On Tuesday, April 20, Modo25 hosted an online panel discussion to find out why SEO is best done inhouse.
The guest panel included Shahid Awan, expert SEO consultant; Erika Varangouli, Global Content Marketing Strategist at Semrush; Tomas Seliokas, Strategic Consultant at SimilarWeb and Jamie White, Associate Director of SEO at Modo25.
It was an interesting event and the panellists got a chance to talk about the benefits of inhousing your SEO, the best industry-standard tools to use, SEO metrics that matter and so much more.
Should we do our SEO inhouse or with an agency?
Shahid: It comes down to accountability and measurement. You don’t mind having agencies helping your inhouse teams but it really comes down to transparency. What’s the ROI that the agency brings to the business? For me, inhouse gives you the full view of the business. You really understand your data and what the business’ direction is. SEO isn’t a standalone channel anymore, it’s really the backbone and the foundation for all online marketing. So, in my opinion, agencies should really provide that peripheral view – help fill in the gaps in terms of data and accelerating scalability.
Erika: One thing we tend to underestimate is how important it is to build your own team. That’s the main difference between inhouse and agency – right? You can run everything exactly as you want and you also control the motivation and transparency of your work. So, with agencies, I’ve seen it happen over and over again. Someone leaves and someone new comes in and the client loses trust and it’s because they can’t control that process. Being able to build your team to fit your goals, as a business, is integral to making SEO work.
Changes in SEO over 2020/21
Tomas: In general, what we’re seeing is an increase in traffic through organic search. We’ve also seen growth on desktop too. But an interesting thing for me was how important recent data is. So many companies have seen this fast shift in everything. So, ‘what do we do during lockdown, what do we do when lockdown ends, how much should traffic increase, how much should traffic decrease?’ that value of context has grown so much. We’ve seen so many requests from agencies that need that data more than ever. Recent and relevant data is very important.
Erika: Right now, with a lot of countries opening up and other closings, we see trends changing again. One thing I would say is how impressive it is to see the spike around specific industries, like cryptocurrency. We’ve not just seen brand searches increase but long-tail searches around it have gone up too. Another thing I would highlight is the global searches around vaccination, for example, when people will get them and if they are safe etc. But we’re also seeing some spike around anti-vax terms as well. We’re also seeing the benefits of businesses that update the details on their website or Google My Business vs those who don’t.
You can watch more clips from the session on our YouTube channel. If you’re looking for SEO support, drop us an email to team@modo25.com for an informal chat about how we could work together.
