What should I hire for in SEO?

[Lucifer_x7]

You already know what needs to be done for the next 2-3 months.

Do you have enough time? If yes, then don’t bother outsourcing.

The question you should be asking yourself is “do you make enough profit to hire someone?”. If yes, then go for it, if not, diy.

[pkmuzik1991]

Honestly if you have knowledge about it just DIY! You may outsource if you have heavy spending and can justify a retainer of $1500! Anything below that will get you pajeets who might eff up your current seo as well!

[pkmuzik1991]

Also just make sure that you have all the services page with the right keywords you want to rank your GMB and write down 3 blogs each service focusing on local data! Also if your site is pretty old, hire a professional for audit and they shall share the way forward on which you can act on your own!

[ChairMaster989898]

it’s really a matter considering if your time is worth doing the onpage and backlinks or hiring someone

[4RubenG]

If you want to be a successful small business owner you need to learn to delegate.

In the long run you will save money and increase your profits much faster.

[AbleInvestment2866]

How much is your time worth? Can you invest it in learning what others took years to master? If yes, you’re good to go. If not, that’s where the line is clearly drawn.

[Big_Historian5657]

Love how you’ve structured out everything in such a clear way!

If you’re already showing up on the targeted keywords then your SEO is doing just fine.

The actual question is, are those keywords bringing in the sales?

Let’s talk about this in a bit more detail if you’re up; we would love to check out your website as well.

[NoConsideration7626]

If sucesfull business, you can outsource BUT.

Are you getting leads/sales from organic traffic now? How much? Crossing that with how the sites ranks now can be useful to potential gains proyection.

While being a ex agencies SEO and now freelancer (and some time inhoused) i find inhouse the best option. It can be even more cheap than a lot of agencies.

Agency: depends. Some do really good job, some will price premium and leaving you with juniors working the campaign (surely if youre not a top fee client).

Freelancer: useful for trying. Getting a good one is hard, and the best route is asking references. You can deal a cheap campaign for a time and the analyze if worth it. Long term you can extend it to a more ambicious campaign or a less one.

Inhouse: more expensive. With the right SEO, it would be my prefered move. Would work exclusive/ish for your company, it compensates with the more flexible but (surely) with more campaings in the head freelancer SEO.

DIY is not a bad option, though, if you have time to spare.

[ericlander-seo]

Some solid discussion here – and strong points to consider already shared:

If you have the time and a runway, -“invest” in allocating AND protecting that time.

Find internal allies and get them onboard with a demonstrable plan:

Do you:

Need IT support from an internal team?
Need others to take on some of your current, less important tasks?
Need internal SMEs to step up as resources for content?
Need a budget of any kind to accommodate any tools or subscriptions?

Point being, be clear about what you want and need – and find out where there are gaps.

Plugging in a professional might help you to execute – but what I *hope* is a majority of SEOs out there are going to love partnering with someone who “gets it” and needs specialized support (meaning, smaller scope for them) if they’re going to enjoy the work and camaraderie – and be grateful for your involvement.

I’d also think about your own professional development in the organization’s eyes, too. What new skills, capabilities and knowledge can you bring by partnering with someone to help execute your plans? Focus on the upside – like how you’ll be able, in time, to reinvest PPC savings from organic success into other marketing activities and advancements for the org.

Bottom line though is that you very clearly have an idea of what you can do and what you’d like to LEARN to do, so finding somebody who can get on board with that plan and help you to execute by your side would be my best bet for a recommendation.

Whether or not that person or organization would need or want to do a deep dive (audit, competitive review, KWR, etc.) upfront or start on an immediate retainer basis is as much about you, the organization supporting it, and them.

[Snusetvb]

You absolutely need reviews. What do you struggle with specifically?

18 years on, you must have a solid collection of email addresses.

I would create a slick ‘review us’ page with a form. And send an invite to review to every single client from last 12-18 months.

Allow client/family/friend/legal representative to leave review – family members are likely better target. Create a ‘review policy’ page who can and cant leave reviews.

Publish these reviews on a new page, with 3-5 most recent on home page. Utilise reviews structured data.

On going, after x weeks send an invite to review to every client.

Provide an alternative way to review via a physical Review Card, that has a QR code linking to your ‘review us’ form page.

When you take on new clients, you can leave this with them, and/or after working with them for some time have team members bring cards with them.

QR code on card is crucial here as a family member may prefer doing it digitally.

You could post these cards to past 12-18 months clients as well.

