The main advantage of doing it yourself (or if you have a larger business, making or hiring a colleague responsible for it) is the degree of control. You yourself are closest to your product or service and your target audience. You are the expert in your field, so you yourself have the most valuable knowledge to share. On top of that, no one is as passionate about your business, service or product as you are.
Arguments to outsource your SEO Netherlands are, first of all, that you just don’t have the time or motivation to set it up yourself. Top SEO Netherlands companies have the experience to roll out a strategy in a short time and know what it takes to make it successful, so the results show themselves sooner. In the short term, it requires a bigger investment, but in the longer term it can therefore be more cost-effective than spending your or a colleague’s time on it.
Also read: 4 Things to Look for When Choosing an SEO Consultant in London
What may SEO outsourcing cost?
To get right to the point: there is no single answer to this.
For one company, a budget of a few hundred euros can already yield gigantic results, while in another market thousands of euros per month are needed to get those coveted first positions.
This need not be a problem as long as the investment pays off. But, it also highlights that SEO can cost you a lot of money.
A sure way to throw your money away with outsourcing SEO is, for example:
- Hiring the wrong company
- Setting the wrong goals
- Not having a clear picture of what you want to achieve with SEO
SEO is not like other work you outsource, where you hire a freelancer to do the tasks and leave again.
Also read: 7 Ways To Boost SEO With Brand Metrics
That’s because SEO is a long-term strategy that takes time for you to reap the benefits. Therefore, it is essential to have a well-defined vision, set clear goals, but above all: find the best SEO company Holland you can trust for a long time.
So it’s especially important to make sure you have a budget in mind, but also that it’s properly measured whether that money is paying off.
The costs of SEO outsourcing should outweigh the returns.
Also read: Importance of SEO To Help Your Business Stand Out
Breakdown of search engine optimisation outsourcing costs
Whether SEO outsourcing is the right choice for your business probably depends largely on the cost picture. Unfortunately, it is impossible to put a fixed price tag on outsourcing search engine optimisation. This is because it depends on several factors:
The market you operate in and the competition (this depends on how much link building is required, for example)
- What your objectives are
- On what kind of terms you want to be found (do you want to be found mainly on questions that are important to your target group, or also on product terms?)
- What is the current state of your website? Is the technology in order, or does it need a lot of work? Is there already authority or is it a completely new website? Does the structure still need to be planned or is it already tiptop?
- Are you going to create the content yourself or should the agency take care of this too?
Also read: Best SEO Courses To Become A Master SEO
Not to mention the SEO agency you have your eye on. Because there can also be considerable differences between agencies.
So the first tip when looking for an agency to outsource your search engine optimisation to is not to just go for the first offer. Ask for a few so that you have something to compare, and also ask them to write a short plan of what they will do with the money.
This is not weird or rude. Most agencies find it only natural that you are comparing before you tie the knot. An SEO agency that doesn’t want to be involved in this is better to ignore from the start.
Also read: Enterprise SEO Tools: Top 10 Choices
SEO Outsourcing in 7 steps with critical questions to ask
But how do you find the right agency to outsource your SEO in the Netherlands to? For starters, you can follow these 7 practical steps. By taking these points into account in your search, you avoid wasting unnecessary money on your campaign.
At each step, you will also find some critical questions, both for yourself and for the (potential) partner you are considering putting your SEO in the hands of. This is to help you get the right information and separate the wheat from the chaff.
Also read: 6 SEO Keyword Research Tips For Beginners
1. Find a reliable partner
The first – and perhaps most important – step is to find the right partner to outsource your SEO to.
A good partner will help you set realistic goals and achieve them. With a bad partner, you spend tons of money without getting anything in return and chances are you will lose your trust in SEO altogether. A shame, of course.
Roughly speaking, you have two choices when it comes to the kind of party to work with.
Also read: SEO Cost: How Much Do SEO Services Cost?
- An independent freelancer
The advantage of freelance SEO specialist hiring is that lines of communication are usually short and the person you talk to on the phone is also the person who will be working on your campaigns. With agencies, you tend to have to deal with account managers.
You also usually save money, because a freelance SEO specialist does not have expensive overheads that an agency has to deal with.
- A marketing or SEO agency
The advantages of hiring an agency are mainly that you get more expertise on your case. For instance, an agency usually has experts in SEO, but also web design, conversion optimisation and content marketing (all pillars that each in their own way also contribute to SEO performance).
Especially if your marketing ambitions (in the longer term) are broader than SEO alone, then a marketing agency is probably the better choice.
Look for an agency where you can start with a budget you feel comfortable with and where you can scale up based on the results. But, don’t stare blindly at the cheapest option.
Also be sure to check out our tips for finding the right search engine optimisation agency.
