Is SEO Training the Right Solution for You?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis in SEO

White hat, black hat, consultants, experts, in-house, outsource, full-service, part-time—there are plenty of ways to go about your SEO campaign. But sometimes the best thing to do ISN’T to bring in a third party SEO vendor; it’s to invest in your own knowledge with a little SEO training.

Here are a few signs that SEO training might be the best solution for you and your website:

1. You can’t afford a white hat SEO company.
There are plenty of black hat, fly-by-the-night SEO spammers out there that are willing to build you 1000 links for only $199.999—don’t fall for it. If you can’t afford to hire a white hat SEO firm to manage your SEO for you, don’t settle for the cheap, low-quality option. Most of the time those black hat SEO scammers end up costing you more in the long run anyway. Either your site is whacked with a penalty and you have to hire a white hat firm to clean up their mess or nothing they do actually impacts your site’s performance. Don’t waste your limited budget on black hat services. In my opinion, it’s much better to take that money and invest in a little SEO training for you and your team so you can manage the basics for now and hold out for the full-service later.

2. You don’t have the budget to hire an in-house SEO expert.
Hiring a new employee, even a part-time SEO expert, is a major undertaking and requires some major budget shifting. If you just don’t have the budge to hire a new employee, or the time to train them properly and bring them up to speed with your brand, then an SEO training session might be your best option. Since you already know your website and business inside and out, you’re in a much better place to start an SEO program that is based on your specific online goals and needs.

3. You’re a one-man marketing team.
If you are the marketing manager for a small business, you probably have to wear multiple hats at once—branding, social media, blogger, PR, spokesman—and now it’s time to add one more; SEO. By taking an SEO training session (or three) you’ll learn the fundamentals of SEO and will feel more comfortable with your new responsibilities. One of the most important things to remember about SEO is that it is marketing; and everything you do (online and offline) can be leveraged for SEO if you spin it the right way. With a good SEO training session under your belt you’ll find that SEO just fits right alongside the rest of your marketing duties.

4. Your business/website is brand new.
I tend to shy away from SEO prospects that have a brand new business and website. First and foremost, a brand new website just doesn’t have the trust factor with the search engines that is need to build a strong SEO campaign, the site is just still too new. Secondly, new businesses still have a lot of growing pains to work out. Your messaging is bound to change, your target audience might shift, even your product lines might come and go as you grow in your first few years. Since SEO is so long term, it’s hard to build a successful SEO campaign on something that is constantly shifting. Instead of outsourcing your SEO right away, an SEO training program can help you incorporate SEO from the beginning so you’ve got a good foundation for the future.