You have a project that you are going to bring to Google Top 10 to attract new customers. You live in Manchester or its surrounding towns and are looking for SEO Agency Manchester to order this service. First of all, we need to answer three questions. Question number one: are most of your clients located in Manchester or are they all over Britain, or even all over the world? Question number two: is it necessary to promote your site at all? Can it be done, and most importantly, will it be profitable? It takes a certain time to promote a website in Google, usually up to a year. There is a lot of competition among keywords that carry the most traffic; Google prefers the old sites and the state-run sites. Moreover, you need to compare budgets that top site owners spend on maintaining and decide whether you can compete with them or not. There are many parameters by which a real optimizer can tell you whether SEO be of use for your site or not. Question number three: who should be given the project: SEO agency Manchester, SEO Freelancer Manchester or Sheffield, or maybe it is more reasonable to manage this site yourself?
Let’s start with the last one. You can manage the site yourself if you have a small or home-based business. It is fascinating, you get new knowledge. There is a lot of information on the Internet about how to get your website to the top. Only one warning: not all information on Google is true and useful. To avoid major problems, you can take an hourly consultation of a specialist, which will be much cheaper for you. By promoting your website yourself, you receive not only new knowledge, but also independence, which is very important, too. If your site is small, such as a landing page for your local store or local/family business, and if your potential customers live in your area, then this is a great solution.
SEO Freelancer is the best option if your site is not a state-run one or a site of a super large company, such as a bank. What is the advantage of hiring a freelancer? There are several factors. First, the price. Any company has much more additional charges, because its staff consists of client managers, marketers and other specialists, including a secretary, who will answer you: “What is your concern?” These personnel may not be in demand at the moment, but they have their salaries. Another thing that is worth mentioning is rent and other expenses that you already know about. By the way, this is a paradox: on the one hand, the more clients the agency has, the less additional charges fall on the client, but less attention is paid to each project. Often, when you call to ask a professional question, the answer will be: “This specialist is not available at the moment, he will call you back.” That is, you will talk with the sales manager, and there will be no way for you to figure out who personally is working on your site. There is a collective responsibility, and this may be right, but you lost your time and, possibly, money. An agency is a collective of people of various specialties working under one “umbrella”. Of course, you can check the history of this “umbrella”. But the most interesting thing here is that it will not give you much information; you know perfectly well that every company has that person who generates smart ideas, and a team is formed around them. But what happens if this person changes jobs? Can the quality of work remain the same, because each site requires an individual approach? Moreover, high-level optimizers often work as freelancers. Why work for anyone if you can work for yourself? And those who work for someone have very high salaries, but 80 percent of agencies can’t afford such expenses. What is the way out? Two options: hire someone with a lower qualification or outsource. And that is how the project is sent to a freelancer again, or outsourced to a company in India or the Philippines. By the way, if you have ever received an email from Indian companies telling they are the best in the world with a staff of 100 people and are trusted by the leading Brands of the world, ask yourself a question, why do they spam on the Internet to deceive new customers. Never believe mail-outs. No serious company will spam, as they have enough clients and simply don’t have time for this.
People can argue that the agency provides comprehensive services and they have specialists for all types of work. I agree (though not completely). But a freelancer who has been working for a long time has excellent connections with all high-class specialists, such as other freelancers, and these connections last for years.
Now let’s talk about the degree of responsibility, without prejudice to the agency. I believe that for freelancers, the degree of responsibility is always higher. They work under their own names, and if the company can change its name every month, the freelancer doesn’t have such opportunity. The agencies have a lot of money to spend on their advertising, while the freelancers don’t, and therefore the best advertisement for them is a kind word spoken by their clients to other potential clients. The freelancers don’t have a conveyor; they manage a small number of sites at the same time, and you can always find out the necessary information by contacting them in person. And no matter where a freelancer is, in Manchester or Sheffield, he or she can always come to you or resolve the issues via Skype.
Sure, everyone has their own priorities, but always remember that you have three options:
SEO Agency, SEO Freelaner, and you yourself.