Learn How To Do Business On The Internet All successful online businesses have one thing in common - they know how to market and promote their business on the Internet; whether it's hiring the right Internet Marketing consultants to do it for them or taking it upon themselves to learn SEO and do search engine optimization in-house. If you want to learn SEO/ SEM online, we have just what you need to help you reach your goals. This self study training course will take you step by step in easy to understand language and show you how to get your web site at the top of the search engines and how to convert visitors into sales Act Now! Profit From This New Internet Marketing Opportunity Now you too can acquire the search engine optimization skills necessary to make your website a success. This self study SEO course will teach you the latest, most effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and techniques utilizing a self study program you can learn at a time most convenient for you. Frequently Asked Questions

To in-source or outsource?

That's the first big question you may face. But you can't answer that until you have a good idea what it means to follow either path. If you're heading up a large company, outsourcing may be the way to go. Or do you hire your own expert? We'll look at questions for outsourcing later, but for now, if you're contemplating in-sourcing, ask yourself these questions:

1.Should i do It Myself?  2. Do I have the time?  3. What is my time worth?  4. Is my time better spent onother things?  5. Do I have the knowledge and skills to do it right?  6. Do I have the time to stay up to date in critical knowledge?  7. What if I screw up the site?  8. Is this something I really want to do along with my regular work?  9. Will this take me away from my family? 10. Is this worth the cost of NOT hiring or outsourcing? 11. Will this diminish my capabilities at being effective that my primary job? These next questions you need to ask yourself. If you choose to in-source your SEO hiring someone to do it rather than doing it yourself. You'll find there are a number of questions that need to be asked and answered to determine this is the right course of action for you. 12. Do I sub out part of it and do the rest myself? 13. Do I delegate in-House or use sub-contractors? 14. What parts do I do myself? 15. What work can be given to the other person(s)? 16. How do I ensure that all the sub-contractors are working in unison together? 17. How do I know who to blame if my search marketing or optimization doesn't work? For the small business owner who can't afford to sub-out the entire SEO campaign, maintaining control while sub-ing out small pieces can be a way to accomplish what needs to be done while keeping a better handle on costs. While you lighten your load and reduce costs, you still retain the burden of making sure the campaign is successful. While that may be worth it to some, it may not be the best route for everyone. Now we'll look at questions related to hiring in-house in order to maintain control of your SEO while having a single person maintain responsibility for it's success or failure. 18. Do I hire someone to do it? 19. Do I pay someone to learn search marketing on the job? 20. Do I have the resources to teach or pay someone to learn the craft? 21. Will I have to pay for additional resources such as conferences, books, etc.? 22. What if someone learns it and leaves? 23. What if I can't find someone capable of learning the craft? 24. What if they screw up my site or get me thrown out of the search engines? Hiring a dedicated SEO may save you the exorbitant fees charged by many SEO firms, but it also comes with it's own set of costs. You now have a better understanding of the pitfalls in hiring someone without experience to manage your SEO campaign. Now we'll look at the questions that pertain to hiring someone with experience and how that may or may not be more beneficial. 25. Do I hire someone with experience? 26. How much is that going to cost me? 27. How do I know they can do what they claim? 28. Will they have all the skills necessary? 29. Will I have to pay additional dollars as they sub-contract out specialty work? 30. How much will I have to pay to keep their knowledge current? 31. Will they expect to attend all the major SEO trade shows? 32. What if the SEO engages in "black hat" activities that screw up my site or get me thrown out of the search engines?

1. Should i do It Myself?

This is no small matter. Thinking through the process of whether you are able to manage the SEO for your site is an important one. While you can always "try", in some cases, failing at SEO can be worse than not having done it at all. So before you decide that you can do it yourself, answer these questions:

2. Do I have the time?

Do I have the time? As a business owner your time is your most valuable asset, and the simple fact is: you can't do everything. You have to prioritize your time and think about what you can and can't do, and where productivity--and results--will be the greatest.

3. What is my time worth?

What is my time worth? Take an objective look at the value of your time. Now, if you're the business owner and you crunched the numbers you'll probably find that you make somewhere close to minimum wage. But that's just because you are a hard worker determined to succeed. The value of your time can be better assessed by looking at what you charge for your product or services. If you can put a dollar amount for what your time is worth that can help you determine if you can make time for SEO.

4. Is my time better spent on other things?

Just because you have time to work on something doesn't mean that you should. We can all make time for the urgent/important tasks, but that isn't to say there are not more important tasks or tasks better suited for our skills. You may find that you are more adept at (and therefore your time is better spent on) customer relations. Or perhaps you're an idea person, therefore your time is better spent developing new products, services or tools. Think about what you can do that provides the greatest benefit for the company before you decide that you should allocate your valuable time to the SEO.

5. Do I have the knowledge and skills to do it right?

Do I have the knowledge and skills to do it right? SEO, on the surface, may not be inherently difficult, but there is considerable knowledge needed in order to do it right. And some of the more technical aspects of SEO often require someone with more in-depth programming skills. Gaining the knowledge and skills necessary is no small task.

