SEO Consultant Ireland

What is the best SEO Software?

That is a question I get asked from almost every client. Jet I never really know how to answer that question. Why is that?

There are number of the SEO tools I have used and still use a number of them, depending on the site I am optimising. I wrote about a number of the SEO Tools on this site, and Hubspot is the one I use for a long time. They keep coming out with a new tools, relevant to the new things that happen on the web. Hubspot Twitter Grader is just another fine example!

I Wrote about the Stompernet Site Seer, a whole list of Google SEO tools like Google Webmaster Tools, KeywordSpy and many others.

But to answer the question – What is the best SEO Software, I simply cannot. I just realized I never even wrote a blog post about a single SEO Sofware package. Is WebCEO, SEOElite, Internet Business Promoter (IBP), SEO Suite, SEO Studio, and a long list of other SEO Software packages really not worth an article?

Well in all fairness they surely are! But each of them will cover a few task SEO specialist does, and try to automate the process in completing those tasks. Most of the SEO Software does a great job.

The unfortunate fact is that there is no SEO Software that does it all even for one type of the web site. I actually use Excel and Notepad more than any purpose built SEO Software.

With the SEO staff there is always a dilemma, if to put them in the IT or the Marketing department. Unfortunately that is the one that does not really have the right answer. SEO should not really be neither with the IT nor Marketing. SEO staff need to be in between those two, probably reporting to the same management level where you IT (or Development if you are in IT company) and Marketing are reporting.

Why is SEO ’so important’?
Well the SEO staff have a job to make sure that the IT and Marketing excel in what they do without clashing into each other’s territory.

What makes a good SEO professional?

The term Team Player describes well what a SEO staff need to be good at. Unfortunately this is completely incompatible with one of the most important skills required for the perfect SEO person and it is entrepreneurship. SEO is changing and evolving rapidly. The SEO person needs to be a serious ‘forward thinker’. Again, being a visionary and the analytical is again extremely rare in the same person. Statistical Analysis is the base and the start of any SEO. There is a high level of leadership skills required to get the web developers and marketing staff involved constructively into the common project, and make them byte in to it. Vendor management skills, and negotiation skills in general is certainly required to manage the external SEO and PPC vendors, partners and consultants.

Let’s just list the skills described above in a simple list:

Team Player vs. Entrepreneur (Soloist, Leader)
Statistical Analysis (Detail Oriented) vs. Creative Forward Thinker
Negotiator vs. Charismatic
Management Experience
Results Driven (doesn’t it sound so much like ‘Black Hat’)
….

The more you define your SEO staff requirements the more complex it gets. It actually gets to the utopia stage, since there as a so many so conflicting skills required. Perhaps hiring the SEO staff in house doesn’t sound as that good idea anymore?

You are as likely to choose a wrong SEO Company as to hire a wrong SEO employee. If you know about SEO you will choose the right one, if you do not, ask for help externally.

Inhouse SEO

Imagine that you manage to hire and really hire the 100% best candidate as you SEO guy. And he/she is the best in what he does, in his little niche of SEO. For this example he is the best ‘Link Ninja’. He generates the inbound links from the huge number of sites with minimal budget (you didn’t think links are free did you?).

12 months pass by, and he is up for review. What are his goals for the next 12 months that you are going to base his performance bonus? To achieve 20% more inbound links than last year? And a year after again the same?!

The salary growth is not really exceed 10 to 15% ,… so your PERFECT Link Ninja has absolutely no career path. The only possible one is to stop him generating links but managing junior team members in doing that or managing a vendor SEO company in link building. Since he is the 100% best Link Ninja, he is not going to be happy with anyone’s performance – inferior to his. This results in him not doing the job he is good at – link building, but having to manage inferior link builders. This will give him the feeling his staff is mediocre and that his employer does not invest enough in the SEO Link Building Team.

Here is the point where you lose your Link Ninja – most likely to your competitor – who will use his experience in your industry…

Outsourced SEO

The percentage of SEO contract being renewed after an educated review is really very, very small. This is the result that since a SEO is so nice little item every web design company just adds to their list of services, and can be priced as much as the development of the whole web site, it is too tempting not to offer it. Anyone can call themselves a SEO Expert, and you need to know a great deal about the SEO itself to be able to choose a good one.

So how well will the Outsourced SEO work for you? The answer is really in the question itself. The more you know about the SEO, the better SEO company will you choose. Since you have decided to outsource the SEO, it is most likely you understand you do not have the skills to do it yourself. ON the other hand you need to know SEO really well to find a really good SEO company. A bit like a Catch 22 here isn’t it?

Imagine an accountancy practice hiring a .NET developer to develop an internal application. Will they interview him themselves? And ask for the code samples so that they can analyse them? The same applies with the SEO consultants. It is pointless to choose a SEO company yourself if you know nothing about the SEO yourself. If you do, you will determine what SEO company to work with based on the sales skills of their salesman! And that is in absolutely no relation to the quality of the SEO service you will receive.

So to Outsource SEO or not to Outsource SEO?

One way or the other, get someone who knows about SEO to help you interview the job candidates or potential service provider. You will save a lot of money on the long run. You can find a SEO Consultant for hire here.