Top 13 SEO Roles To Outsource

Digital marketing is not only SEO, but SEO is without a doubt the primary long-term organic growth strategy for companies trying to grow their digital presence. The internet has created a global labour market for people and agencies with these skills. With that in mind, below are the top 13 SEO roles you can outsource.

The Entire Thing

Before you start trying to decide which SEO roles you can and should outsource, consider whether this is something that you want pros to handle from start to finish. Many companies with big enough marketing budgets opt to hire out the entire process to SEO professionals with a long history of client success.

The best part about working with SEO firms is that you are not tied down to any one location. You can be a North American company and search for SEO Brisbane and find great Australian SEO agencies to work with, or a European company that finds a match in India.

When deciding whether to outsource some or all of your SEO needs, it is essential to consider the opportunity cost of not doing so. If marketing is not your bread and butter and you believe there are sufficient skills gaps on your team to warrant looking for outside help, finding, vetting and hiring an experienced and reputable SEO firm is not a bad idea. 

Outreach 

Outreach is typically a term associated with link building–one of the foundational components of SEO alongside content–and it involves people building and managing email campaigns that try to get links placed for clients on relevant websites. The goal here is to get website owners and administrators to agree to host a link to your or your client’s website on theirs–either on their blog or elsewhere. 

Outreach is one of the more tedious parts of SEO because it involves organizing a large number of emails that have been collected from the web and then either contacting each one individually or sending out mass emails and hoping you receive a response. It is the job of outreach employees to then follow up on each response they get to secure links for clients. 

Because outreach is one of the most tedious parts of SEO (at least the link building component), owners of SEO or digital marketing agencies understandably want to find outsourced labour to handle it. This is a low skill job that is often outsourced to workers in developing countries who speak good English and possess good digital skills. 

Prospecting

Prospecting and outreach go hand in hand. Prospectors find the websites that the outreach specialists will contact to try and secure links. Again, this is another very tedious part of the link building component of SEO and is, therefore, one of the most commonly outsourced SEO roles.

Prospecting involves scouring the internet for websites relevant to the site for which you are trying to build links. Following that, these websites are passed onto the outreach team, and the process repeats itself. 

Prospecting and outreach roles are often hybridized because the tasks are so intertwined. A prospector, after collecting relevant websites from which to request links (either in the form of link insertions or guest posts), will then begin to negotiate how, where, and how much for the websites that respond to their outreach efforts. 

Prospecting is another role often outsourced to workers in developing countries with solid digital skills and a great command of the English language, allowing agency owners and marketers to save on labour costs.

Having an international team handling this aspect of SEO is also nice because it allows for round the clock operations, meaning people can contact and respond to website owners–who are often located all over the world–over a 24-hour time span. 

Content Writing

Content writing is the other foundational SEO task and involves coming up with topics for website content and then writing it. This content has to be niche-relevant, keyword-optimized and structured and written in a way that will contribute to its page rank.

Planning and executing content from start to finish can take quite some time, which is why it is also something frequently outsourced by agency owners. 

One of the most important considerations when hiring content writers is their English fluency. You will often find people on the most prominent freelance sites such as Freelancers.com or Upwork claiming to be native or fluent English speakers, but, upon closer inspection, this is not always the case.

If you are trying to write high-quality content for your or for clients’ websites, it is important to carefully vet writers for not only their ability to write to contemporary SEO conventions and with best practices in mind, but to write in fluid, readable English. 

Content writers can be outsourced as pure writers who simply write content based on guidelines provided to them. Or, they can be more involved in the SEO process, helping determine the subject matter of content, the keywords, and even selecting and choosing relevant media for the content articles. 

Virtual Assistant

Virtual assistants are self-employed freelance workers who provide administrative services to SEO agencies and digital marketers. They usually work from a remote location and can be sourced from countries all over the world. Virtual assistants help with a wide range of tasks, including scheduling appointments, phoning and following up with people, conducting data collection and email management. 

Most SEO agencies employ at least one virtual assistant, and sometimes several, to handle repetitive and tedious tasks, so that account managers and owners are able to devote the bulk of their time to things like client acquisition and relationship management. 

Web Design

Many SEO agencies also offer web design and, just like with SEO, there are many reasons people might also want to outsource web design functions. Web design is labour-intensive and requires a substantial amount of expertise.

Since so much is riding on having a good-looking, high-functioning website for a business, companies are usually willing to shell out for professional services, especially if there are highly complex website functionalities that are outside of a particular SEO’s wheelhouse. The decision to outsource web design can end up saving a company considerable money over the long term.

