Hiring an expensive SEO agency - Is it worth the money?

No plenty of good, free material online that covers that, so l wouldn't say so.

SEO is a big subject, l know l have a small pile of books on it, but if it is keyword optimization only, then it shouldn't take long to learn and implement it.

It depends on what you are trying to do. The top guys charge high 4 figures a month just to start with. You can hire the very best on a personal basis for less.

A lot will simply buy links etc, but a lot spend a great deal of time and money on outreach etc. How effective that is all depends on your market.

We keep all our work under our control. We pay around 20k per month to a whole host of different people, but draw in around 240k from that. One agency quoted us 8k per month for around 20% of the work we are doing.

A lot of people that use these agencies don't know anything about SEO / lead generation so it is easier for them to just hire them. The truly successful businesses will hire an experienced SEO manager who can control everything, leaving you to run your business.
Even wages for an experienced manager + costs for content / links etc it will work out FAR cheaper than a big agency.

You don't have to go with the big boys to get good SEO services. Look for smaller companies that may give you a better customer experience. Smaller companies tend to appreciate getting clients and many times will go beyond what they're contracted for to keep you as a client.
You can also do as you said and contact blog owners yourself or you can find someone who specializes in link outreach. Again this doesn't have to be a big company.

Hope this helps.

Enjoy your outcome!

It depends on the results they deliver. I know many people that have been BURNED by so-called top SEO Agencies, and now they pay ME the big bucks because I understand what they're looking for and can deliver what they want (new customers or leads).


Anyway,I'd research the companies, ask for case studies of what they've done with their clients, testimonials, etc

I suppose, also, it depends on what sort of operation you have and the kind of traffic volume you're looking to generate. I'd be very cautious with spending tons of money, even if I had it. The internet can get a little crazy.

no don't do it watch a free course on www.Udemy.com shows you step by step how to do, Your Search Engine, Optimisation, SEO, go to watch it on Udemy online now, google it, and go to google type in google digital, garage, which is a Google platform which offers free courses online it teaches you how to do all things internet and online, including SEO, its very good, the videos are re-playable you also can get a free google digital garage certificate, if you finish the courses, all for free totally free, they have free step by step, youtube, video lessons, on every subject facebook ads google adwords and much more

SEO is a toughie erp; here's why:....I am one blogger who agencies reach out to daily. I block 99% of these emails because all are generic, copy and pasted garbage designed to use me and my 10 years of experience and DA 48 and 21,000 links in to boost sites.

I am no blogging big dawg, but to land links on a big dawg blog like mine (see what I did hehehe) or heck, on any reputable blog boosting SEO, build bonds with top bloggers by helping THEM out. Go in reverse. Fools attempt to GET and get blocked immediately, wasting time and failing. Successful people woo me, help me, ask for nothing, befriend me, then get links from a high DA blog that also aligns 'em with Virgin, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fox News and other famous sites that featured me and my brand.

So...if you hire an agency - even a big name agency - you rarely if ever get the return you get from building genuine 1 to 1 bonds with experienced pros, all of whom place a premium on building trust, by building relationships.Gotta earn those links; even if you drop $500 to $1000 or more that means nothing to folks who've spent a decade building their rep and online real estate.

Happy SEO-ing buddy

Ryan

Those agencies have already built their reputation in the industry, so you are mainly paying for the "brand." There surely are great SEO guys that could help you at a lower cost. You just need to be really patient and careful because some people take another's vulnerability to scam.

The number of backlinks is irrelevant. You do not have to spend huge amount in hiring the biggest SEO companies there is. I have to agree (and based from experience), the key to gaining quality backlinks is to directly build your network to similar, high quality sites and focus more on content marketing. With or without SEO, if you have very good content that meets what your audience are looking for (and more) you can get direct traffic that matters and surely converts.

Come on, every business needs clients. You can't judge someone when you did not even give him a try
Depends on your goal, your objective, and your budget, I think you can make the right decision.
The two reasons you should hire someone :
- you can't do it
- Or you don't have time to do it

Consider the hassle you hire cheap service, compare to the premium service.

Eh, I'd feel a little uneasy about paying a lot for SEO work, although I suppose it changes things if the company's already at the top. You'd do good to do a little detective work on any firm you're thinking of hiring. You can even ask their old clients about their experiences working with the company. It'll give you a little clue of what you'll be dealing with.

Don't immediately settle for a big name agency though. Try looking around a bit more. There are some who find that their needs are better taken care of by smaller brands or even by freelancers. Different strokes for different folks. (But then again I'm more of a bang for buck guy who'd rather hire for cheap from folks like Filipinos and Asians than hire locally )

Like anything else in the world, price doesn't really matter. What matters is what you are getting for that price. Ranking #1 for highly competitive and lucrative keywords would be worth just about any price they wanted to charge.

On the other hand, if someone saw no increase in sales or leads from the work an SEO company was doing, whether a company was charging $500 or $5000 per month, either way it is a waste of money.

Yeah from the guy who has never ranked for anything.

This guy gets it. It depends what they provide.

I hate when I see comments like this or those "As seen on" badges on websites. It is so goddamned misleading. What most people don't know is all of these sites have contributors. These are not paid, professional journalists. They are not people on the inside of any of these publications.

They are about the equivalent of someone who sets up a blog on Tumblr and then says they were "featured on Tumblr".

It's not like someone from Virgin headquarters or the Fox News newsroom reached out and wanted to do a piece about you or your website. It was just a mention in an article by one of their free, unpaid contributors that is buried 467 pages deep on their website.

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Overpaying to SEO agencies is worth the money only if they have access to private PBNs they own or exclusive opportunities to publish at high-profile websites. Otherwise very much doubt it would work...

If you don't know the value of it, don't do it. Try investing small money on learning how it works then try the smaller agencies that doesn't charge a lot.

If you have time & SEO knowledge its advisable to do self SEO for your site otherwise hiring an agency is the preferred option over buying links, however, I wouldn't recommend going with expensive agencies as none of the SEO professionals/agencies can guarantee SERP ranking. If they are promising you of rankings then it's a pure lie.

Hiring a expensive SEO agency is not a matter, the main thing is their efficiency and the quality.

Hey,
Its really depend on you that you should hire the digital marketing agency or you should do the partnership with the company. Best companies mostly do some changes because they know how to do the best SEO campaigns. It really depends on you that you should pay a dollar or not or you should do by online these tasks for backlinks so that your website will be rank on the top. I prefer you that you should deal with the best SEO companies which will rank your website on the top and they do all the tasks. Hiring SEO professionals and experts save a lot of time and money. SEO is very interesting and you may learn a lot things while doing SEO.

Hire a virtual assistant who could do SEO for you instead. The assistant can do all other stuffs than SEO. A company seems expensive and you are going to build backlinks or optimize the same with the other clients they have. I am talking about the variety of backlinks or off page seo methods.