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Should You Handle Your Own SEO? 
By Jennifer Horowitz (c) 2008 

Everyone is trying to save money in today's economy - but
sometimes when you think you are saving money you are
actually losing so much more than you save.

If you are considering handling your own SEO, that is only
a good decision if;

a)  you have the time to do the work and actually get it
done and b) you can get the results you need so you
actually increase your traffic from top rankings.

To determine if you should handle your own SEO - check out
these questions.

1.  Can you work within simple HTML? At a bare minimum, you
need to be able to add Meta tags to an HTML document.
Ideally, you can also bold text, set up links, change
formatting, rename images, move java script into a .js file
etc.

2.  Do you have enough time to make your site search engine
friendly? Plan on a minimum of 3 hours for sites that are
in great shape, and up to 25 hours (or more) for sites that
may need a complete overhaul. In our experience, 3 - 6
hours seems to be the norm for time spent on updating SEO
friendliness issues.

3.  Will you have this time for SEO friendliness work
within the next week? Typically, if people don't take action
in the immediate future (within the next 5 business days),
the project ends up being delayed indefinitely. You need a
clear scheduled start date for your SEO work - especially
when the holidays are approaching! You need to get things
going!

4.  Can your business afford to "lend" this time to SEO
without experiencing some other negative impact? If the
time is not truly extra time you have, then you would be
"borrowing" the time from another area of your business.
Can you do that without harming another area of your
business?

5. If your SEO project becomes bigger than you initially
anticipated, will you have the time and attention to
continue dedicating to it until completion?

6. Are you an experienced and competent copywriter? If you
said no, do you feel you can quickly master writing
compelling copy that is also keyword rich?

7.  Is the content already on your site something you feel
comfortable altering? Often people that have paid for
high-end marketing copy on their websites do not want to
make any SEO alterations themselves, for fear of altering
the effectiveness of their current copy - and therefore
affecting their conversion rates.

8. Do you have any prior SEO experience?

9.  Do you have the tools or know where to purchase the
tools that will help you in keyword selection, site
analysis, reporting and current industry information?

10.  Would you rather spend your time working ON your
business (i.e., growing it) than IN your business (i.e.,
taking care of the nitty gritty details rather than the big
picture)?

11.  Do you have a plan in place to make sure you stay
current on all SEO trends and changes so you can maintain
your rankings on-going?

Now let's take a look at your answers and what they mean:

1: Can you work within simple HTML?

On-page optimization requires that you work within the HTML
on your website. If you are not able to work with an HTML
document and feel confident that you will not cause any
errors or malfunctions, then you simply can not handle your
own SEO at this time.

You would need to learn HTML before you could consider
handling SEO.  Please note, if your site is more complex
than simple HTML, you would need to be comfortable working
within the code used on your site.

2, 3 and 4: Do you have enough time to make your site
search engine friendly? Can your business afford to "lend"
this time to SEO, and therefore experience no significant
negative impact? If the time is not truly extra time you
have, then you would be "borrowing" the time from another
area of your business.

You will also later need to write content, alter content
and handle various optimization techniques, but to get
started - before you can do anything else - you need to
make the time to get the foundation ready for SEO. If you
don't have time to do this, your project simply won't get
off the ground.

Do you truly have the time, or are you just taking it from
somewhere else. If you are taking it from somewhere else,
that may be fine - you just need to be sure that you aren't
harming your business in other ways. Getting rankings, and
ultimately traffic to your site will not benefit you if
your business falls apart while you work on the
optimization.

The remainder of the questions are details for you to
consider. Basically, the more No's there are, the more
likely it is that you should NOT handle your SEO in-house.

If your results determined you can handle your own SEO,
here are the final details you need you consider:

1. What is your time worth per hour? Which option is more
cost effective for you - hiring someone or spending your
own time?

2. Can you recognize when your choice is not working for
you and are you willing to try the other option at that
time?

3. You must commit to educating yourself and learning all
that you need to know to truly run a successful SEO
campaign. Inadvertently spamming, or using a questionable
technique can result in a temporary loss of results or a
permanent ban from the engines. Be 100% sure you aren't
endangering your business.

If your results determined you should outsource your SEO,
here are the final details you should consider:

1. Make sure you know what questions to ask the SEO firm
you hire.

2. Plan on spending anywhere from $300 - $1000.00 per month
to run an aggressive SEO campaign.

No one but you can decide - we just wanted to arm you with
some things to consider. It is all in the details, and you
should consider them carefully before making a decision.
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Jennifer Horowitz, Dir. of Marketing for EcomBuffet.com,
has written a book on SEO and has been published in many
SEO & Marketing publications.  She is the editor of
Spotlight on Success: SEO & Marketing newsletter.  Over the
past 10 years Jennifer's expertise in marketing & Search
Engine Optimization has helped clients increase revenue.
Follow Jennifer and stay current on SEO, marketing, social
media & more. http://twitter.com/EcomBuffet
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