SEO has been a buzzword in marketing for years now, and it’s going to stay that way for years to come.
When people have a question they need an answer to, they look for it online. In fact, when we now look for something online, we don’t “search for it” any longer — we Google it.
As a business owner, you probably understand the importance of SEO to scale your business online. Duh! Why else would you be here reading this blog post?
This blog will help you understand what kind of SEO experts you should work with: SEO consultants or an SEO agency.
Let’s dive right in!
What is an SEO Consultant?
An SEO Consultant is a professional who offers expert advice on how businesses can boost their organic search rankings.
They bring one-on-one information and provide strategic guidance, training, and customized services for your company.
However, when it comes to implementation and execution, they don’t often have the knowledge or resources to do that compared to SEO agencies.
If you choose to work with an SEO consultant, it’s crucial to ensure they have a deep background in SEO and have years of experience helping businesses improve their SEO positioning.
They should be able to showcase the results they’ve achieved for clients in the past.
You should expect the SEO consultant to be intimately familiar with the inner workings of SEO and how your business can create and promote content to attract the right visitors to your website.
If you have a robust internal development team to implement SEO recommendations effectively, you can work with an SEO consultant.
What does an SEO Consultant do?
An SEO consultant is an expert at analyzing your website’s performance and identifying major weaknesses and opportunities that you can leverage to drive results.
Most SEO consultants conduct technical and content audits to gain a better understanding of the current state of your website’s performance. They then create a detailed SEO action plan and leave the implementation to your internal team.
You can also find SEO consultants who specialize in training your in-house team about SEO best practices.
Companies need to figure out what they need from an SEO consultant before looking for the best fit for their business.
Some consultants have a specific field of expertise in SEO. They may market themselves as link-building experts, technical SEO experts — you get the idea.
It’s a good idea to work with an SEO consultant if you want to focus on a single aspect of SEO, like improving your backlink health.
What is an SEO Agency?
An SEO agency is a team of experts who have the knowledge and experience needed to assess, monitor, and implement a comprehensive SEO campaign for your company.
One of the most significant advantages of working with an SEO agency is that instead of simply providing an SEO strategy for your internal team to execute, SEO agencies are deeply involved in the execution process and do most of it for you.
If you don’t have a dedicated team, experience, or the resources needed to manage an SEO campaign effectively, working with an SEO agency is an excellent choice.
SEO agencies have extensive experience working and generating results for businesses like yours. They know what works and what doesn’t to improve your brand’s SEO positioning on Google, Bing, and other search engines.
They have a dedicated team of SEO experts who specialize in various fields of SEO. This combined experience is extremely valuable because SEO agencies know exactly what has to be done to generate effective results.
If you are looking for experts to take over the entire SEO side of your business, working with an SEO agency is a great choice.
You may find some SEO agencies that focus solely on providing expert SEO services. On the flip side, larger firms offer a wider range of services like social media marketing, web designing, PPC advertising, and more.
If you’re looking for the other services offered by these larger agencies, you should definitely go ahead with them.
However, smaller boutique SEO-only agencies offer a laser focus on SEO.
Why should you work with an SEO Consultant or SEO Agency?
Do you really need to work with an SEO expert?
Maybe you have knowledge about SEO; can’t you just handle it yourself?
Yes, you can.
But here’s the thing.
SEO best practices are constantly evolving.
Google (and other search engines) have an annoying habit of constantly updating their algorithm.
Therefore, unless you stay on top of these new updates, you may fall prey to implementing an outdated SEO strategy that may not work anymore, or worse, harm your website’s SEO.
We’ll be honest with you; SEO is too complicated and crucial for your business for you to trust someone who doesn’t know exactly what they’re doing.
It takes SEO experts years to master their field of choice, and that’s not the kind of time you can afford to waste if you want your business to see results.
Simply put, hiring an SEO expert and spending the time and resources to build a strong SEO foundation for your website will have a considerable impact in the future of your business.
What can an SEO consultant or SEO Agency help you with?
1.They help you focus on the right things.
SEO is a vast field, so it’s no surprise that there are a ton of strategies that you can implement.
While this means that there is a lot of room for growth, it also means that there’s just as much room for you to waste your time.
More often than not, business leaders new to SEO find themselves wasting a lot of time and resources executing SEO strategies that barely move the needle.
