Search engine optimization experts come in two different types—those that focus on analysis and those that focus on implementation. Few sites need experts to help them with implementation—but many sites can benefit from expert analysis.
Search Engine Optimization Expert Implementation
Do you need Picasso to design your site’s layout, or Hemingway to write your blog posts, or Caples to write your ad copy? No. Your site works just fine being created, written, and advertised by mere mortals. 
Of course learning the basics of SEO does not hurt at all.
Hiring a search engine optimization expert to write copy on your pages is overkill. Worse, it benefits one part of your business by risking the rest of the business.
A search engine optimization expert will get your site higher rankings in Google and other search engines, but he might sacrifice your sites’s readability or selling strength to do it. What good is it to your site to rank high but sell poorly?
Search Engine Optimization Expert Analysis
On the other hand, hiring an expert to analyze your site makes perfect sense. First, you only need a few hours of the expert’s time, so the cost is much lower. Second, the expert can point out your top flaws, so you concentrate your effort (or money) on the main problems. And, third, you can much more easily choose between effective SEO and your other business interests.
Remember that many search engine experts make a significant amount of money from add-on billables. For example, they’ll tell you what is wrong with a particular page as part of your contract—but then they’ll offer to rewrite the page for an additional fee.
There’s nothing wrong with add-on billing, but be careful when buying. You almost always get more value for money by updating your own content so you fully learn the lessons taught by the search engine optimization expert. The experts know this, so they’ll often use time pressure to get you to make a decision quickly—they’ll indicate their time is limited or offer you a special deal. I recommend that you always wait 24 hours after talking to an expert before you buy any additional products from him or her so you have time to think through the situation.
How To Find A Good Search Engine Optimization Expert
Search engine optimization experts come in two varieties: core experts and edge experts. Core experts focus on core search methods, such as those recommended by Google. Edge experts focus on cutting-edge methods, including those which might be called blackhat search engine optimization.
Unless your site is in a hyper-competitive niche, you want a core expert. (And if you are in a hyper-competitive niche, you might want to consider trying one of the millions of less competitive niches.)
Edge experts often recommend techniques which will only improve your ranking slightly, but which will put your site at increased risk of being banned from Google’s search index. This is highly probably after the recent Google updates. That’s obviously not good for your business long-term, but—remember—the consultant probably cares more about impressing you short-term than about the long-term health of your business. He or she won’t be there when Google drops your site.
BONUS VIDEO: Listen to Matt Cutts as he answers the question: What Should We Expect In Terms of SEO
Hi Mitz,
With these constant updates by Google, many website owners are thrown into confusion. One almost does not know what works and what doesn’t. Penguin, Panda and then Hummingbird – I think hiring core experts is the way to go as these put you inline with Google.
By the way, I never knew these differences before – core experts and edge experts. Thanks for bringing something new to me this morning.
Yes I think we all need an expert to help with these recent changes in the Google algo. It is not easy keeping on top of all this. 🙂
Search Enging Optimization (SEO) is really essential but with a little knowledge about SEO can be proven as a big impact. A website can rank higher with the proper use of SEO and Keywords, and if someone is really busy in their life then they can hire any professionals or it’s better to do SEO by ourselves as it can help us to learn many things. By the way it’s really a great and fantastic article. Really helpful for newbies.
Yes you are right. If we are busy then we can hire someone for SEO. Proper SEO improves everything about your site..not just rankings. 🙂
Content always ranks higher in terms of SEO optimization. Matt Cutts’s video you have presented before us is quiet knowledgeable and very presentable, depicting the latest changes Google is going to empower on us in coming days. Link spammers are supposed to be very careful regarding building of spam links. Thanks Mitz for sharing this very interesting resource with us.
Without SEO your marketing efforts can go unseen. If you’re serious about traffic you need someone who knows how to look at your traffic, were it’s coming for and what your viewers want to say when they get to your site.
