Taking SEO Inhouse (The Hidden Costs and Wins)

INTRO:
It's time for the SEO show, where a couple of nerds talk search engine optimization so you can learn to compete in Google and grow your business online. Now here's your hosts, Michael and Arthur.

MICHAEL: Hello and welcome to the SEO show. I'm Michael Costin. I'm joined by Arthur Fabik and this week, wow, that's a new intro. This week we are talking about taking SEO in-house because sometimes people like to do that, don't they? They do. Have you ever wanted to take SEO in-house?

ARTHUR: Oh, well, I don't do SEO for, I don't have a business. You've never felt the urge.

MICHAEL: No, you threw me off with this.

ARTHUR: Very, very, very quick introduction.

MICHAEL: Listen, I'm listening. It's never been our strong point introductions.

ARTHUR: So just skip past them. Let's get into the, get through it. What is it, meat and veg? Meat and potato. Meat and potato?

MICHAEL: That's what I reckon. SEO in-house. Meat and veg is like, not as exciting.

ARTHUR: No, potato is definitely better.

MICHAEL: When you think of meat and veg, what are you going? What's your go-to?

ARTHUR: Meat and veg. I think like roast lamb and potato, roast potato.

MICHAEL: No, but that's meat and potatoes.

ARTHUR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: I think of maybe some lamb, but a bit of carrot.

ARTHUR: Anyway, in-house SEO. Let's talk about in-house SEO.

MICHAEL: Let's get into it. Not in-house SEO, taking SEO in-house. Yes. When should you, when shouldn't you? Yeah. Now, funnily enough, we work in an SEO agency.

ARTHUR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: So we're not going to say never take it in-house. There are times that you might take it in-house.

ARTHUR: Definitely. Yeah.

MICHAEL: But there are times where you might take it in-house and shoot yourself in the foot. It's going to be a nasty, horrible experience that you might not have even thought about all the ins and outs of. So we're going to try to give our very unbiased, biased opinion on taking SEO in-house.

ARTHUR: Yeah. Look, it's not even biased, unbiased. It's just we know what we've seen clients do it in the past. So we can tell you the actual realities of doing it. Yeah. And it doesn't work all the time.

MICHAEL: Yeah. And look, I get it. It makes sense. Like if you're a business owner, you look at your P and L statement every month, every week, whatever you do, or you have an accountant coming to you, like you need to cut costs and they go through.

ARTHUR: Do you think that there's like a certain, like a certain number, a certain retainer number that would trigger that thought? Yes, absolutely. So what, what do you think it is? Like if, if you're going into, let's just say like.

MICHAEL: I reckon eight, eight grand a month or more. At any point where it is feasible to hire someone and you can say, well, they're going to be in my business. They're going to be on it full time. It's going to be better than having this agency that I'm just one of a few clients. That's when those thoughts might start to pop up.

ARTHUR: So like anything AK North of AK.

MICHAEL: Around that, yeah. Yeah. Because maybe a bit less even. Yeah, potentially. Depends, because sometimes clients think they can just go out and hire someone for 60 grand a year that's going to just sprinkle magic SEO dust and, you know, do everything.

ARTHUR: Sprinkle something on the site that's not SEO dust.

MICHAEL: That's noob dust.

ARTHUR: Yeah. It's happened. I remember we had clients back in the weather or park days that brought someone in from like graduates and they just tossed them to look after the SEO came in and started, you know, quizzing me and questioning me. I'd be doing it seven years at the time. And it's just like, I have to answer this little punk, like say, why are you doing this? You should be doing this. Then eventually they leave. And then you see their SEO just tank.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

ARTHUR: Absolutely tank.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

ARTHUR: So putting all the trust into someone that has no clue.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

ARTHUR: They might be able to talk, you know, and then they obviously would have convinced the business owner that they know what they're talking about, but they don't.

MICHAEL: But even in that scenario, that's someone owning it internally in the business, but still working with a partner. So I guess there's different scenarios. Until they leave.

ARTHUR: Yeah. Sometimes they will get someone younger and have them work with the agency to train them.

INTRO: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

ARTHUR: Which is what has happened in the past as well. You know, three months, they will basically, you can see that they're asking questions that they normally wouldn't.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

ARTHUR: You know, you know the vibe.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

ARTHUR: They're just trying to knowledge thieve. And basically they're just, just, you know, waiting for the moment to get rid of you.

MICHAEL: Yeah. And look more power to you. If you can hire someone for 60 grand a year to come and come and do all of your SEO and get results, go for it. But there's so many hidden costs. There's so many pros to it as well. We're not going to totally trash it because for some people it does make sense. Yeah. So let's, let's freestyle on it a bit. Um, when, maybe we'll start with for who it makes sense to.

ARTHUR: Yeah. I think, are you asking me?

MICHAEL: Well, yeah, why not?

