Would you do your own plumbing or electric? Probably not. Deciding on whether to handle your own search engine optimization presents a similar dilemma. There is an exception to the complexity factor, which is if you are in the IT field and are familiar with web scripting, CSS, and comfortable communicating with other website owners to get more visibility to your website.
There are two factors to consider before you make a decision to do your SEO:
- How much is your time worth?
- What’s the learning curve?
In most cases, plumbers and electricians spend a year or more in trade school learning their craft. The same applies to true SEO Experts, who have years of experience optimizing web content, making websites search engine-friendly and capturing quality links from a known and researched list of destinations.
Take a look at your hourly rate and calculate about 3 months to a year of study time learning all the best practices for paid and organic search engine optimization along with CSS scripting our how to hire the right resource, then add the hours involved in actually optimizing the website and paid search campaigns. If the cost is less than a few thousand dollars, then it might be worth it for you to invest the time into becoming an Search Engine Optimizer.
However, if you’re like most people and have a job to do outside of just SEO/SEM, then hiring an SEO Consultant may be the right direction to go with.
Having the right plan or blueprint could make or break your SEO strategy. Be sure you completely understand the cost in time and resources before venturing into SEO yourself, or do some diligence on a few SEO Experts and choose one that you feel comfortable working with.
