3 Deadly Mistakes When Outsourcing SEO Services

If you’re a small business looking for an affordable SEO consultant, this article will hopefully help you avoid costly mistakes when outsourcing SEO services.

For over 8 years I’ve been managing several fashion blogs.

1. Choosing based on price, not quality

When I had a very small business, my budget was so limited that spending even $200-$300 was very painful. That’s why for off-page SEO I resided on freelance platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork, where gig prices start at $5.

Fiverr first seems a paradise. Almost everyone guarantees results. Everyone seemed a legit expert, and the prices were great. Why not trust them?

The only question then is why SEO agencies charge 1000 EUR on average, while Fiverr freelancers ask for only a fraction of this price.

Why I thought freelance SEO services were so cheap

Here’s what I thought to be valid reasons for such low prices for freelance gigs at that moment:

• They’re freelancers

Freelancers are known to be cheaper than agencies. It’s almost inevitable unless you’re a well-established freelancer (and most probably this is going to get you to open your agency, like Neil Patel). Less operational costs compared t agencies mean lower pricing.

• They are based in countries with a lower level of income

That’s a reasonable assumption actually. An hour of massage for a couple starts from 100 EUR in the Netherlands. But do you know how much is it in Thailand? 12$.

I felt with backlinking or copywriting services it’s pretty much the same. The majority of freelancers are from India and Bangladesh. While I haven’t been there, I certainly heard that labor costs are lower in these countries.

• They are experts so the whole job doesn’t take that long

If a freelancer is experienced, I imagined them to do a $10 gig in somewhat half an hour or even less. That would result in a pretty decent income overall.

The painful truth

The truth about cheap services is much more straightforward. While there are certainly some reasonably priced freelancers who don’t charge much and still go above and beyond for every customer, overall there are no miracles.

Remember the unattainable triangle of ‘QUALITY’, ‘PRICE’ and ‘SPEED’? In a nutshell, this framework suggests that when it comes to services, you can only pick two of the three. And I couldn’t agree more.

If you have a very limited budget for search engine optimization, you can probably only have one or two at one time. All three of them would be incredibly expensive.

Let me give you an example.

Here’s what many of the gigs I ordered should’ve looked like)

• I will provide spammy backlinks autogenerated by black-hat SEO tools
• I will create an AI-generated post and I don’t care if Google punishes you for it (spoiler alert: AI-generated content violates Google policy guidelines and they’re able to detect AI content).
• I’ll charge you $100 for the service that costs $10 from other sellers

Did I expect this? Well, my expectation was that at least these services wouldn’t hurt my rankings. And it did at some point. But that’s another story.

Bottom line: don’t choose based on price only. The average cost of SEO depends on various factors, but quality should always come first.

2. Not looking under the hood

One of the worst mistakes I’ve ever done in my life was to trust a vendor or an agency wholeheartedly (and not only with digital marketing) assuming they are better than me in their field. Believe me, this way of handling your search engine optimization strategy is not gonna get you anything other than regrets.

There are two main tips that can help you make sure you’re getting the best services.

Define your expectations

If you’re a small business owner, make sure you have a general understanding of what SEO is, what’s important to rank, and what to avoid. At the end of this article, I attached a free questionnaire for the interview with your SEO agency. It contains the right questions you need to ask to avoid losing money on your services.

After you understand how search optimization works, make sure you have realistic goals and expectations. This is by far the most crucial element in finding a good provider. Make sure you don’t expect too much and you won’t be disappointed.

Ask what’s inside the box

Here’s another important tip for outsourcing SEO services. Most of the agencies will offer you monthly packages. Don’t be ashamed or afraid to ask them what’s inside. I’ve been doing interviews with a few SEO consultants and none of them were able to articulate the value and contents of their monthly offerings.

Using these two tips, you can make sure your rankings in search engines will go

3. Not trusting your gut when outsourcing SEO services

Going with your gut is crucial for your peace of mind.

Every SEO consultant or agency will tell you a nice story of how they achieved results. Almost any agency will deliver a sales pitch on why you need to go for their experience and the number and scale of the projects they’ve done. It’s normal. What they won’t tell you is how they achieved these results, and that is the crucial part.

When you’re choosing a consultant, ask as many questions regarding what the flow looks like. From their responses, you’ll develop a certain level of trust. Pay attention to how confident you feel about the quality of SEO services when speaking with each agency.

I discovered that the most important thing in choosing a provider for any service is feeling that they are on my side and whether they care about the quality of services they provide.

Get a FREE questionnaire for interviewing your SEO agency

Outsourcing SEO services is not a straightforward task. For fast and safe rankings in SERPs, it’s important to keep in mind multiple factors.

Fill in the form below and get a FREE questionnaire with all the questions you need to ask your consultant.

After stumbling over multiple low-quality providers, I listed my services for sale. From keyword research to high-quality backlinks from top websites, I can help with many of the search engine optimization tasks that small business owners face.

I will care about your SEO as if it were my own. I’d recommend you start with a free SEO audit. I’ll be excited to have you on board and to see your website on the first page of Google.