ARTHUR: I think it's just big businesses, big businesses that have the budget to actually build a team because it could be that they need a team because they have specific brand guidelines or specific things that they want that team to adhere to. Or they need control, specific control. So I guess at a certain point, once a business grows and they have the budget, it makes sense to build that team in-house. Yeah. What do you think?

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, I guess if we're looking at it from the perspective of taking it in-house, they've worked with an agency and they've gotten to a point where it makes sense to. So to me, that means you're big enough revenue-wise that you can cover the cost of someone to own it internally, but then also all of the other costs that go with it. So link building costs, you can probably take their salary again and put that on top in link building costs. Or you get so many links naturally that that's not a factor for you. So you have good brand, good press coverage, you're doing media stunts, whatever it is, but you're getting the links that are powering your SEO. So there's that. Or maybe you've been with an agency and you're not feeling the love. They don't understand your business. You've got complex product lines or multiple products and you want someone embedded in your business that lives and breathes it. That's all they do is obsess about your SEO. And then you can still have budget to fill in the gaps that this person might have with consultants or freelancers or vendors that are going to, you know, help you with links or help you with technical or help you with web dev, because you're not going to hire someone that can come in and do all of that. There's just A, not enough hours in the day and B, someone that has all of those skills is a unicorn that's going to be asking for a massive salary. They just don't exist because once you've developed all of those skills, you're at such a senior level that you're probably not coming into a business to do all of that work.

ARTHUR: No, and you make a good point. I guess like there's been businesses that we work with who have complex products or they're just very niche, right? And it takes a lot of knowledge to understand the terminologies and things like that. So it's difficult for, you know, a random SEO person to be able to write about specific things. And in that case, you might need to find someone in-house that understands everything, all the complex stuff that can write about it confidently.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

ARTHUR: So that's a good example of when you could look at taking it in-house or a portion of it in-house.

MICHAEL: And some, some clients get very obsessed about language and that sort of stuff. Yes. Sort of at their own detriment a lot of the time because no one else is looking at it in that level of detail. But if that's important to you, then having someone internally that owns that,

ARTHUR: Yeah, you know what a good industry is? For a good example of industry, finance. Because I remember in the past when we worked with big financial clients, that you had to have licensed people actually writing about financial topics. Because it went under some sort of advice. I can't remember what it was, but it had to be like SML something certified. And it was very difficult for us to find someone to write content. We had to go and find actual financial people to write content for us. So in that scenario, it would have made a lot more sense for the person to work in-house.

MICHAEL: Yep. Um, when else does it make sense? Like if you, if, if you are a big econ brand, big enough that you've got the scale there, the links and everything, having someone dedicated to it internally to get products live quickly, you know, where you're, you are the sole focus of them. That makes total sense. And when your motivation is not saving money, but it's because you see value in building a team internally and owning it and having that resource. Cause if it's just about saving money, Because you've turned a 8k a month SEO retainer with an agency into a 7 grand a month employee. That sounds great in theory. You know, you're saving a grand a month and you have someone dedicated to your business full time where all they do is your SEO, but your links will not exist anymore. You're going to have to fork out for web developers and analytics gurus and all that, because these people aren't going to be able to do all of that. Tools, everything.

ARTHUR: Tools are very, very, very expensive, as we know.

MICHAEL: We spend like over 10 grand a month on SEO software, SaaS. Admittedly, you wouldn't need all of the same stuff that we use, but you'll need some of that.

ARTHUR: It's crazy, isn't it?

MICHAEL: And they keep raising their prices all the time.

ARTHUR: That's it. And it adds up. And there's always new tools, better tools.

MICHAEL: Yeah. That's the other thing, like, I guess, in an agency where you might have 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, whatever SEO people. There's a lot of knowledge sharing that goes on, different people listening to different things, understanding things. teamwork, to learn about things, whereas one person internally, you sort of live and die by how motivated they are to develop their own skills. And, you know, I guess with an agency, if something's not working, you've got all these minds to lean on to try and fix things. Whereas when someone's internal, it's just one single point of failure. Exactly. So are they good? They could be. Well, that's a risk, isn't it? How good are you at hiring? Like, do you know when you're hiring an SEO person, whether or not they're talking, are they just saying things like, yeah, faceted navigation. And you don't know what that is, but it sounds fancy. So they must know what they're talking about. So we'll hire them.

ARTHUR: Yeah, overwhelm them with like, what do you call it? Jargon. Jargon. That's the word. Yeah.

MICHAEL: Well, that's a big thing in SEO sales. Dodgy people like to overwhelm you with stuff that doesn't really move the needle. Yeah. That could happen to you unless you really get SEO yourself, the person doing the hiring, but that's not always the case. No.

ARTHUR: And I mean SEO takes time, right? So we'll probably take a little bit of time for you to see whether or not they're good at what they're doing. And by that point, if they're not very good, it's difficult to, you know, get rid of someone like with an agent, with an agency. If you're not happy with the results, a lot of the time you might not be locked into any sort of long-term contract. So you can, you know, get rid of them. If they're not getting your results, you give them the flick. But if you've got someone in house and you're not happy with them after a certain period of time, it's a bit more tricky. So you have to absorb that risk as well.