Yea you are right that having the expert implement the changes may be costly. On the other hand, our time is valuable. So there’s a real balancing act here, and I don’t pretend I’ve got it all figured out. Me tweaking hundreds of pages of content takes an enormous amount of time that I could be spending on other business priorities. I’ve been trying out a group that outsources a lot of the work I think to other countries. We’ll see if it ends up being worth paying money in order to free up more of my time … thanks for the thought-provoking article 🙂
Yes in this game there is a place where you wonder about your time and can afford to pay someone for the easier jobs. I have been doing this a long time and only have about 4 awesome people, even though I have employed 100’s.
To be honest no one can really call themselves an expert when they are talking about SEO, the algo changes that Google implement are only known by a few at Google so anyone claiming they know how to beat the penguin, tiger, sheep or any other Zoo animals is talking a lot of BS. So called SEO experts take a good guess at what algo changes have taken place by trial and error.
Strong quality content that is beneficial to the user, good onsite SEO and everyone should be safe from future algo updates from Google.
Cheers
Mark
You’re right no one knows… that is until they are hit by the algo and then recover… That is exactly what I wait for.. I have many websites and if one gets hit I am relieved when it is fixed as I then know the other sites are ok too..
It is my job to know this if I want to run websites…
Of course there are experts out there that have a natural sense for these things and can easily guess what the algo involves.
Great post! Hiring someone that understand the in’s and out of SEO is great for the success of a website. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi Mitz,
Nice article it’s really important to know basics of SEO because if we dont then dont have a basic idea about rankings and we tent to loose interest in blogging , whats the use if we are not ranking at all? I would say we need SEO expert and I am also willing to hire an SEO expert if he can assure me visiblity on Search engines as well as if he could give me deep insights on SEO and how to recover from updates like PEN 2.1, Hummingbird and PANDA
Thanks for Sharing that Article With Us I’ve been trying out a group that outsources a lot of the work I think to other countries. We’ll see if it ends up being worth paying money in order to free up more of my time … thanks
Things are getting more difficult for SEO experts. The way Google keeps changing it’s policies it’s getting increasingly difficult to do SEO for a website.
That is a great post Milica. Well done!
I checked your site, it looks great!
Great post! Thanks Mitz for sharing. so much useful points and resources that i was searching for i found it here. My website will surely grow up after hiring a SEO.
Hello,
Yup, you are right about hiring an expert for SEO, so that the traffic of our blog should be improved. I believe we must implement tips on our own to gain practical knowledge.
thanks
Hi Mitz,
Interesting concept of core expert and edge expert. We had a more common word – the white hat seo and the black white seo. You preferred not to use these words but rather core and edge. How do you think your classification is different than the conventional classification?
Hi Suresh
Not all edge SEO experts are black hat but are labelled as such… I guess this is a nice way to say it, but I think more truthful. They are experts at what they do and should be counted as such.
I guess you may have got it right Mitz. What with all of the Google update the rookies are anyways beginning to disappear. It wouldn’t be unwise to hire a Expert help. And even after all this, some say SEO is dead. How ignorant 😀
Whenever the new update is coming about search engine optimization we got a blank screen in our mind but thanks for much complete detail on search engine optimization experts. I always like Matt Cutts question answer part at the end of the post.
I think we need to redefine our SEO.
You state:
“The top ranking of any site actually depends on the traffic that comes to that site.”
This is totally right.
The top ranking of a site depend on the presentation of it’s keywords and content.
I have had a brand new site with ONE link get a #1 listing when the #2 site had over 500,000 links. (And the associated traffic)
Hiring someone for the most hyped word for a blogger or a website owner (SEO) would be just the half work done if he cannot figure it out, what is being done when they say they are rewritting it. And in this case he may need to hire someone again when he adds up few more pages to get them ranked again.
Hearing Sir Matt Cutts in few videos what i have learned is that SEO experise includes just basic knowledge of what all of us generally knows and what he points out the most the quality of the content. I prefer low traffic with low bounce range over a huge traffic with considerably high Bounce Rate.
It’s too confusion with latest two back to back Google Algorithm updates. Because My website got most of Keywords on first page after these updates ranks goes below and now trying to get rank back.
I am start researching one of SEO expert to getting me my rank again. It’s quite informative for me while I am hiring SEO expert. 🙂
Hello,
That’s very useful post you have shared for SEO, i was not aware of these terms core experts and edge experts. You have differentiated these terms very well, thanks for sharing.