Ability: SEO as a process is quite baffling and you won’t be able to judge the ability of a person unless he/she works for a couple of months. So a person that has demonstrated a record of success is a better choice. This way outsourcing SEO scores better than having a person in-house because they have a wide pool of apt resources.
Infrastructure: Hiring a person at your office means you will need to incur bench costs in terms of computer, internet, employee benefit expenses, cost of hiring, training and induction etc. On the contrary, if you select to outsource these costs are borne by the outsourcing partner. You will have to pay the agreed service cost and get going.
Training: Training is a substantial part of the SEO process. Despite all considerations, an in-house person has to adjust your ecosystem, business vertical and reporting structure etc. On the contrary, an outsourcing partner organizes a more specialized staff and a customized ecosystem that offers more fruitful results.
Cost: The cost of hiring an in-house staff can drastically increase. As an example, it can go up to $6,000 USD with 4-5 years of experience. However, you can claim some level of expertise at a fairly low cost say around $3,000-$4,000 USD.
Man Hours: You can experience a flexible man-hours schedule based on your project requirements and marketing budget with an outsourcing partner. But this is not possible should you decide to have in-house staff. Rather you will have to continue with the committed salary as well as man-hours.
Process: You must have to understand the SEO process before hiring in-house SEO staff as that way you can increase the efficiency of the campaign. On the contrary, this is not required with outsourcing staff because they have a pre-defined process and clear reporting structure which makes the tracking process easy.
Access: Your in-house staff works for a limited time. On the contrary, you can claim 24×7 support from the outsourcing partner.
Versatility: SEO as a process requires various sub-processes to be done accurately. With outsourcing partners, you can avail of specialized staff for these sub-processes. However, getting a staff that is equally versatile to do all individual processes is quite impossible. So having an in-house staff means you are becoming limited in terms of adapting the process.
Termination: Most of the outsourcing partners provide you with a no-obligation entry and exit. So you can terminate the service provider anytime based on your need. However, terminating an employee is quite difficult since you need to fulfil various legal formalities of the state.
Change: There are many aspects of a successful employee like attitude, teamwork, dedication etc. if your in-house staff lacks one or many of these qualities, you need to terminate him and hire a new person. Not only this is time-consuming but also you suffer losses in recruitment, training and business. However, with outsourcing partners, you just need to file a request and they will change the staff instantly.
Retention: It’s a fact that SEO is a sunshine industry with limited availability of specialized manpower. That being the case you are always at threat of losing resources since they might get a better offers from your competitors or any other company. Therefore an employee retention cost comes into play. On the contrary, with outsourcing partners, this employee retention cost is never your concern.
