Is It Worth Hiring an SEO Expert?

Yes! An SEO expert is definitely worth hiring if you have a website or want to generate sales and leads from search engines. An SEO professional basically improves a website's content, and code and builds authority so it shows up when some search for related topics.

Most people search for products and services on the internet. It can be challenging to find an audience in a world dominated by Google.

You should make changes to your website if it doesn't drive traffic. An SEO expert can assist you with boosting your website's traffic. Thus, generating more leads and sales.

However, hiring an SEO is a big decision because the right person can potentially improve your site and save you time, but the wrong person can damage both.

But before I discuss this issue, let's discuss the following: "Is It Worth Hiring an SEO Expert?". Now let's look at what you might expect from them and when and, when not to hire one.

What Does an SEO Expert Help You With?

The goal of a search engine optimization (SEO) expert is to raise a website's visibility in organic search results on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

The most common skills for SEO are:

1. Google Analytics.
2. Google Search Console.
3. Keyword research.
4. Communication.
5. Data Studio (Dashboards).
6. Content strategy.

Depending on the type of SEO expert you work with, there are several areas in which they are able to provide assistance to you.

An SEO professional can help you in the following ways:

• Take a look at the structure or content of your site: The structure of your site understand your site better. Without a defined structure, your site will just be a random collection of posts and pages. In order to navigate your site, your users will need this structure.
• Successful Content Development: SEO relies heavily on content. A quality content development strategy involves planning, researching, promoting, optimizing, and analyzing performance. It creates a positive experience and builds trust between your brand and your potential customers.
• Analyzing technical aspects of websites: An expert Technical SEO professional can help find the issues related to indexing and also ranking. This includes auditing and finding issues in hosting, redirects,404 error pages, JavaScript, page speed, x-robot-tag, sitemap, robots.txt, etc.
• Creating and managing campaigns for the growth of an online business: Every business needs a different approach and strategy. An SEO consultant can help you create the strategy and manage camping. This involves competitor analysis.
• Research keywords and search terms: While there are a lot of keywords out there, however, it is hard to find the right keyword. The expert SEO professional can help you pick the most profitable keyword by analyzing searchers' intent.
• Link building: Increasing your search engine ranking through link building is a search engine optimization technique. Having a lot of links to a website indicates that its content is worthwhile. An SEO expert can help you to create link-bait content, earned media and links, press releases, etc.
• SEO training: The right SEO experts can teach you what you need to know to boost your website's ranking.

When Should Your Business Hire an SEO Expert?

It is possible for business owners to manage their own SEO on a daily basis. SEO, however, is constantly changing. Besides, your business competitors are investing in SEO. So, you should hire an SEO to accomplish the best practices.

Here are some signs that indicate you need an expert-

1. You aren't getting traffic to your website.

The most effective way to get free traffic is through Google. The problem is getting your content to the top of the results. Most of the time, we do not scroll to the second page to find what we need.

If you are not getting continuous traffic to your site, it means you are not ranking on those search terms that people are searching online. There may several reasons for that i.e

• There is a weakness in your SEO strategy,
• You have a skewed backlink profile,
• The keywords you're targeting are far too competitive for you,
• There is no value in your content,
• The headlines on your website are not click-worthy,
• The user experience on your website is terrible etc.

Well, it's time to strengthen-up your SEO.

2. Websites and pages are not being indexed by Google.

One of the first steps to getting traffic from google is getting your content indexed. 'Indexing' refers to the process of gathering information for the purpose of creating an index of pages or other information. Search engines use indexing to organize content before running a search so that queries can be answered quickly.

If a page is not indexed it means, either, the search engines can't find and crawl that page, or they don't find your content worthy enough to index. In these cases, you will need an SEO to analyze and fix those problems.

3. Developing an SEO strategy.

SEO involves organizing content on a website by topic so that it ranks higher in search results. The goal is to increase organic search engine traffic through a systematic process.

SEO is changed over time. While the content and the backlinks are still the keys to success, there are also several others things that are important today. I.e semantic SEO, structure data, technical SEO, user intent, UX, and many others.

As it is a long-term game and essential for driving traffic to your site. So, you need a solid strategy to beat your competition. You can work on improving your SEO strategies with the help of a professional.

4. Organic traffic has declined.

Site traffic declines for a number of reasons, and in many cases, the trend can be reversed.

• A sudden drop in website traffic usually occurs when search engine algorithms change.
• Website traffic can decline due to several factors, including penalties, redirections, and incorrect robots.txt rules.
• Human error, technical problems, or an error in the reporting system may be at fault.

The right way to address it is by working with an SEO professional. SEO specialists can identify the most likely reasons for your traffic loss, as well as outline an action plan to reverse it.

5. When you have a tight budget

You can support your internal SEO initiatives through a combination of in-house and external SEO if your SEO needs are growing and you don't want to hire more full-time employees.

The average monthly retainer for local SEO services ranges from $300 to $1,000, while the average monthly retainer for national or international SEO services starts at $2,000 and goes all the way up to $10,000.

6. You're redesigning your website.

Unintended consequences may occur when changes are made to a website's domain, content management system (CMS), design, layout, navigation, or permalink structure.

When revamping your website, keep search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. Your SEO strategy should be adjusted whenever your website is updated.

7. You are in a competitive niche.

You'll find fierce competition in any specialized field. However, when the market is oversaturated with competitors, it might be difficult to achieve success with minimal exertion. You may be a part of a highly competitive industry if you own a B2B, healthcare, or e-commerce company. In this scenario, you need a solid strategy and expert/s help to beat your competition.

When You Should Not Hire an SEO?

The following are reasons why you shouldn't hire an SEO expert:

• Your expectation is to achieve success overnight. For SEO to be successful, it requires consistent effort over time.
• You are not willing to make the necessary changes, like creating high-quality content, fixing technical issues, and building backlinks.
• Your website already receives a significant amount of organic traffic from search engines.
• You don't spend the time and money necessary to track and analyze the performance of your website and SEO campaign.

How To Hire a Top SEO Expert or Agency?

Hiring an SEO firm doesn't always imply you'll get a good result. Because this SEO industry is full of scams. In outer words, your SEO campaign will be worth it if you can hire experienced people or agencies.

Here are some tips that you should apply to get better ROI from an SEO expert.

1. Set the goal: The first step before contacting an SEO expert is determining your plan. Learning the fundamentals of search engine optimization (SEO) may be necessary. Then it would help if you approached professionals.
2. Conduct an interview: Describe your goal to SEO the professional you contacted. Also, ask the questions like "How will they get you traffic?", " how much budget and time it may require?" etc. Also, do a background check.
3. Request an audit of your site: It is always a wise idea to request an audit of a person's website before committing to working with them. Take their advice into consideration before accepting it. Was a list of changes made by the specialist sorted by priority and difficulty? There is a general rule that the most critical tasks are the ones that are easy to complete and have the most impact for the most part.
4. Check online resources & references: Now you have the data to crosscheck. Take your time to go through online resources, google webmaster blog to learn more details. This way you will able to find the right person.

Final Thoughts

With the growth of online businesses, so does the number of SEO jobs available, the diversity of those positions, and the range of industries hiring SEO professionals.

Once you have basic SEO skills and processes in place, many SEO best practices can be handled in-house.

If you want to migrate your site or reverse a drop in organic traffic, you are better off hiring a professional SEO.