How to Outsource SEO: A Comprehensive Guide

This is when outsourcing SEO and working with an agency with specialists can provide the greatest benefit for boosting your website’s organic performance.

Whether you’re a small business looking to improve your local listing, or a large enterprise battling in the highly competitive search market, when you outsource SEO projects to a capable agency you are setting your business up for long term success. 

Here’s how to successfully engage with an SEO outsourcing agency, and the types of services that you can outsource.

There are hundreds of agencies in the market that will offer you top SEO results. Therefore, it’s important to differentiate between a strong, performance driven agency that will be a good fit, and a churn-and-burn agency that may be more of a hindrance than a support.

A specialist agency may have more expertise in a specific area, such as local SEO or technical optimisation. They have the experience and access to industry contacts and regular updates that can provide a more in-depth, technical approach to SEO services.

On the other hand, a generalist agency may offer a wider range of services and have a more holistic approach to SEO. For example, they may produce an overall digital marketing strategy that combines SEO, content creation, Google ads and email marketing, rather than focussing on one specific channel. However, while a generalist agency might be able to offer a wide range of solutions, they might not have the in-depth technical expertise and industry knowledge that a specialist agency does (note, this is not always the case).

Should I hire an SEO company? It is an important question to ask and a decision to make, as you will be investing in an external team that can have a significant impact on not only your short-term results but the long-term performance of your digital marketing strategy.

Consider asking your potential SEO agency the following questions before deciding to outsource:

• Can you provide examples of successful SEO campaigns you have executed in the past and share the results achieved?
• Can you conduct an SEO audit of our website and provide recommendations for areas of improvement?
• What level of communication should we expect from working together? Will this include weekly catch-ups, monthly reporting, quarterly reviews etc?
• What results do you believe we can achieve with a limited budget as opposed to a bigger budget?

It’s important to consider how different SEO agencies will respond to these questions as there’s not necessarily a right answer to each of them. It’s what works best for your business, your team, and your budget, taking into account the average price for SEO services.

Like the name suggests, this optimises the various elements on your website pages to improve their visibility on the search engine results page. For example, this includes optimising your meta tags, headings, URLs, and internal linking structure. A professional SEO agency can conduct keyword research, refresh your page content, and ensure that your website follows best practices for a faster loading time, and to appear higher on search results with more user-focussed content.

This refers to SEO tactics that are performed outside of your website to improve its online reputation and authority. This typically includes building high-quality backlinks from reputable websites, building reviews, and online reputation management through media releases and the like. This is valuable to improve your website's visibility and credibility.

Technical SEO is the process of optimising the technical aspects of your website to ensure search engines can crawl, index, and understand your content. This involves analysing factors like website speed, mobile-friendliness, crawlability, and site architecture. An SEO agency like Rocket can conduct a comprehensive technical audit of your website and implement necessary changes to enhance its performance and user experience.

Local SEO improves your visibility in local search results, such as ‘hairdressers near me’. This is particularly important for businesses with a physical location that would like to  target customers in specific geographic areas. An SEO agency can optimise your Google My Business profile, ensuring accurate and up-to-date information, managing customer reviews, and building local citations.

Content marketing plays a crucial role in SEO. Creating high-quality and relevant content not only attracts and engages your target audience but also helps build your website's authority and visibility. An SEO agency can develop a content marketing strategy tailored to your business that’s backed by through keyword research and competitor analysis. They can also implement effective link building strategies to acquire backlinks for other websites that have high authoruty, further enhancing your website's visibility and rankings.

For businesses operating in the e-commerce space, specialised e-commerce SEO services are crucial. In particular, a focus is placed on improving product pages, site architecture, and enhancing your user experience. An SEO agency experienced in e-commerce can help your products rank high on Google’s shopping feed and thus drive targeted traffic, increase conversions, and boost online sales!

Apart from executing specific SEO services, an SEO agency can provide valuable consultation and develop a comprehensive SEO strategy tailored to your business goals. They can analyse your industry, competitors, and target audience to identify opportunities and devise an effective roadmap for long-term success. This is an important step that helps you balance your SEO budget to the SEO activities that will drive the best results for your website.