Whether a small business owner or an e-commerce giant, your site’s search engine visibility can make or break your success. But with the ever-evolving algorithms of Google, Bing, and others, keeping up can feel like trying to hit a moving target.

That’s where a search engine optimisation (SEO) expert comes in.

Adding this person to your team might seem like an added expense. However, it’s an investment that will pay dividends once your site generates traffic and revenue from organic search. These professionals live and breathe search engine trends, ensuring your site climbs the rankings and stays there for good.

So, to answer the question above, hiring an SEO (or search engine optimization) expert is worth every penny. But you must know the benefits they bring to your marketing team, their average salary, and tips on how to screen the best SEO candidates for your organisation. Let’s begin!

Understanding the Role of an SEO Expert

First, you must understand what an SEO professional strives for: boosting your site’s visibility in search engine results. The traffic your website receives over time depends on the custom SEO strategy they’ll launch for your site.

At the heart of these efforts is keyword research, a technique of identifying the terms your potential customers are searching for. An SEO expert leverages this insight to optimise your content, helping to improve search engine rankings.

But their role extends far beyond keywords. Technical SEO, covering aspects like site speed, mobile-friendliness, and website audits, is another area of focus. This SEO tactic monitors site structure, internal linking, and image optimisation. All these make your site much easier for search engine algorithms, enhancing its ranking ability.

Furthermore, an effective SEO campaign involves continuous monitoring and adjustment. SEO experts track changes in search engine algorithms, competitor strategies, and your site’s performance to tweak SEO strategies accordingly. Their work with content creation also ensures that your site remains relevant and valuable to your audience, boosting engagement and driving traffic.

As important as the techniques themselves, SEO experts must effectively work within a team. By collaborating with your marketing team and ensuring that working with you is extremely easy, SEO experts align their efforts with your and your team’s business goals, ensuring a cohesive and comprehensive approach to online visibility.

Benefits of Hiring an SEO Expert

We’ve already mentioned hiring an SEO expert for your business. But in case things haven’t been clear, here are the benefits you will get if you choose the right SEO person for the job.

• Greater online visibility – Leveraging organic search as your source of online traffic, you can generate highly targeted visitors to your website from Google and Bing. They also have the highest chances of becoming your clients or customers, especially if the SEO expert optimises for the appropriate keywords.
• Streamline your SEO workforce – Hiring multiple SEO specialists dedicated to specific tasks in your business allows you to develop your custom strategies and execute your SEO campaigns like clockwork. For instance, someone will handle the technical SEO audit duties to identify site structure issues, while another will create content and build links to your website.
• Scale your performance– Instead of guessing which tactics work, the SEO professional will monitor the campaign results to determine which tactics worked and didn’t. From there, this person will recommend what to do in your upcoming campaign to achieve better results.

Factors to Consider Before Hiring an SEO Expert

Not all SEO experts are the same–some are a better fit than others in your organisation. Below are factors you should use as benchmarks when you plan to hire SEO experts:

Determine Your SEO Goals

Understanding what you want to achieve with your SEO strategy. While it should help you attract more traffic from organic search, you should worry more about what you plan to do with the visitors. 

Do you want them to learn more about your brand-new business? Do you wish to slowly acclimate them to your products and services by getting them to subscribe to your email list first? If you’ve established your online brand, how can you convert visitors into customers or clients?

The stage in which your business is right now will dictate how you should design your SEO strategy and campaign. From here, hiring SEO experts who fill the gaps in your marketing team should be much clearer and easier.

Assess their SEO Knowledge and Experience

 

An experienced SEO professional will have a track record of improving search rankings and driving traffic. 

They need to be adept at specific tasks like keyword research and link building, which are all essential components of a robust SEO strategy. However, one person doesn’t have to possess all these skills. For example, you want an SEO consultant who specialises in strategy and reporting, a link builder who will take care of launching a successful email outreach for your company, and so on.

Also, consider how well the expert understands your target audience and can tailor your website to meet your potential customers’ needs and search habits. SEO is not just about keywords and search engines; it’s about connecting with your audience.

Keep Your Budget in Mind

SEO costs can vary widely, and ensuring that the services offered align with your financial expectations is important. 

Using the previous factors, a website with lofty SEO goals (turning visitors into revenue) will need more skilful SEO experts with a proven track record of growing website traffic in relation to revenue. 

Also, the kind of experts your company will hire dictates how much you should allot for their SEO services. There are three to choose from, each with varying costs:

• Freelancer – A person who works as a “hired gun” for multiple clients, which may include you. Freelancers can be the most affordable among SEO experts you can hire, but you may only have their limited attention since they’ll be working for other companies. But if you have one-off projects or have tasks that your current team can’t do, hiring SEO freelancers is a sound choice.
• SEO in-house – If you’re looking for someone whom you want to go to your office and dedicate their time and efforts to working on only the tasks you assign them, an in-hour SEO specialist is for you. On the other hand, expect them to command a much higher price than freelancers. Plus, be ready to provide benefits and incentives to encourage them to join and stay in your company.
• SEO agency – It comprises experienced SEO professionals with the skill and knowledge to develop SEO strategies and campaigns that deliver results. Despite working with other companies, the SEO company also has the resources to devote all their time and attention to your needs. That said, SEO agencies are the most expensive of the three.

Hire an SEO Expert with SEO.Careers

 

Finding SEO professionals who can effectively grow your site’s organic traffic is easier said than done. But it shouldn’t have to be, especially now that SEO.Careers is here. 

We help screen and filter SEO candidates according to your goals, needs, and wants. This drastically increases your chances of filling in your team with capable SEO professionals who will get the job done for you and positively impact your team.

Schedule a call with us here so we can get started knowing about who to hire for your SEO team.