Outsourcing Your SEO Can Cost You Your Website – Can It Really?

I’ve just read a very interesting article from SiteProNews about how outsourcing your SEO can cost you your website.

Obviously this piqued my interest, given that a lot of companies outsource such tasks to us at The Design Loft.

The article isn’t actually a search marketer bashing as I may have expected, it’s actually an interesting piece on how getting a basic grasp of SEO can greatly benefit your online business.

It also looks at how employing search marketers such as us to manage your SEO can be a daunting task; asking how can search marketers know how you want to promote your business any beter than you do.

Whilst I don’t agree with everything the article says, it does make some valid points around avoiding search marketing companies who promise quick ranking boosts and various grey hat methods – methods that, whilst not strictly “wrong”, do leave something to be desired and are likely to be flagged as bad practice at some point in the near future by the big search players; Google et al.

It is true that most of our clients do actually have a basic understanding of SEO, and it helps us to get along better with them. We can talk more openly about techniques used and the clients who do have some search experience are full of enthusiasm for the new strategies we propose.

As a business owner, the bottom line really is that gaining a basic understanding of SEO will allow you to make informed decisions about which search marketing company to choose, what realistic expectations are and how to effectively track the search marketing company’s progress on your websites.

As a search marketer, it’s reassuring to know that the processes we undertake here as standard; getting to know our clients, their businesses, their goals and past experience among other things is a vital part of providing a complete and quality SEO service to you as a client.

If you’re a designer looking to outsource SEO, or a company looking to find a search marketing company to work with, I’d greatly advise spending a little time getting to know the basics so that the (not so) “ninja art” of SEO becomes a welcome addition to your marketing arsenal.

Have you had any bad experiences outsourcing your SEO?