How to Outsource SEO Services: Techniques, Benefits and Costs

Search engine optimization (SEO) outsourcing services are on the rise. Many companies are prone to redirect their SEO activities to local specialists or beyond the country’s borders to a professional team. 

The main reasons to outsource your SEO services are access to higher expertise, lower costs and a broader talent pool. 

Yet, there are several more things you need to know about how to outsource SEO services correctly, namely:

• What SEO services may you outsource?
• How could SEO outsourcing influence your business?
• What options do you have when outsourcing SEO?
• How can you find a reliable SEO outsourcing vendor?

Continue reading to find answers to these questions and more.

What is SEO Outsourcing?

SEO outsourcing is involving third-party companies or specialists to do your search engine optimization tasks. These may include:

• On-page optimization: Providing keyword research, writing search-friendly meta-description and meta-titles, UX audit, internal links audit and creating SEO-friendly content
• Off-page optimization: Link prospecting and building, writing guest posts, improving your social media activity, email outreach and conducting competitor research
• Technical SEO: A component of on-page optimization referring to improving a website’s code (responsive design, optimizing images, caching information and optimizing HTML)
• Mobile SEO: Optimizing your site for smartphones and tablets (to comply with mobile-friendly updates from Google)
• App Store Optimization (ASO): Optimizing apps to meet app store criteria (improving keywords, descriptions, icons, adding screenshots, implementing localizations and encouraging ratings and feedback)
• YouTube SEO: Optimizing videos to be highly ranked on YouTube (keyword research, offering videos with high retention, optimizing video titles, descriptions and tags, link building and channel optimization)

You may outsource SEO services locally (on-shore), to a neighboring country (nearshore) or even to another part of the world (offshore).

But it’s important to be aware of unlawful practices like black hat SEO. This involves spamming and other methods that do not comply with Google rules, which may lead to penalties like removal from Google indexes. Be sure that your SEO outsourcing services stick to white hat SEO only (strategies consistent with Google guidelines). 

Also, be careful not to mix up white hat and white label SEO. 

The term white label SEO refers to SEO reselling. It’s the practice of a company offering search engine optimization services provided by their contractors – that is, without having an in-house team or an SEO specialist.

When Should You Consider Outsourcing SEO Services?

If you don’t have confidence that you can handle your SEO project on your own, it may be time to involve SEO outsourcing services and get multiple benefits to your business, including these:

Focus on Your Business

Working with a dedicated SEO team, you’ll be able to accept more projects and expand your client base. You can be focused on developing your skills and working on strategic tasks rather than spending time on learning which SEO practices will work best for your business. 

Access to More Talents

When hiring SEO outsourcing services, you effectively fill the gaps in knowledge and expertise because you’re hiring a team that fully understands every aspect of this task. Even better, you get valuable insights from professionals and can tune your site according to cutting-edge trends to stay ahead of your competition.

Cost and Time Reduction

Hiring an SEO team to outsource search engine optimization eliminates the hassle of taking an SEO specialist onboard. Also, an outsourced team cares about their reputation and will give you the expected result at a manageable cost.

Unified Solution for SEO

When employing SEO outsourcing services, you apply a unified and structured approach to all your website optimization and, as a result, receive the best SEO results.

Streamlined Business Processes

When you bring in professionals for SEO outsourcing services, you may find yourself with more time, money and energy to spend on improving your organization.

Options to Consider When Outsourcing SEO Services

There are multiple options to outsource SEO services from. Each has its benefits and points to consider. Here’s the list of variants from which you can outsource SEO and what you can expect.

SEO Software

This refers to free or paid tools like SEOptimer, providing you with the automated audit, report and recommendation on improving your resource. It’s a great option to do quick fixes, like add an Alt name to an image or add more text to your web page. 

Yet, when it comes to effective page optimization, you will still need professional human interaction.

Freelance SEO Experts

Multiple freelance platforms offer a great pool of talent to outsource SEO services at an attractive financial proposition. But this option may have some downfalls, like poor or slow communication or lack of proof of talent. 

When looking for a freelancer, use platforms that provide a solid background check like Upwork or Freelancer.com.

SEO Contractors

This is a transitional option between a freelancer and an SEO company. SEO contractors are a team of SEO specialists that unite to split responsibilities and, in this way, streamline operations.

SEO Outsourcing Companies

SEO outsourcing companies may be the best option to reduce time and effort while bringing in the highest level of expertise with a proven background and well-established collaboration procedures. 

If you have difficulties in finding a reliable company for SEO outsourcing, you may also get help from SEOblog, a matchmaking platform for companies looking for the best providers to outsource search engine optimization. 

Digital Marketing Firms

Since SEO outsourcing services form part of a broader marketing strategy, this option is almost always included in digital marketing companies’ offers. This is a great option if you need to outsource all of your marketing activities. 

But if your interests are centered around SEO only, some marketing companies offer limited services on this specialization.

Possible Costs of SEO Outsourcing Services

The future costs of SEO outsourcing depend on:

• Vendor price
• Size of the market to target
• Level of competition
• Services provided
• Length of the project

Here, we break down the costs to outsource SEO services provided for a small, medium and enterprise-level company.

How to Find a Reliable SEO Outsourcing Service Provider: Your 3-Step Process

Multiple platforms provide lists of SEO outsourcing services. These may be of great use when you start searching for an outsource SEO team. The SEOblog portal, for example, offers a selection of 2300+ SEO companies specializing in 13 industry branches, from beauty to real estate.

It is recommended to follow the three simple steps below to choose just the right SEO outsourcing vendor.

1. Define Your Exact Goals for SEO Services

Before you start interviewing a potential SEO partner, you need to know the following:

• Business objectives and strategy
• Details about the company’s products and/or services
• Buyer persona of your business
• Summarized current digital marketing practices
• Platforms on which your business is present
• Approximate budget for SEO services
• Expertise and skills you need from contractors
• Possible team size

Once you know this, you can move on to prospecting SEO providers.

2. Shortlist Potential SEO Service Providers

You may find tons of SEO outsourcing services on resources like SEOblog or by searching on the web – but your task is to make the right choice. To do so, follow this procedure:

1. Pay attention to rating and reviews
2. Ask if they can provide any reference
3. Check the team’s skillset and the level of expertise

3. Evaluate Your Candidates for Outsourcing SEO Services

Evaluating the candidates to outsource SEO services successfully is a hard task. Here’s a short guide on how to make it in just seven steps:

1. Background check (SEO vendor’s history on the market, main specialization, the level of expertise, similar tasks completed and pricing model)
2. References (number of completed projects, type of the companies they worked with and list of references)
3. Capabilities of the SEO outsourcing companies (company’s structure and size, level of skill, type of services provided and the company’s flexibility)
4. Company culture (cultural differences, languages the employees speak and processes to regulate communications)
5. Tools (suitable tools of communication, management regulations inside the company, working methodologies and logging)
6. Quality standards (certifications, cross-checking and other methods to assure the quality of the work)
7. Legal (agreements the company offers to sign, compliance with security and privacy guidelines and NDA)

Bottom Line: Outsourcing SEO Services

If you want to mitigate risks and make sure your experiment with SEO outsourcing will have a successful ending, you may try starting with the most necessary tasks and go to a larger scale in the future.

Also, don’t forget to identify technical goals and plan your budget and timeline before taking on the task to outsource SEO service. If you stick to the NDA agreements, agree on the payment plan and set effective communication, you’ll be able to benefit from your outsourcing activity to the fullest.