6. Do I have the time to stay up to date in critical knowledge?

Do I have the time to stay up to date in critical knowledge? The basic information on SEO remains pretty consistent, but there are often new developments, technologies and strategies that can become important for the long-term success of your marketing campaign. Keeping abreast of this information can consume a considerable amount of time, not to mention the time implementation and testing of these ideas can take as well.

7. What if I screw up the site?

There are many easy ways to screw up your optimization campaign. Sometimes it can be the wrong character in a robots.txt or .htaccess file. Other times it can be from bad advice you were told or read about online. Not all screw ups will be make or break, but there are some that can cause significant long-term and potentially permanent harm to your efforts. Sometimes the risk simply isn't worth it.

8. Is this something I really want to do along with my regular work?

Is this something I really want to do along with my regular work? SEO isn't your "full time" job. You've got a business to run and we shouldn't be afraid to admit that it takes the majority of our time. You need to consider if you really have time to add another time consuming task to your already full plate. Anything new you add will take away from other, possibly more important tasks. It'll do you no good if you SEO the site if you can't handle the business it brings.

9. Will this take me away from my family?

If adding something to your plate increases the amount of time you spend "at work," how will this affect your family life? Are you willing to add more to your plate if it means less time with your loved ones? Even if you don't have family conflicts, you also need to consider how much time this will take away from your own leisure activities. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

10. Is this worth the cost of NOT hiring or outsourcing?

Is this worth the cost of NOT hiring or outsourcing? Overall, you need to consider if the cost of doing it yourself is worth the sacrifices you'll have to make. If you outsource, it's just money. If you in-source its your time, your skills, your knowledge and even your sanity at stake. Don't lose out on other important things just to save a few bucks.

11. Will this diminish my capabilities at being effective that my primary job?

Will this diminish my capabilities at being effective that my primary job? Finally, you need to consider if doing SEO yourself means you become less effective in other important areas. The worst thing you can do is skimp on quality--whether its quality of customer service, quality of products, or quality of results. SEO is important, but not if it causes you to lose value in other areas. Getting people to the site does you no good if you can't properly engage with them and meet their needs.

12. Do I sub out part of it and do the rest myself?

Do I sub out part of it and do the rest myself? If you've determined that doing the SEO yourself, in addition to your other duties, will be too much of a burden, you might consider splitting the duties between yourself and someone else. The benefit here is that you're not taking on the full work-load yourself, you can delegate what you don't want, or even get outside professional advice.

13. Do I delegate in-House or use sub-contractors?

Do I delegate in-House or use sub-contractors? If you have a team of people already it could be to your benefit to assign one or more of them partial SEO duties. Of course the workload of each employee must be considered as well so as not to give them more work than they can handle effectively. You also have the option of using sub-contractors and outside experts which can keep your team free to do their primary jobs.

14. What parts do I do myself?

What parts do I do myself? When delegating partial SEO duties it will be important to have a full understanding ahead of time how much work you'll retain for yourself and how much will be subbed out. Depending on your own level of experience you may want to do most of the research while leaving the implementation to a web developer. Or you might want to hire some experts to do the detail research and provide you a list of recommendations. Just be sure to know what type of work you can or cannot handle for yourself.

15. What work can be given to the other person(s)?

What work can be given to the other person(s)? If you're maintaining most of the control over the SEO then its simply a matter of determining what parts to delegate out to whoever. With SEO there are many small pieces to the whole. One person can do copywriting, another editing the pages, another keyword research, and yet another link building. With proper delegation you can find several people to each handle one area or find one person that can do it all. This would also lend to deciding whether to use your own team or outsourcing it to sub-contractors.

16. How do I ensure that all the sub-contractors are working in unison together?

How do I ensure that all the sub-contractors are working in unison together? When managing your SEO while delegating various aspects to other individuals, you'll need to develop a way to make sure that everyone is working together, as needed. You want to make sure your copywriter uses keywords that were researched and that your SEO reviews what the copywriter has written, and your webmaster implements it on the page properly. This isn't as difficult as it sounds, but it is a matter of establishing a system that works for everyone.

17. How do I know who to blame if my search marketing or optimization doesn't work?

How do I know who to blame if my search marketing or optimization doesn't work? When implementing an SEO campaign we don't always get the results we think we should. When you have multiple people working on different aspects of the campaign it's often difficult to figure out when area is causing the campaign to fail. Is the SEO bad or does the site need more links? Is the copywriting not giving users what they want or are the keywords poorly targeted. While there is benefits to having a group work on a single project, the drawback is figuring out who's responsible for what failures.

18. Do I hire someone to do it?

You've decided that managing the campaign yourself, either all or in part, isn't something you want to do. Before you decide to outsource your SEO entirely you still have the option of hiring a dedicated SEO to bring on your team instead. The two main concerns here are cost and effectiveness, or more precisely, how much will it cost go find someone who is effective.

19. Do I pay someone to learn search marketing on the job?

A lot of small companies can't afford to hire someone with extensive knowledge of SEO so they look for someone who can do some on-the-job training. The main benefit of hiring someone without knowledge is they don't have an expensive price tag. Not to mention that finding someone local with even a basic knowledge of SEO isn't always easy to do.

