SEO specialist - consultant, agency or freelancer?

If you are serious about your e-shop or website, I dare say that optimization for search engines, or SEO, must be understood. If you are not sure what the term SEO means, we will explain it to you in our article. Today, there are many variants of how to improve SEO, so we will describe these variants. Each has its pros and cons, so it is necessary to carefully consider which option is the most suitable for your particular case.

We will divide the article into sections:

1. Who is an SEO consultant?

2. How does an SEO agency work?

3. Who is an SEO freelancer?

4. Which option is the most effective?

Who is an SEO consultant?

An SEO consultant is a very experienced specialist who would give his advice a so-called "hand to the fire". It is someone that you as a business can hire for a certain number of hours. The hourly rate is usually not less than 1500 CZK per hour, which is not a high cost at all if the consultations bring know-how that you will benefit from for several years to come. In SEO, the trends are not as variable as in PPC advertising, and therefore it is not necessary to follow the latest trends that Google is reporting. The consultant usually analyzes your website using verified tools such as Google Search Console, Collabim, Marketing Miner or Google Analytics. These three main tools, review the historical data your e-shop has collected and then evaluate whether your work with search engines is paying off. It is also important to mention that an SEO consultant should be able to analyze both technical and content SEO.

After a basic analysis, he typically interviews both the website or e-shop manager and the copywriters, as they have a direct influence on the organic results.

Once the consultant has collected enough data and information, he prepares a thorough report with a list of recommendations, which he then presents to the manager or owner. After the presentation, there may also be consultations directly with the copywriters, which can already be considered employee training. We have experienced consultants in our team, so if you want a professional, don't hesitate to contact us HERE.

How does an agency that mediates SEO services work?

This variant is very common mainly because the agency has its own specialists and team leaders who control the specialists and understand SEO either equally or even more than the specialist. This gives you double competent control over the modifications on your e-shop, which is certainly very beneficial.

IMPORTANT! SEO cannot be evaluated after a short period of time, again compared to PPC, SEO is mainly viewed from a long-term point of view, so please avoid hasty conclusions after a month of cooperation.

Therefore, the direct specialization of the given person in the marketing agency remains an advantage, which can bring the best possible SEO result.

At what price?

Agencies are not cheap these days, and if they are, run away from them fast. If you want someone who works for a living and SEO is his main hobby as well as his job, then you will pay extra. Agencies usually have around 1300 CZK/hour, some less, some more. This brings us to the disadvantages of marketing agencies in terms of SEO management - SEO is a continuous process that is very time-consuming, from which it can be easily deduced that if you want to outsource services, then, firstly, you will pay extra, and secondly, you will not have direct control over what's happening on the site. If this doesn't suit you, we recommend hiring an in-house junior SEO specialist who we'll be happy to train and improve your Google rankings for you at a minimal cost. Use the link here and let's arrange a free, no-obligation consultation.

How does an SEO freelancer work?

Freelancers are often hired by larger companies, as their hours are high and time capacities are low. On the other hand, their know-how is usually top-notch since it's their only livelihood, which means they really want to help clients because they understand they'd lose them otherwise :) In bigger agencies, I don't think specialists have that strong relationship with the client such as small agencies or freelancers. After a while, this reflects on the client vs. agency and cooperation breaks down. I have that kind of experience, which is why our Brand Elevator agency only has a few clients that we pamper and we don't want it to happen that we throw the client's questions between us, which sometimes happens in big agencies.

The disadvantage of a freelancer can also be scalability because we all have similar capacities in one month, and if you want to let a freelancer dig through 1000 products, it is simply not realistic, which is not the case with an agency, as they usually have a network of specialists and many contacts around.

Why not manage SEO yourself, i.e. in-house?

The disadvantage of an agency turns into an advantage here, because if you have your own SEO specialist, you have direct control over his adjustments, you can interview him at any time and adapt his tasks to the company's current strategy. This is how Alza, for example, has it set up, which relies on an in-house team of professionals who flexibly edit the e-shop. That sounds beautiful, doesn't it? BUT! Finding an experienced SEO specialist is not at all easy these days, and if your business doesn't have thousands of products and hundreds of categories, you probably won't hire or pay him full-time. Personally, I think nowadays it is more profitable to hire 2 junior specialists for a lower salary and train them in the latest trends and recommended, proven practices in terms of SEO management. Our company can prepare your future colleagues in such a way that they will be independent and will mainly know how much weight to assign to the given tasks. This gives you a full-time in-house employee who can, for example, manage SEO for half the time, but add new products for the other half, for example. Great, right? So contact us, we have a lot of experience with this.

Which cooperation option is the most suitable?

It depends! :) Each company has a different structure, strategy and perspective on outsourcing. I can personally recommend all variants, each one has something to offer. I think that it makes the most economic sense to have an internal junior employee + an SEO consultant who will train your junior employees in a few days and then periodically check their tasks. Employees will not be "SEO GURU" overnight, but in a few weeks, they can learn a lot and bring the SEO effect the company needs. Compared to an agency, you can get 1/3 the cost if we compare the hourly rate of the agency/freelancer and your in-house staff.