SEO Outsourcing

Eventually, your business will get to the point where you need to outsource tasks.

The best tasks to outsource are those in which you don’t have expertise.

SEO is a relatively complicated industry, and that’s why most businesses choose to outsource their SEO efforts rather than trying to master the skill themselves. Excellent choice!

In this article, we’ll be looking at how you can outsource SEO tasks, how you should go about it and what pitfalls to look out for.

Don’t Wait to Outsource

Your time is the most valuable asset that you have. SEO takes a long time to go from action to results so the sooner you can get started the better.

Waiting to outsource is a huge mistake. As soon as you have the budget to start outsourcing, you need to start right away.

Outsourcing will allow you to expand your efforts ASAP and continue to grow revenue.

It’s hard to grow your business when you’re the only one working on it. Outsourcing your SEO efforts means that you can focus on important tasks while one of our experts is hard at work improving your rankings.

Avoid Outsourcing Creativity

There are some tasks which are best to outsource, and there are others that should be kept in-house.

Creative work is more difficult to outsource because it requires the person to understand the complexities of the business.

Instead, it’s best to outsource work that is directional and can be detailed in a list of steps.

This includes some SEO work like keyword research, submissions, and outreach.

It’s challenging to teach people to be creative, and it’s not worth your time. Keep the creativity limited to your internal team and outsource any tasks that get in the way of creativity.

Take a Macro View of Your Business

Before you start outsourcing you need to do a realistic audit of your business.

What tasks are you doing each week and does it need to be you that does them?

We’ve all made the mistake of getting caught up doing menial or ‘busy’ work when we could be spending time working on high-level problems.

Take some time to look at what you and your team are doing and try to spot opportunities for you to improve.

Then, when you’re ready, you’ll know what tasks should be outsourced to make your business operate more efficiently.

Try Several Vendors at the Same Time

If you don’t know exactly what company you want to outsource your work to you could consider trying several vendors at once.

This is an excellent way for you to test the quality, speed, and communication of each provider against each other.

Try ordering the same service from a few companies and see which service you prefer.

It’s unlikely that you’ll pick the right company on your first try. Don’t be afraid to hire quickly and fire quicker. There’s nothing wrong with moving between vendors and finding one that fits your business best.

Track Everything

With so much going on in your business it’s easy to get distracted and lose track of what your outsourcers are doing. To prevent yourself from being taken advantage of and to get the maximum results you need to follow what is being done.

The easiest way for you to do this is to maintain a Google Sheet where the people working on your business can track their efforts, and you can keep a list of what is going on.

There are five main things to track:

Type of Service

Obviously, you want to ensure that the tasks you need are being completed. You’ll want to track the kind of service that the people are performing and this way you have a one-stop-shop for when you need to contact any of the companies you outsource to.

Dates

Firstly, you should be tracking the time that you signed the contract, and the work was begun. This is important for when the project is finished, and you want to assign a score to the company.

Secondly, you should also have a definite completion date. This helps you and the freelancer to know exactly when the work should be delivered.

If you’re using a service like PayPal, they have a dispute deadline of 45-days. In the past freelancers have been known to accept payment upfront and then stretch the work past 45-days before disappearing.

By tracking the start date, you can be careful to avoid any scams and to make sure that services are being delivered in a timely fashion.

Link Data

When you’re outsourcing your link building, you want to keep track of the links that are being built. Not only is this good practice in case there are issues later, but it’s also important to prevent you duplicating links and wasting time.

You should make sure that you are tracking URL’s, anchor texts and any login details for any accounts that were created.

Company Details

It’s always a smart idea to keep records of the company that you are working with. You might want to have the email addresses of the people that you have contacted, copies of contracts and the URL of their website.

Overall Score

When the contract has been completed, and payment is made you should ensure that you score the overall experience. This is a good way for you to keep track of the different services that you use so that you can quickly use this file to hire the best company for the various services that you need.

Test Before Going “All-In.”

Just as you want to try different vendors before you pick one, you should also work your way into an agreement with your chosen provider.

It’s rarely a good idea to go ‘all-in’ right away, instead, make smaller orders and track their performance and the results that you get.

This takes some patience but will prevent you from getting mediocre results or feeling ripped off.

Watch Out for Fake Reviews

As with any industry, there are plenty of digital marketing agencies that use fake reviews to convince people to buy their services.

Fortunately, most of these fake reviews are relatively easy to spot.

You should always look for reviews that include photos of the clients or that tell you the name of the business. This way you can quickly reach out to the business owner and ask what their experience with the company was like.

Taking the time to validate a couple of reviews is a simple way to save yourself from getting burned.

Build Relationships with Good Vendors

When you find a supplier that works well with you and is giving you the results that you want, hold onto them tight.

Finding reliable SEO agencies can be challenging and building better relationships with your vendors will only lead to an even better service.

Always Use PayPal

PayPal is a relatively safe payment platform when compared to other services or even bank transfers.

They almost always stand behind the buyer, preventing you from being scammed by any unscrupulous companies.

It’s also incredibly easy to use. You can link it up to your business credit card and pay directly through PayPal. This payment method gives you PayPal’s dispute system and your credit cards fraud department on your side, should anything go wrong.

Pick Companies Over Freelancers

Although you can find incredible freelancers, it’s often much easier to work with businesses.

Companies have better systems in place to allow them to complete the service without any hiccups. It’s also harder for them to disappear because they’ll be registered with the government.

On the other hand, freelancers can easily disappear from their platform, and it can be difficult or impossible to get in touch with them.

Find a Rockstar

However, if you do choose to go with a freelancer instead of a company you need to find an absolute rockstar.

When you do find a freelancer that works well for you, you’ll find that they are extremely loyal.

They probably don’t have as many clients as a company, and therefore your business is much more important to them than it would be to a company.

It’ll take some time and likely some mistakes for you to find a rockstar freelancer, but when you do, the difference in your business will be night and day.

Be Explicit

If you choose to work with an SEO agency, then everything will be taken care of for you. They will deal with all of the intricacies of an SEO campaign, and they’ll have their own set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that they follow.

However, if you’re hiring a freelancer or a virtual assistant (VA), you’ll need to supply your own set of SOPs to them.

To create a SOP, you should go through the process that you’re outsourcing yourself and write down every detail in extreme detail. The greater the detail, the less chance that it goes wrong.

Then you can offload the SOP to your freelancer, and they can follow your instructions.

In many cases, it’s easier to create a video tutorial that the VA or freelancer can follow.

Conclusion

Outsourcing your SEO is the start of your path to growth. You can save mindshare by letting us handle your SEO, while you focus on the important details of running your business.

Send us an email today and let’s see what we can accomplish together.