SEO and web design go hand in hand because of the role that design plays in on-page SEO. From the coding to the page layout to the responsiveness of a website, all of these factor heavily into site performance and user experience, which directly affect how much time people will spend browsing a site and, therefore, Google’s perception of a site’s quality. 

Link Building

Some SEOs specialize in content, some in link-building, some do a bit of both. Link-building tends to be the most time-consuming and tedious facet of SEO because it involves a lot of data collection and emailing. Finding the relevant sites to host links and then going through the painstaking process of getting in touch with the site owners and administrators is not what most agency owners want to be doing, and so they outsource it. 

There is a lot to keep in mind when it comes to link building. There are tactics that Google frowns upon, various software required to make the searching and website parsing process more efficient, and communication tips that make or break your success when doing cold outreach. For these reasons, companies trying to build their own links or SEO agencies without the experience or time often outsource link building. 

On-Page

On-page SEO is a whole other specialization, and it involves having an up-to-the-minute understanding of on-page best practices and criteria. Many website owners and SEO companies will outsource the on-page analytical work to professionals who are better versed in the ins and outs of on-page analysis, including where and why on-page SEO scores might be lacking and can make suggestions for improvements. 

The process is usually as simple as contacting one of these experts or expert agencies, providing them with the site you would like analyzed (whether it is your site or a client’s) and having them pour over each page on the site. Because this process is so intensive, it can be quite expensive. Still, the fixes and improvements that are recommended can have a significant impact on how Google views a site and, therefore, where it appears in the SERPs over time. 

Hiring

The process of hiring freelance workers to perform all of the above functions is time-consuming and can be quite frustrating. Anyone who has posted a job listing on a platform like Freelancer or Upwork can attest to how overwhelming it can be to sort through the dozens, or perhaps even hundreds of responses one gets from freelance workers using these sites. These sites have garnered themselves bad reputations for having become a race to the bottom in terms of price and quality.

For these reasons and others, hiring tracking and recruitment are increasingly being outsourced by SEO firms and companies looking to fill SEO positions in their marketing departments. Freelance workers are a popular option for both SEO companies and corporations across industries looking to add various SEO functions to their marketing departments, but finding good quality freelance employees can be difficult. 

Lead Generation

Lead generation, it could be argued, is the first step for SEO businesses because, without leads, there are no clients, and without clients, there is no agency. Lead generation, like outreach, involves pitching your services to prospective clients, which can be very difficult given the sheer amount of solicitation most online businesses receive. Because of this, it can be hard to get people to take notice of you, and so lead generation can take a lot of time and become quite demoralizing if people are not responding to your offers.

For this reason, many SEOs outsource their lead generation to specialists that have better access to the businesses they are interested in having as clients or a better understanding of cold outreach best practices with a track record of success. 

Translation

As digital markets around the world mature, there are more opportunities to create web pages and translate content into various languages. Translating content involves not only language translation but using relevant images, cultural references and making sure measurements are country-specific.

Content that is translated from U.S. English into Mexican Spanish, for example, would have to be changed not only to reflect the different languages, but for cultural references and cues that would be recognized by Mexican readers.

Translation services are beneficial for people undertaking SEO for the purposes of eCommerce in different markets. Translation is something that almost always needs to be outsourced to professionals or specialized agencies that have a good understanding of translation for SEO. 

Keyword Research

A successful SEO content campaign must always be backed by thorough keyword research and strategy. Too often SEO is undertaken haphazardly, with keywords chosen either at random or without an understanding of their competitiveness and, therefore, the likelihood of ranking for them. Keyword research takes time and involves expertise, as well as familiarity with tools like SEMrush and/or Ahrefs. 

Many companies want to handle the content writing themselves but would rather hire out the keyword analysis component because they want to be sure there is superior knowledge and understanding underpinning a content campaign. 

Why Outsource 

The decision to outsource some or all of your SEO functions is one that makes sense for many reasons. Many businesses choose to outsource because it saves them a tremendous amount of time and, therefore, opportunity costs–especially if they don’t have the in-house knowledge and skill sets.

Companies also outsource to avoid inadvertently engaging in SEO practices that Google frowns upon and to get faster results. If a company is only just starting to explore digital marketing and SEO, outsourcing SEO eliminates the learning curve that would otherwise be involved. 

Conclusion 

Whether you choose to outsource some or all of your SEO needs, there are numerous good reasons why it makes financial sense to do so. SEO is made up of many different facets and areas of expertise, and they are all worth paying attention to and investing in as part of a sustainable long-term digital marketing strategy. Keep the above outsourcing options in mind and consider why you or your firm may want to hire out some aspects of your SEO efforts.