MICHAEL: Massively. Yep. And, um, As we always say, SEO takes time. So how long is a probation? Three to six months, normally?

ARTHUR: Exactly. That's how long SEO takes. That's how long it takes clients to give SEO a chance.

MICHAEL: But like you said, if it's not working, just change agencies. You can't just change employees internally that easily.

ARTHUR: I mean, it's not easy. It's just a lot of time having to interview and find people as well. I mean, the cost of actually having to find someone, you have to pay to find someone, recruit someone, and your time. So, yeah, it's hard.

MICHAEL: So, coming back to the topic, we're taking SEO in-house. When does that make sense, do you think, most?

ARTHUR: When?

MICHAEL: Yeah, like if you're with an agency, Because bad results or whatever, you can just look at another agency. So that's not really a reason to take it in-house. Saving money, unless you're spending like 50 grand a month or something and you're being ripped off, saving money is not really a reason. Because even if your retainer is somewhat comparable to a full-time salary, there's so many more costs as we've covered. So that's not really a reason. But, um, when does it make sense to like, like when would we understand, like if a client comes to us, say like, yep, love your work, but we're bringing it in house and we say, you know what? Fair enough.

ARTHUR: Yeah. So I think if, if they have a specific brand and they're very attached to the brand and they want someone that is living and breathing that brand, then it makes sense to have someone in house or if they're, Like again, if they're like in finance or some sort of technical industry where like the normal person wouldn't understand or it's very difficult to understand and it's complex and it's hard to write about and having just an SEO person that doesn't or isn't skilled in that have to write that content and the client is unhappy with the content because it doesn't meet to the standard, that's another scenario where it makes sense to bring it in-house or at least that portion of it in-house.

MICHAEL: When it's a really big, complex enterprise site with a lot of pages.

ARTHUR: Yeah. So like domain or realestate.com. Like you wouldn't be outsourcing your technical SEO. You'd have a technical SEO team that is there 24-7 working on it, like making sure everything is technically sound, improving it. You can't outsource that. Because something goes wrong, then you're going to be waiting to hear back from someone. Whereas this person is internal, they're there, you can turn to them, you can talk to them. If there's a problem, they can fix it straight away. You're not reliant on having an external person.

MICHAEL: Like a site like Domain Real Estate, their product is SEO in a way.

ARTHUR: Yes, exactly.

MICHAEL: Whereas like if you're just a manufacturer of some product or something and you need SEO to generate leads for your sales team, hiring someone internally to do your SEO is probably going to shoot you in the foot more than it will help you. Unless you're giving them the resources to focus purely on your business. all their time goes to that, but then also use vendors and suppliers for links or whatever they're going to need to get the job done. So as long as you're okay with spending more to have someone internally, because to you, you value that attention that you get.

ARTHUR: So I guess the third point is if you have the money to do it. If you're big enough to actually support a team and you feel that you're going to get the benefit from it, then that's probably a good reason to do it too. Yeah. You're not going to be like, or you could be, but like if you're a big global brand, it's unlikely that you're going to be looking to hire little agencies to do stuff. They do. Don't get me wrong. There's big global brands that do that. But a lot of the time to have all those things we've just spoken about in house makes a lot more sense for them.

MICHAEL: Yeah. That's pretty good cover. So I guess where we're coming from, we've seen it happen over the years where people, six, seven, eight grand a month, whatever. Let's just bring it in house. We hire a fresh grad from uni. They get tasked with owning SEO. Maybe they do your socials and stuff as well. And six, nine, 12 months later. Like a jack of all trade? Jack of all trade, master of none, learning on the job kind of thing. But like they're, they're focused on it. So that's going to be better than having this agency that's sort of giving me, you know, divided attention rather than undivided attention. Don't think about all those hidden costs, and you see it all the time, traffic tanks. They migrate a website, they don't do it properly, they lose everything, and then they're scrambling to find someone to fix it, go back to an agency. So you just got to be careful about your motivations, and go in with your eyes open. Which we don't always see happen. Sometimes we do. Sometimes it works out. That makes sense. That's fine. That's okay. So that's all right. We're pretty unbiased, I feel, weren't we?

ARTHUR: I think it's very unbiased. Like we've seen both ends of the scale. Like it makes sense for some businesses, other businesses, it doesn't.

MICHAEL: And it can hurt you long term. Well, on that note, I think it's a perfect chance to wrap things up because no one could say it better than that. So, was it that bad of an exit? No, it was beautiful. Hey, be confident in your exit. Exit. We're exiting. Let's exit this episode.

ARTHUR: What's the opposite of intro? Outro.

MICHAEL: Outro.

ARTHUR: Well, whatever.

MICHAEL: Outro. We're going to exit. We'll be back next week with another episode of the SEO show. But until then, happy SEOing. Happy in-house SEOing. See ya.

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