Working with an SEO consultant or SEO agency will help you access your website and build a plan to prioritize things that will drive the best results for your business.
2.The results will grow stronger for years to come.
It takes a while for you to see the results of your SEO efforts — at least a few months. However, one of the best aspects of SEO is that when you do it right, you can enjoy the results that grow more powerful with time.
Every SEO strategy you implement benefits the next one.
For example, let’s say you run a technical audit to fix the errors on your website and optimize it according to SEO best practices.
This will help Google take notice of the fantastic content you’re creating, making it easier for you to rank for relevant search terms and improve your backlink health.
3.Avoid mistakes that affect your growth.
When you’re new to SEO, it’s easy to make mistakes that have the potential to set back your business.
If one of these mistakes costs you a penalty from Google, it’s tough to recover from that.
Therefore, it’s critical for businesses to work with SEO experts who know what you should do — and what you shouldn’t do.
Furthermore, they can run an in-depth audit on your website and help you identify and rectify any SEO mistakes that are currently affecting your business.
4.They stay on top of algorithm updates.
As mentioned earlier, search engines (especially Google) update their algorithm constantly.
Experts say that Google does it at least 500 to 600 times every single year.
However, when you work with an SEO consultant or SEO agency, they stay on top of every little thing that shakes up the world of SEO, so you don’t have to.
Instead, you can focus on what you do best — your business.
5.They help you improve your search engine results.
A skilled SEO professional is your best chance at improving your SERPs ranking on search engines like Bing and Google.
They leverage the latest knowledge, tools, and strategies to optimize your website and boost your brand’s authority in the eyes of Google.
At Teranga, we’ve identified the four levers of SEO.
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Technical SEO,
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On-page SEO,
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Content creation and
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Link Building
By focusing on these four pillars of SEO, we help businesses rank higher for relevant keywords in their industry and attract the right audience who have a high potential of converting into their customers.
SEO consultant vs. SEO agency.
Pros of working with an SEO consultant.
1.Cost-effective.
Working with an SEO consultant is a cost-effective option because it’s easier to negotiate when dealing with a single person.
They have minimal overhead expenses, primarily since they don’t employ too many people by themselves.
2.Accountability.
An SEO consultant doesn’t have many people on the team. Therefore, they can’t dodge responsibilities or pass them on to someone else. You can hold them accountable in a personal sort of way.
3.One-on-one consulting.
This is probably one of the biggest benefits of working with an SEO consultant.
Your project is not outsourced, and you’ll have one-on-one access to the SEO consultant you decide to work with.
Furthermore, working with a single expert means there isn’t much space for other confusing opinions.
4.Personalized service.
When you work with an SEO consultant, you will directly work with the person who will roll up their sleeves for your business.
While they may have other clients, they will be highly responsive and provide personalized service.
They are also more open to being flexible and can fit their services according to your company’s needs.
5.Complement your team’s capabilities.
If you already have people in your team who can handle SEO-related tasks, working with an SEO consultant can be a good choice for your business.
For example, let’s say you have a developer and a content writer on your team; they will be able to implement most of the strategies shared by the SEO consultant.
In such a scenario, it makes sense to hire an SEO consultant rather than an SEO agency with overlapping professions.
Cons of working with an SEO consultant.
1.Lack of diversification.
As we’ve already mentioned, an SEO consultant will have their own parameters about the kind of SEO services they offer.
An SEO consultant may not have the resources to call for answers outside his field of expertise. They may either have to rope in a partner or redirect you someplace else.
2.Communication issues.
SEO consultants work with several clients at a time. This means they may not be able to give their full attention to your business and SEO.
While this is the same reason why they may be a cost-effective option (since you share their time with other businesses), you might only gain like 15% to 20% of their time in total — which is not ideal.
3.Lack of different perspectives.
More often than not, an SEO consultant works alone. They may not always be able to look at your project from different angles when they’re working alone.
You must have heard of this phrase — two heads are better than one.
When working alone, there is a high potential for things to slip between the cracks unless they have a vast amount of experience working with businesses in a similar situation as yours.
4.They don’t execute.
An SEO consultant usually only deals with planning the SEO strategy for your business.
They don’t implement these plans; it’s up to you and your business to hire a programmer or a content creator to execute the SEO campaign the consultant has built for you.
This adds to the overall expenses.
If you’re looking for an SEO expert who can not only build an effective SEO strategy for your business but also implement these strategies for you, working with an SEO consultant may not be the best option for your business.
