Online shopping sales were up by 8.5% in the first quarter of 2024 as compared to the same time last year. We don’t need to explain why e-commerce is here to stay – we all know that it is and that it’s becoming increasingly competitive.
Marketing promotes your products and services, but many marketing agencies lack one important service offer—and it’s almost impossible for them to hit the ground running and get into the game.
And the name of the game is SEO, or, Search Engine Optimization. For a large agency, starting from scratch is an almost impossible feat.
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The Increasing Demand for SEO in Online Marketing
Search Engine Optimization focuses on the organic visibility of your client’s business. People don’t often click through multiple pages in the search results in order to get to the answer they want. And with AI searches, this becomes increasingly apparent.
When they are looking for a specific product or service, they pick the first options that appear. After all, if it shows up first, it must be trustworthy.
SEO helps to build the trust and credibility needed to get companies to show up higher in search results. It also helps businesses rank higher for specific keywords and terms that their target audience searches for.
Most importantly, unlike many marketing campaigns, SEO focuses on long-term benefits and results. Clients realize they need this service and often want their marketing and SEO done in one place.
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Starting SEO From Scratch
Hiring a whole new team and incorporating them into a busy agency creates “all the usual” problems.
Talent Acquisition is difficult, and you’re entering a very competitive hiring market for top talent. SEO also requires infrastructure investments and the purchase of specialized tools and software for processes like keyword research, rank tracking, and complex audits.
Do you have the time, energy, and resources for this type of change? A lot of marketing companies don’t want to bother – they want to concentrate on what they’re good at, which is marketing.
This is why many opt for SEO white-label services with expert SEO agencies that are more than happy to sell their services anonymously.
If a company chooses to build from the ground up, it must consider the costs (and foresee the scalability) of its new teams.
Here are some sample costs that depend on team size. This is for
- Small Team (1-2 People): Depending on experience and location, costs can range from $80,000 to $150,000 annually per person. This includes salary, benefits, and basic SEO tools. Expect a total cost of $160,000 to $300,000 per year.
- Medium Team (3-5 People): Costs can range from $100,000 to $200,000 per person annually. Expect a total cost of $300,000 to $1,000,000 per year.
- Large Team (5+ People): Costs can range from $120,000+ per person annually for highly experienced professionals. Expect a total cost of over $1,000,000 per year.
Of course, this is for the US market, not considering any offshore outsourcing. Creating an international team poses other types of challenges.
Why do a lot of agencies turn to white-label or freelancers?
Let’s talk about freelancers first. If you are looking to do some in-house projects or need a small job or analyses done, freelancers are the usual go-to. But if you’re an agency working with a lot of clients, keeping track of freelancers might prove almost impossible because of different standards, reporting habits, and the need to manage multiple projects separately. You’ll soon find that you need a separate manager just for managing freelancers.
White-label SEO agencies are the best bet for scaling and cost-effectiveness. You usually get one point of contact for all of your clients, making your campaigns easy to manage and track.
Here is a list of added perks of white-label SEO:
- Scalability
- Manageability
- Customization
- Costs
- Access to top talent and specialists
- Agencies stay up-to-date with SEO best practices and updates
If you still want to build an in-house team, testing out a white-label agency will educate you and show you what to concentrate on when hiring specialists.
In conclusion, SEO and marketing will always be together
It’s a modern love story. Or rather, a modern business partnership. Why?
SEO and marketing share the same goal: driving traffic and generating leads and conversions for businesses. It’s as simple as that. They work together for better results.
Both SEO and Marketing offer complementary skills—broad marketing campaign know-how and technical website optimization—to achieve the best results for clients.
Important point: like with any business partnership, these two have to work together. This means that whether you have an in-house team of experts, a freelancer, or if you work with a white-label agency, communication between your marketing efforts and SEO efforts is absolutely crucial to the success of both. Don’t treat them as separate projects.
SEO and marketing must constantly communicate and collaborate to ensure they’re not working on different—or opposing—goals. It would be a shame to waste all that work and effort. Sharing data, insights, and strategies helps both sides achieve their goals with better results and more effectively.
