What Is The Biggest Mistake You Can Make In SEO?

SEO is a complicated beast with many, many facets – which is why it is so easy to make mistakes. In fact, there are dozens of common mistakes that people make but there’s one that trumps the lot of them.

In this article, we’re going to share the single biggest mistake in SEO and how you can avoid falling into the trap.

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The biggest mistake in SEO: Assuming it’s a one-man job

We see it all too often: small business owners who want to save as much money as they can so they take on their own SEO by themselves.

The fact is, no amount of knowledge will prepare you for how time and resource intensive proper SEO really is.

Put it this way: if you outsource your SEO requirements to a digital marketing agency, they don’t assign just one person to the job. There will be multiple specialists assigned to your campaign:

Campaign manager: your liaison who will keep you apprised with any progress.

Web specialist: a landing page design expert who makes all of the aesthetic improvements and necessary technical optimizations on your website.
Research specialist: the person who does your keyword research, audience research, and competitor research.
Data analyst: the person who tracks and analyses all of the data through your website.
Copywriter: the person who writes the sales copy on your website, landing pages, and ads.
Content writer: the person who writes your blog posts and guest articles.
Graphic designer: the person who designs all visual media that compliments your written content.
And on it goes.

Already that’s 7 different specialist roles – each of which are filled by marketing experts who do what they do every single day, and likely have done for years.

When a small business owner decides to handle their SEO by themselves, they’re not only responsible for managing a business, but they are also in charge of a multitude of other specialist jobs as well.

This is why small business owners who DIY their SEO (generally speaking) always fail.

How can you avoid falling into this trap?

You have two options:

Build an in-house marketing team.
Outsource your SEO to a digital marketing agency.

Another misconception is that building an in-house marketing department is a cheaper alternative to outsourcing your SEO to a digital marketing agency.

It isn’t.

Why? Because you have to hire talent – which is expensive. Think salary and holiday pay and sick leave and all of the other benefits required to attract capable marketing experts to work for you.

That all adds up.

Hiring a digital marketing agency on the other hand; much, much cheaper.

How can you tell if you are hiring the right digital marketing agency?

We understand why many small business owners prefer to try doing their own SEO; because on the surface, it appears much cheaper than hiring a digital marketing agency.

Not only that, but there’s always an element of risk: you could invest in an SEO firm who ultimately does nothing to increase your brand awareness and help you achieve an ROI.

So, how can you tell if you are hiring the right digital marketing agency?

Shop around on social proof.

Take this agency who offers SEO services in New York City as an example; they have 500+ 5-star reviews on Google. With so much social proof it’s fair to say that investing in them would be a fairly safe bet.

When SEO is done right it can yield an impressive ROI

You’ll find a lot of varying opinions on this, however, from what we can gather the average ROI in SEO falls somewhere between 275% and 1,220%!

Let’s say for the sake of argument you only make an ROI of 275%. In that case you are making $2,750 for every $1,000 invested. Even on the lowest end of the spectrum that is a staggering return.

Now imagine you are investing your money in one of the most reputable and well-established digital marketing agencies in the industry; your potential ROI will be much, much higher.

Final thoughts

Again, we understand the temptation to do your own SEO, but the reality is: it will take up a lot of your time and you will not have as much success as you would when you hire the professionals.

You must look at SEO as an investment, not a cost.

When you do it alone: it costs you your precious time.
When you rush into the wrong digital marketing agency: it costs you your hard-earned money.
When you take your time and hire a well-established digital marketing agency with a reputation for delivering superior results: you are investing in the long-term success of your business.