5.Not a great fit.
Like any other employee that you may hire, the SEO consultant may not always be a perfect fit for your business,
Here’s the thing.
Auditing and building an effective SEO strategy requires a thorough understanding of your business. Therefore, working with an SEO consultant who may not fit your company may be a time-consuming and expensive mistake.
Before you kick off the partnership, it’s critical to understand the prospective consultant’s core expertise, experience working with companies similar to yours, working dynamics, and analyze any client success stories or case studies they can share.
Pros of working with an SEO agency
1.Collective knowledge.
When you work with an SEO agency, several brilliant SEO minds are engrossed in building the best SEO strategy for your businesses.
Within an SEO agency, experts can bounce ideas off one another and find a fresh perspective for an account should they need it.
This is probably the most significant (some may even call it unfair) advantage that we feel SEO agencies have over SEO consultants.
Secondly, an SEO agency provides a collection of SEO experts with diverse specializations. Each of them is equipped to manage specific scenarios.
An SEO agency has professionals who have a particular focus and work together to deliver the best results for your business.
2.Freedom to do what you do best
Let’s set aside the fact that it takes years to master SEO. It still takes a considerable amount of time and effort to stay on top of the latest updates and put all of this knowledge to use.
Furthermore, SEO isn’t a one-time thing.
As you continue to grow your business, scale your website, add new pages, and generate fresh content, you must simultaneously ensure everything that goes on your site is optimized.
Additionally, everything that is already on your website needs to stay optimized according to the latest trends.
If you take up the responsibility of the SEO aspect of your website, it’s surely going to take away your attention from what you do best.
When you work with an SEO agency, they take care of all the SEO-related aspects of your business 24/7 while you focus on your area of expertise.
3.You save money.
Yes, working with an SEO agency can be expensive (we’ll discuss why in the next section), but it isn’t as expensive as building an in-house SEO marketing team.
To build an in-house SEO team, you’ll need to invest significantly in training, equipment, software — and how can we forget their salaries?
Partnering with an SEO agency allows you to leverage their robust team of professionals and the resources they have at their disposal at a much lower cost than building and maintaining an in-house team of SEO professionals.
4.They have extensive experience working with businesses like yours!
SEO agencies have experience working with businesses from different industries and niches. Therefore, they have an in-depth understanding of the SEO strategies that work best for different industries.
An SEO agency will probably have worked with businesses like yours in the same niche.
If they have achieved good results for them, it will be easy for them to build an effective SEO strategy for your business.
Cons of working with an SEO agency
1.They’re expensive
SEO agencies come with multiple experts working together to boost your company’s SEO positioning.
Therefore, it should come across as no surprise that working with an SEO agency costs a lot more than working with an individual SEO consultant.
Another reason why they’re expensive is because of the comprehensive nature of services that an SEO agency provides and the potential outcome your business can achieve.
However, even with this premium pricing, SEO agencies don’t guarantee results.
At Teranga, we care about the results we can generate for you. This is why we offer an ROI guarantee on our B2B SEO services.
2.They may not be the right fit.
Not every SEO agency is going to be a good fit for your business.
It’s critical to find an agency that is a good cultural fit, which may require some trial and error. However, this can be expensive.
At Teranga, we prefer to get on a short discovery call to understand your business and see if we are a good fit to work with you.
We are a small boutique company; therefore, we don’t have the capacity to take on more than a handful of clients at a time.
So it’s critical for us to find businesses we know we can help achieve excellent results.
If we’re not a good fit, we’ll tell you upfront. We’re brutal like that.
Additionally, most agencies lock you into a 6-month program, which can cause issues again if you’re not a good fit culturally.
Again, at Teranga, we offer a Foundational program of 30-days where you can work with us and see if we are a good fit before you commit to a more extended program.
Feel free to book a no-strings-attached discovery call with Teranga today if you’d like to know more about how we can help you.
So, who should you choose? SEO Consultant or SEO Agency?
After reading through this blog, you probably have a much better understanding of who is better suited for your business.
If you are a small company and don’t have a huge marketing budget but understand that you need SEO knowledge to train your employees, optimize your website, and stay on top of the algorithm updates — an SEO consultant may be better suited for you.
However, if you are looking for someone to build and manage your SEO campaign for you, and have the budget for it, go for an SEO agency!
