While many businesses either hire an external SEO agency or are large enough to employ their own SEO staff in-house, for some, working with a freelance SEO consultant may be a better choice. Good reasons for hiring a freelance SEO consultant include:
- For the same money as hiring a SEO novice full-time or a major agency for one day per month you could get several days work out of a seasoned freelancer with sensible fees. This way, you avoid the risk of making costly mistakes, without paying bills big enough to bankrupt you anyway.
- Freelancers, unlike their in-house equivalents, work on several clients projects at once and so tend to have more diverse experience, more contacts and a broader understanding of what techniques work best for different sectors.
- Large agencies have high overheads and so, while not necessarily any more insightful than a senior SEO consultant, will invariably have to charge more to maintain their margins.
- When you hire a big agency you rarely get assigned to a single technical consultant, having to make to with account managers instead. While no doubt big agency consultants are bright, a freelance consultant is more likely to have the time to get to know your site and, as they speak to you directly, will probably care more too. This also means that you can hire a consultant that you trust and like, ensuring a good cultural fit, not stuck with a techy with no people skills.
- It's far more challenging to excel as a freelancer, as you've got to juggle the demands of your own business development and account management with the technical work for your clients. As such, freelance SEO consultants are arguably more entrepreneurial that their in-house or agency side equivalents which, in the fast moving world of SEO, could just be a good thing.
Of course, if you're business is big enough to hire great staff on a permanent basis, then freelancers probably aren't for you, however, for everybody else they're probably worth a go!
Freelance SEO Consultants - Top Tips on Choosing Yours