Also read: Top SEO Companies in Blackpool, England (2022)
- Critical questions
Some critical questions to ask during your selection process:
– How do you decide which search terms to focus on? You want a partner who looks beyond search volumes and number 1 scoring. After all, that doesn’t necessarily make money. Therefore, you would benefit more from a party that determines the focus based on what brings you calls, leads and other conversions.
What kind of content are you going to produce to attract more traffic? Without content, you are not going to be found and SEO content writing is a profession in itself. The right party can convince you – even if you don’t know a thing about it yourself – that they are going to do it the right way.
Also read: Top SEO Agencies in Switzerland 2022
2. Look at the big picture
This ties in with one of the advantages of outsourcing SEO to a dutch SEO consultant, which is that it gives you broad expertise.
Ideally, SEO should be part of a broader, overarching online marketing strategy.
This does not mean that you should now start cranking out every channel at the same time. But, it is wise to take into account that you might want to do that in the long run.
Ideally, you want a party to point out opportunities you are currently missing in your online presence. In other words, without you having to constantly come up with new wishes yourself.
Also read: Why Your Business Needs High-Quality SEO Integration
- Critical question
How do you integrate SEO (over time) with other aspects of online marketing? It is good to have a picture of the other possibilities you have in advance, before engaging with an agency.
3. Make sure you have measurable objectives
Make sure you make clear agreements about the objectives with the person who will carry out your SEO.
When is the started project a success? When can you conclude that the party you hired is not performing as it should?
As mentioned, SEO takes time. So make clear agreements not only on when the collaboration can be called a success, but also on how long the party needs time to prove itself. Pulling the plug on an SEO collaboration after a month makes very little sense. But if nothing has been achieved after a year, it starts to look suspiciously like a waste of money.
Everything on the internet is measurable. So you can translate that into mega concrete targets where it is very clear whether they have been achieved or not. “More free visitors” is not concrete, “doubling organic traffic in the first six months of cooperation” is, for example.
Also read: The Ultimate Guide to On-Page Local SEO in 2022
- Critical question
How do you measure the success of the chosen strategy? When the answer here is “because we achieve number 1 positions”, without any further substantiation of this. After all, what matters is the effect behind those higher positions.
4. Plan of approach
To achieve the set goals, you need a solid plan of action. What will happen in concrete terms to achieve the objectives? Before you outsource you to SEO experts, make sure you have a clear idea of what exactly they intend to do for you.
Because I can’t stress it often enough: SEO is a long-term strategy. So that means having a good plan that works towards the set goal, with intermediate milestones and markers to adjust if necessary.
For this, it is important to know, among other things:
- What do those intermediate goals look like? Think KPIs (key performance indicators)
- What methods does the party in question use to monitor those KPIs? When and how are adjustments made?
- What does the link-building strategy look like? Does the party opt for buying large quantities of links, or does it build its link profile in a qualitative way?
For additional tips to watch out for, we recommend you also read our link building outsourcing article.
Also read: SEO Agency Software: The Top 10
- Critical question
What is your strategy for gathering backlinks? Without links, it is almost impossible to rank higher in Google. It’s a sign to Google that your website has quality content to offer. That is why you want a partner who has a clear idea of how to get those links, which obviously does not involve black hat SEO.
5. Regular monitoring
Of course, you don’t want to find out after a year (or more) of invoices that all that money has disappeared into a bottomless pit and achieved nothing.
An essential part of successful SEO outsourcing, therefore, consists of thorough, regular reporting. Most agencies and freelancers will therefore offer you a monthly report of the results achieved.
More often than monthly does not make sense. After all, SEO does not show tangible results in the short term.
In such a report or conversation, you want to see what actions have been taken and what concrete results have been achieved since the start of the campaign.
Also read: 12 Best SEO Agencies in Layton
- Critical question
What does the service look like after start-up? What service do you provide on a monthly basis? You want to be clear about what you are paying for throughout the campaign when outsourcing your SEO. Not only for the start-up, which often involves a lot of work, but also for the months after.
6. Start modestly and build out
I mentioned it earlier, but there is absolutely no need to start with a budget of thousands of euros per month when outsourcing your SEO. Look for an agency that can deliver the quality you deserve, but that also understands that you would like to build some trust first before you possibly increase the budget.
Either way, it is better to spread an available budget over smaller investments over a longer period of time. After all, SEO needs time to get results.
Once those results are there and you and your partner are convinced there is more to it? Then you can always (partly) reinvest the extra revenue from your increased organic traffic in a higher SEO budget.
Also read: Top SEO Agencies In Austin – Which Is The Best?
7. Work on SEO knowledge in-house
The best way to assess whether SEO outsourcing is successful is to have a basic understanding of the logic behind SEO yourself.
How else can you determine whether the steps taken are logical in light of what gets a website to the top in Google, or whether you are being ripped off?
