEO companies, like BitChip Digital, online. And when you hire a local search optimization firm, you’ll save the $2500 you would have spent to hire an in-house SEO expert.
- Software and Tools: The local SEO agency you’re hiring would require software and tools. But the good thing is you’re not the one providing the tools or software to conduct keyword research, track ranking, monitor site performance, and others. A reliable local SEO agency usually invests handsomely in advanced software and tools, so whoever they assign to your project will have access to premium tools needed for the job.
- Training: Regular training is essential in SEO because it changes occasionally. Google’s algorithm changes over 500 times per year, and when it does, website owners must learn about the new updates and optimize their sites accordingly. The good part is that you won’t be responsible for the training of the local SEO agency you’re hiring. It is not your job to pay or ask them to update their knowledge when a new update pops up. When you hire a local SEO expert, you’ll save around $3000 to $5000 on training fees that you probably would have spent on an in-house SEO expert.
Instead of all we mentioned, engaging a local SEO agency is much cheaper. Here are the tentative costs:
- Monthly retainer: The price varies from one local SEO agency to another. But while most SEO companies have taken it upon themselves to make their services affordable for small and medium businesses, some haven’t because of their popularity. Expect to pay around $1000 to $5000 monthly for the monthly retainer. BitChip Digital’s premium SEO service is $1200 monthly, equating to $14,400 annually.
A Handy Tip: Take note of the difference between “affordable SEO services” and “cheap SEO services.” Both are two different terms.
The people running some of the affordable SEO agencies you’ll encounter understand how expensive running a business is. They understand that SEO isn’t a one-off but a long-term thing, so they decide to make their services affordable for small and medium-scale businesses.
The focus of such SEO companies is their clients’ growth. They want to see results and are passionate about helping businesses grow. Affordable SEO companies can help you achieve results similar to those from expensive SEO companies.
- Contract terms: You will contract with a local search engine optimization agency. Most businesses choose contracts of 6-12 months.
- Scope limitation: If you need extra services that fall outside the scope of SEO, you may have to pay additional charges. The extra charges are usually small.
- Communication: You’ll experience less hand-holding when outsourcing your SEO to a local SEO team than when you have an in-house team. Communication won’t be a problem for any reliable local SEO agency. They’ll always be available to respond to your messages and give you feedback occasionally.
- Others: No overhead cost, payroll, HR costs, etc. Just outsource and pay the fee as agreed in the contract.
2: Sound knowledge and experience in local SEO is important:
Fixing a business’ local SEO is a tricky and complicated task. Without sound knowledge or experience in local search engine optimization and how to follow SEO best practices, one might make a terrible mistake.
In local SEO, you need to fix several elements of the website to improve its local search ranking. Your inability to resolve or address them properly will be reflected in the campaign’s results.
You’ll waste time, money, and energy if you attempt to address your business’ local SEO needs with poor SEO knowledge or lack of experience. So, if you plan to handle your site’s SEO by yourself, learn how it’s done. Upgrade your knowledge. Get ready to ditch other aspects of your business that need your time to focus on your site’s local SEO.
If you lack knowledge or experience in SEO, hiring a reliable local SEO agency is your best bet. An SEO agency will handle your website’s SEO, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business that require your attention.
SEO, on its own, is time-consuming. So, let a local search engine optimization agency dedicate time to fixing your SEO while you concentrate on serving your local customers.
3: SEO Mistakes can harm your website:
Google has guidelines it expects every website to follow. The search engine giant doesn’t hesitate to punish websites that violate its policies.
I’ll list a couple of mistakes businesses can make when they choose the DIY SEO path. These mistakes can happen if you try fixing your site’s SEO without proper knowledge.
Here are the SEO mistakes that can harm or even destroy your website’s search engine ranking potential.
- Low-quality content: The damage populating your website with low-quality content can cause is unimaginable. It can harm your website’s integrity and reduce dwell time. Your visitors won’t spend much time on your page before rushing to your competitors because of the poor quality content.
A Handy Tip: Poor-quality articles are likely to suffer poor ranking in SERPs. Google can sniff poor-quality articles through the activities of visitors.
For instance, when people land on your web pages from the search engine and return almost immediately, it signals to Google that your content quality is below par.
