Creating a strong presence online through SEO practices is a foundational stepping stone in the development of a business or company. When first starting a business you may not have the means to begin SEO right away or maybe you feel like your business isn’t ready yet. However, there will always come a certain time where you as a business owner will need to weigh your options in to how you can best develop a strong online presence in a manner that is smart and efficient for your business. Realistically, the sooner you begin building an online presence the better.
There are really two paths to beginning SEO practices and building up your businesses online presence. You can look into hiring a group of professionals such as ourselves (Yay!) or if you don’t think your business is quite ready for that yet you can look in to doing SEO yourself.
The truth is you don’t have to be a genius to perform some effective SEO practices for your business on your own, but you do also need time and a comprehension of certain principles. It becomes a matter of weighing the pros and cons and what you can handle on your end really. You need to decide for yourself what your business needs as compared to what you can shoulder on your own. We thought it might be helpful to list some factors that we feel are important to consider when deciding which path towards SEO you want to take!
1. SEO Takes Time
Performing local SEO on a website is not something that can be done in one fell swoop in one night, one week, or even one month. You build it up slowly over a course of several months and it is somewhat of a grind before you start seeing real results. You can get to the point down the road where once you’ve build a strong foundation you don’t have to spend as much time on it as you were in the beginning. It is kind of like water a plant. In the beginning it takes time for the plant to grow and bloom, but once it does you still need to water it a little each day for it to remain healthy.
2. SEO Requires a Willingness and Knowledge To Change Your Website
If you’re going to perform effective SEO then you need to be willing to make internal changes to your website. Once you are willing to make changes to your own website you are left with a decision. If you are familiar with the inner workings of your own site you can begin to make SEO focused changes yourself. If not, you can look for advice from experienced people or you can hire someone to make the changes for you. No matter what you have to ready and willing for your site to change, it is just a matter of whether you feel up to the task yourself or not.
3. You Have To Work On Things Other Than Your Website As Well
Your website is important to SEO. However, it isn’t just making changes to your website that matters when it comes to performing quality SEO. Things like online reviews, links that direct back to your website, and having your website placed in local listings is also important for building a good SEO footprint for your website. These things take time as well and the thing is too that your competitors will also be getting reviews, links, and listings. So you have to stay on top of these things in order to stay in the game.
4. Your Strongest Competitors Are Doing SEO Too
If your motivation for performing SEO is to get on level or get ahead of your competitors then you must go in knowing that whatever you are doing they are likely doing the same. You’re going to need the time to put in the work that is needed to keep up with everyone else. The main things that take time with SEO are building links back your website, managing and earning reviews, and creating quality content about your business for your website.
5. Opportunity Cost
Opportunity cost refers to the value a person could have received but passed up in pursuit of another option. Basically, if you are going to spend time as a business owner working on SEO for your website, what other business objectives would that be taking you away from? It is an important question to weigh as most business owners already have very big plates in front of them in the day to day running of your business.
If working on SEO will take more time than you need it to and will take you away from other important matters then maybe it is in your best interest to hire someone from the outside to take care of it. Or maybe you do have the time available you and it is within your reach. It is an important question to ask yourself.
6. Return On Investment
The last thing to consider is your potential return on investment between the two scenarios of developing SEO. By working on SEO yourself you could potentially be saving money by not paying an outside company to do the work, but you may also be losing money elsewhere as you are not able to focus on certain areas of your business as much given the attention SEO requires. Or maybe you’re in a situation where you won’t be losing any money in other places by giving attention to SEO.
On the flip side, by paying a little more for an outside company to come and do the work for you there is potential there to get a good return on investment as well. You’ll be able to give more attention to other things across your business and if you hire the right outside company to help you with SEO then you will certainly be making more money than you are paying.
All of these factors are worth considering when your business is at the point where SEO is a must. You don’t have to go in alone but maybe you can or want to. There is no wrong way to go about it! However, it is wise to weigh all your options equally and consider where you are and where you want to be.
If you want to learn more about SEO and specifically about what SEO companies can do for you, visit our homepage at https://apollollc.com//
