Should you hire a local or overseas SEO Agency?
This is a question that I get asked a lot from SMEs looking to ‘up their SEO’.
This article will help you understand some of the pros and cons along with some general guidelines on how to go about deciding.
To summarise, there are four main issues that should be considered:
1. Objectives and Expectations
2. Budget and Costs
3. Authority and Expertise
4. Time zone and feedback
Note: Whilst this article is concerned with SEO, many of the issues raised can also be applied to other online marketing disciplines like PPC, Social Media etc…
Objectives & Expectations
This should be your main priority – what is it that you want to achieve?
Do you only want the one off chance of appearing at the top of Google (just ‘to see’), or do you actually need leads/sales – or worse still, are marketers pulling your strings because they think SEO is the way forward.
If you need leads/sales then make sure any agency can produce a report that shows you how their work is going to achieve this or you can just forget it.
A local SEO Agency will likely want to work closely with you to not just go after the keywords but also to get you leads.
They may propose a change of keywords that are not useful or to add more keywords when the initial set has proven to be successful.
Budget and Costs
This will obviously affect your decision somewhat, but don’t think that because an agency quotes a big price they are going to spend a lot of time on your account.
Many SEO Agencies rely on low quality outsourced work and simply put them together.
We have had our fair share of working with overseas agencies that create low quality links and not having an impact on the website SEO at all.
If you can, try to avoid the companies that outsource tasks like content creation etc.. but instead prefer to deal with people who work directly on your account (locally or overseas).
Locally, you can head up to the office of the person that you paid a good sum to, to ask them what is going on!
Authority & Expertise
This is a big one – do you want to go with an experienced in-house person (yours or someone else’s) or an agency.
If you pay peanuts, you will only get monkeys! Don’t be dazzled by big numbers and names.
They may have lots of people on their books but this does not necessarily mean that they’re good at what they do (although it usually does).
You can also use the “authority” of an SEO to your advantage when approaching a new agency – if they don’t accept the authority principle, they may not be worth going with.
Time zone & Feedback
Most agencies will have someone based in your time zone, if not you’re going to need a virtual assistant or two.
You also want them in a similar time zone so that they are available to answer your questions quickly.
This gives the advantage to the local one, who will get back to you during the office hours you expect them to!
Agencies, particularly overseas ones, will often NOT give you detailed feedback so don’t expect much… if anything!
You also need to consider the costs of getting someone local or overseas – how fast can you get them up and running?
How much do their services cost? How long have they been doing this for?
Do they have any references you can speak to? How frequently do they provide reports? Are there any hidden costs or surprise fees?
Recommendation
Get yourself acquainted with someone who may have used an SEO Service. Ask them how was the experience with this SEO Agency.
The most important thing to ask is, after using them, did they experience a gain in traffic and leads. If yes, this is likely a good choice that can be verified, versus giving that online choice who emailed you out of the blue.
SEO is something that cost quite a bit of money and a long journey, so be sure to hire someone that you can trust.
SEO Geek Pte Ltd is a Singapore based SEO Digital Marketing Agency.
Tommy Koh, our lead SEO Consultant has 10 years of experience running campaigns as well as on-site and off-site link building.
If you require help on your organic rankings, speak to him at +65 98638665.