SEO to others may just be a link building effort alone but looking at the picture, you do not only build links for the sake of link popularity but you do it following a certain guidelines. In this case, not everybody is aware of what white and black hats are all about, or the penalty of not following the set standards of ethical link building.

Before you handle your own SEO campaign particularly for small business owners and individual who has their own web page, research is always the key. Yes, we want to cut down cost of marketing for your business but let’s not try to oversimplify SEO and look at the pros and cons of handling your own campaign.

The most common advantage of managing your own SEO is that, there is no additional overhead expense. Typically you just assigned it to someone as additional workload or you do it yourself if you’re just an individual trying to promote your profession. If you have a budget for it, you hire an additional person, which is cost-effective depending on the skills of your SEO campaign manager but can also be more expensive, again this will depend on the skill level. For those who only have at least 2 years experience, starting salary would be around $40,000 – $50,000 annually, which could go as high as $100,000.

Now for the cons, though money-wise, in-house SEO is a good move, but again, there are underlying factors that makes it a good investment. Not all in-house SEO campaign succeeds. Productivity-wise, in my opinion, it’s best to concentrate on your core competency. Setting and aligning goals could still be done even if you outsource your SEO, allowing you to focus on improving the products and service you provide. Another point, you do not have to worry about following SEO guidelines, appearing SeRP (Search Engine Result Page), link popularity, your SEO agency can handle those.

So before you decide if you will manage your own SEO campaign, weigh the pros and cons, you have to consider your resources. You will have to invest on both anyway so invest wisely.