When you publish reviews on your site, make clear when it was submitted, time period review refers to, what services and the reviewers connection (client themselves, family or friend) as well as branch/area. These things should all be mandatory fields on your review form.

On your review form/card, include a star rating 1-5 as well as written review with a minimum of 200 characters and a maximum of your choosing. 1000 should be a good number.

As an extra tip, not sure size of your business and structure but creating a ‘team members’ page with a good quality picture and a short intro & qualifications etc is a great one.

Both of the above efforts will support location specific pages if you go down that route.

Dont forget to share the reviews on social media! And if creating marketing material in future, make sure you have reviewer’s permission to use their review. You could include this in t&cs for submitting review.

All the best

[Razn0m]

Want to know the unfortunate truth? You’re in a lose lose situation. You know enough about SEO that you’ll never really value someone you hire and will always question the work, looking at what they deliver and knowing you could figure it out and do it yourself. And the person you hire will resent you for being perpetually unsatisfied with their deliverables. I think you need to do one or the other, not a blend. Either cut yourself off from SEO completely, or do it all yourself.

Source: SEO consultant of 10+ years with clients of all different knowledge levels

[Lucifer19821]

Sounds like you’ve already got a solid base. I’d DIY the content + on-page since you’re comfortable there, and hire out for backlink building + local citation cleanup (that’s usually the hardest/most time-consuming part). One-time audit/overhaul from a pro can also save you from blind spots before you run with it.

[iamthesam2]

why not just use an LLM via cli to review your sites code in detail and manage all your seo for you?

[thejamstr]

If I were in your shoes, here’s how I’d look at it. You’ve already got the hard part done of building trust locally and keeping a strong Google Business Profile. That’s why you’re still showing up even without much SEO effort. The issue is that your site is thin. It doesn’t have dedicated service pages, location pages, or fresh content to signal authority. Think of it like you’ve got the storefront but no aisles or shelvs stocked yet.

Since you’re comfortable writing and using AI, you can defintely own the content side. Build out individual service and location pages, write blog posts that answer the exact questions families are Googling, and make sure all of it ties back to your core offers. That’s what’ll push you further up the page.

The place where I’d stop trying to DIY everything is with strategy, technical work and authority building. Backlinks take time and specialized outreach, so bringing someone in who already has a process for that is huge. Same goes for strategy and technical work. Even if you’re solid on the basics, having an expert shape the long-term plan and do a one-time crawl of your site to check speed, indexing, and structure can save you headaches. That’s not something you need on a monthly retainer but it’s worth getting right at the start so you’re building on a strong foundation.

One other thing worth mentioning is GoDaddy. Their marketing suite is limited, and long term you’ll probably want to move with tools to help you grow.

So the way I’d split it is this- do blog content, local pages, GBP updates, and reviews yourself since they need your voice anyway. Bring in help for strategy, technical fixes, and backlinks. That way you keep control of the parts that matter most to your brand but still get the leverage of expert help where it counts.

If you wanna dm your site, I can give you some more specific advice about what you need (Free of course!)

[WhiteChili]

If I were in your shoes, I’d think of SEO in “layers”:

DIY layer (you can absolutely handle):
– On-page basics (titles, meta, structure, internal links).
– Content creation (service/location pages + blogs).
– Consistent NAP + review strategy.
Specialist layer (where hiring pays off):
– Backlinks: Not just random guest posts, but hyper-local links (chambers of commerce, senior living associations, healthcare directories). That’s tough to DIY unless you’ve got the network.
– Technical SEO: Site speed, schema markup, crawl budget optimization – the stuff that doesn’t show until you fix it.
– Analytics setup: Making sure you’re not just tracking “traffic,” but conversions that tie back to business outcomes (calls, form fills, booked consultations).

What usually works best is a hybrid approach: you keep control of content + brand voice (since you know your clients best), but bring in someone who’s already solved the backlink/technical puzzle for service-based local businesses. That way, you’re not paying agency overhead for things you can already do well.

Retainers make sense if you want ongoing authority building (links, content promotion, continuous optimization). A one-time overhaul works if your site just needs to be set up correctly and then you can run with it. For most home-service businesses, I’ve seen the best ROI when they do one solid technical + local SEO foundation project, then keep a smaller monthly budget for link building and local signals.

In your case (longstanding business + competitive local market), you’re sitting on a strong brand that just needs the right scaffolding to scale. If you can pair that with PPC, you’ll cover both short-term demand and long-term compounding growth.

Happy to share how I’d approach it step-by-step for a company like yours if you want to swap notes.