How Google works in this case is that the search engine believes if the content is high-quality and valuable, readers will spend more time consuming it. But because they find it valueless and poor, they have decided to leave for your competitors immediately.
A reliable local SEO company knows how to create high-quality and valuable content that will leave readers hungry for more. An SEO expert can create content that appeals to search engines and users.
- Keyword cannibalization: Do you know what this term entails? Before I move further, note that keyword cannibalization is a huge mistake that can negatively impact your site’s ranking.
So, what’s keyword cannibalization? It is a situation where two or more web pages of a website are targeting the same keywords.
When Google finds out that two or more pages of your site target the same keyword, it will rank the low-quality webpage higher than the one presumed to be high-quality.
Keyword cannibalization can occur when you don’t plan your content strategy diligently. You use any keyword that crosses your path and don’t care to check if you have targeted it before.
A business owner trying to do DIY SEO and business together will likely commit this SEO mistake. It might not be intentional, but Google doesn’t care about the intentions but your act.
- Keyword stuffing: You cannot sprinkle keywords in your content however you like. Instead, you have to place them strategically in the content. Your keyword must fit into the sentence naturally and not forcefully.
Keyword stuffing involves unnaturally forcing keywords into a webpage or link. Your readers can spot it when they read through the sentence.
Keyword stuffing can harm the flow of your content. It can negatively impact readability and create a terrible impression about you to users.
A business owner trying to handle the business’ SEO can easily make this mistake. Again, it might not be intentional, but Google doesn’t care about your intentions. It is against its guidelines and will affect that specific webpage’s ranking.
- Poor keyword research: I meant every text in that sentence when I mentioned that SEO is tricky. SEO involves a lot of processes, which makes it complicated. You must conduct keyword research and choose the ideal keyword to yield the best results.
You’ll need tools and knowledge to identify keywords with high-ranking potential. You will consider details about a wide range of keywords to determine which one is the best to target.
You’ll check the keyword volume, CPC, and keyword difficulty (KD) to decide the ideal keyword to target. It is a time-consuming process and can be quite tiring. You can also make the wrong decisions and target keywords that won’t yield the desired results.
A local SEO company knows how to identify keywords with high-ranking potential. They also have premium diverse software and tools to conduct keyword research and compare the results.
If you decide to do your local SEO yourself, you’ll have to purchase the packages, software, and tools that SEO experts use. Imagine using more than ten tools, and you have to pay a minimum of $100 each. That is $1200 (What BitChip Digital, a reliable online marketing company, charges for its premium SEO services).
There are a whole lot of SEO mistakes you can make if you don’t have sound knowledge or experience in SEO. An expert local SEO company won’t make those mistakes.
Why You Don’t Need To Hire A Local SEO Company
If you’re running a local business, have a sound knowledge of SEO, and are ready to update your SEO knowledge from time to time, you don’t need to hire a local SEO company.
You can address your business’s local SEO needs, but ensure you devote time to monitoring the performance of your local search engine optimization strategies and making the required adjustments to improve your search ranking, organic traffic, and online visibility.
You’ll require certain software and tools to do SEO. So, ensure you’re ready to continue subscribing to the premium tools needed for SEO.
If you have the time, knowledge, experience and SEO skill set, you don’t need a local SEO agency. You can handle your local SEO and undergo constant training to upgrade your knowledge occasionally.
Given the cost involved, hiring an in-house SEO team or expert might not be viable. So, outsource your SEO campaign to a local search engine optimization company or be ready to do it yourself.
Conclusion
Why hire a local SEO company to lead your local search engine optimization campaign? The reasons are very clear. Outsourcing or hiring a local SEO agency for your search optimization project is cost-effective. It is more affordable than setting up an in-house SEO team or hiring an in-house SEO expert.
SEO is tricky, time-consuming and comprehensive. So, if you don’t have sound knowledge, there’s no way you can manage your local business’ SEO. You’ll only be wasting your time or making mistakes that could harm your website’s ranking potential.
Hire an online local search engine optimization agency, such as BitChip Digital, to help you manage your local SEO and improve your online local presence. At the same time, you focus on other aspects of your business that need your attention.