20. Do I have the resources to teach or pay someone to learn the craft?

Do I have the resources to teach or pay someone to learn the craft? If you choose to hire someone without knowledge of SEO then you're going to have to invest in their education. This means that on top of payroll and other company benefits, you'll have to allow them on-the-job time to learn via blogs, forums and whatever other resources they can get their hands on. A considerable number of hours will need to be allowed each week for educational activities.

21. Will I have to pay for additional resources such as conferences, books, etc.?

While there is a plethora of free knowledge available online, sometimes that's just not enough. The investment in allowing a team member to learn SEO on the job is more than just one of time, but it's also financial (beyond the paycheck). SEOs in training will benefit greatly from attending strategic conferences, reading books and ebooks, attending seminars and whatever else comes your way. You'll have to decide how, when and where to invest additional dollars to get your SEO up to speed.

22. What if someone learns it and leaves?

This is a legitimate concern for any small business owner. While you can invest in teaching someone SEO for your company, there is nothing stopping them from taking that knowledge and using to find a better paying job somewhere else. After all, their new-found SEO skills are likely worth a bigger paycheck to another company. That's not to say that anybody you train will leave within a year of having gained this knowledge, but you also certainly should not expect them to stick around forever.

23. What if I can't find someone capable of learning the craft?

Not everyone is cut out for SEO and while you may hire someone with the intent of them learning it, they simply may not have what it takes. Hiring someone without knowledge brings the risk that they simply won't be as interested or capable of doing this job as either of you may have thought. Unfortunately, this is something that you or they may not really know until they have been at it for three or six months.

24. What if they screw up my site or get me thrown out of the search engines?

This is always a risk. Whoever you hire may find some bad advice and do something that breaks the search engine guidelines and gets you thrown out, at least temporarily. While this can happen with anyone, the less experienced person is more prone to making mistakes that can have a more devastating impact on your business. Worse, if such a thing were to happen, they may not know how to get you out of it.

25 Do I hire someone with experience?

Prior we answered questions related to hiring someone without experience in order to give you an idea of some of the struggles and pitfalls that you'll find yourself in. The other option is to look for someone that already has significant SEO experience. Such a person can hit the ground running and you have to worry less about initial on-the-job training and out of pocket expenses as they get up to speed.

26. How much is that going to cost me?

Without a doubt, anybody with even a basic knowledge of SEO is going to come with a higher salary price-tag than someone who does not. And the more experience they have, the more money they'll want. That's not to say they will always be priced out of your range, only that you'll need to weight carefully the payroll costs of hiring someone with experience verses the training costs of someone without. The upside is the more knowledge you hire the more effective they'll be on the onset of the campaign.

27. How do I know they can do what they claim?

This is a tricky one because many people who claim to have SEO knowledge may not know as much as they may claim. Or even as much as they think they know. In order to get an understanding of their knowledge level you'll need to ask them some very pointed questions in the interview process. You'll need to judge their knowledge, assess their strategies and verify their accomplishments. But no matter how much you try to get an understanding before hand, inevitably it'll come down to whether they can make results happen for you, and that will only be verifiable once they've been on the job for a few months.

28. Will they have all the skills necessary?

SEO isn't just about throwing keywords on a page and monitoring the search engines. A good SEO needs to be able to be a decent copywriter, excellent keyword researcher, decent link builder and have a basic grasp of social media marketing and usability. While each of these areas requires a very specific skill set a decent SEO should be well versed enough to be passable in most of the areas necessary to succeed. If more expertise is needed then you'll have to answer the next question.

29. Will I have to pay additional dollars as they sub-contract out specialty work?

Rarely will you find one person who is excellent in all of the areas that fall under an SEO campaign. Unless you're willing to hire a full team, you'll simply have to find someone who you are confident can accomplish what needs to be done and can either make due with the other areas or sub work out as appropriate. You'll want to figure this out in your budget. If you hire someone with less experience you may have to sub-contract out more areas of your campaign. However, the more skilled of a person you find the less sub-contracting out you'll have to do.

30. How much will I have to pay to keep their knowledge current?

Even experienced SEOs still need to be kept abreast of the latest trends. Be prepared to allow your in-house SEO time for reading blogs, contributing to forums, engaging in social media like twitter and reading books. Since your SEO is in-house these are activities that you need to allow them to do "on the clock." The more knowledgeable your SEO is the better results they should be able to achieve for you.

31. Will they expect to attend all the major SEO trade shows?

Along with the daily educational activities your SEO needs to partake in, they will likely want to attend some of the major SEO conferences. This can be a significant expense once you add up airfare, hotel and conference registration. You'll want to plan and budget wisely for this. While the big conferences are always fun, sometimes your SEO (and your budget) will be better served by sending them to smaller training seminars on a specific topic.

32. What if the SEO engages in "black hat" activities that screw up my site or get me thrown out of the search engines?

You may want to get a sense of your SEO's overall philosophy regarding what tactics they employ and where they think the line is in crossing over from white hat to black hat activities. While you may not want to discount anybody who engages in "black hat SEO" you will want to make it clear that anything that jeopardizes your long-term success is unacceptable.

By Stoney deGeyter

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