Key Takeaways
- You have an entire team of experts at an SEO Agency under one roof. A freelancer is typically one person.
- The cost of a freelancer is less than that of an SEO agency, and you have direct access to them. However, often a freelancer has too many clients.
- An AI SEO service speeds up research and reporting, but a human should still write and review the content.
Introduction
Picking between an agency and a freelance SEO expert is one of those decisions that quietly shape your next twelve months. Both types of setups have pros and cons, which this guide aims to cover in detail. By reading this guide, you should be able to make an informed decision regarding your own SEO needs over the next 12 months or so and choose an SEO expert to work with who can help you get your traffic, leads, and rankings heading in the right direction.
For most business owners, the choice between an SEO agency and a freelance SEO expert doesn’t come up until it is too late, and they are left struggling to get work completed on time, incurring high costs in the process. By reading this guide, you can avoid these problems and choose the right SEO expert for you.
What Does an Agency Actually Do?
An SEO Agency is made up of many specialists, including a technical SEO expert, a content writer, a link builder, as well as a strategist who ties everything together. An Agency is ideal for complex websites, multiple products, multiple locations, as well as businesses that have a large content output and require a constant stream of high-quality content on an ongoing basis.
Working with an agency keeps things steady. There is usually someone on your project, even if your main contact is off for a week. You can also look at earlier work and read the reports in one place on a dashboard. A lot of freelancers cannot make that same setup available for every client. Many freelance SEO consultants simply don’t have the bandwidth to do this for every client.
What Does a Freelance SEO Expert Do?
A freelance SEO expert is a single individual. They may be very skilled people with extensive agency experience. You hire them for keyword research, on-page optimization and content development.
A freelancer can provide great work for a small website or even for the launch of a single product. Often, larger companies need minor work completed that doesn’t warrant the cost of hiring an SEO Agency for a full SEO strategy. As with any service provider, though, there is a bandwidth problem. This means a single person can only complete so much work in any given time.
Chances are that the person you hire will have several other active clients at any given time and thus be unable to respond at the speed you require in times of emergency. Should that freelancer have a family emergency or fall ill, for example, your campaign will be severely affected, with most such freelancers having no backup in place.
Agency vs Freelancer: Quick Comparison
| Factor | Agency |
Freelancer |
| Team size | Multiple specialists | One person |
| Typical cost | Higher monthly retainer | Lower, more flexible |
| Best for | Large or multi-channel sites | Focused, smaller projects |
| Availability | Backup team if one person is out | Can get stretched thin |
| Communication | Account manager, structured reports | Direct, one-on-one |
| Tools access | Premium tools shared across team | Often fewer paid tools |
Both options have their advantages, and there is no way to declare a winner. Your business needs must take precedence over what you perceive to be the most desirable option.
When a Freelancer Makes More Sense?
Small businesses and solo founders often do well start with a freelancer, since it costs less and does not lock you into a long contract. For one, you get to have an expert look over your website and make necessary changes without tying yourself to a long contract. In addition, you can scale up as needed.
This is also when a freelancer is best suited to complete a narrow scope of work, such as a one-time technical audit of a website, a batch of blog posts, and addressing a Google penalty, for example. The amount of work can be completed within a short space of time and for a competitive fixed rate by a single skilled individual.
When Should You Choose an SEO Agency?
For bigger sites (with more than a handful of pages) and multiple markets/campaigns, agencies can start offering better value than hiring a single freelancer. Agencies can also spread the workload across specialists, so nothing waits in one person’s queue.
A further reason to consider the services of an SEO agency is if your business is operating in a highly competitive area. If there are ten other companies fighting for the top rankings in your niche, it is unlikely that a single freelancer will have the capacity to meet your needs. And when you need a high volume of content to be created, along with a variety of technical changes to be made, plus a link building campaign, then the services of a talented team of SEO experts operating as an SEO agency are generally far more suitable.
Where AI SEO Service Fits into This Decision?
A successful agency or freelancer will incorporate an AI SEO service into their workflow. The AI SEO service will provide some initial research, content structure, and competitor tracking, but ultimately a human will write the copy and go through the work for errors before it is published.
61% of marketers are now trying to improve their search engine rankings, with SEO and organic presence being their number one aim (HubSpot Marketing Statistics). The above reasons are why we feel that many freelancers and agencies now need to be using an AI SEO service to help complete their SEO tasks, whilst still manually checking and rewriting any content that has been written by AI for quality and for search engine relevance.
How To Choose: A Simple Checklist
Before you sign anything, run through this list:
- What is your budget for the proposed SEO to work monthly, and does this approximate the rates you would expect to pay to an agency on a retainer basis?
- Is your project going to be a single audit/campaign (Narrow Project) or ongoing on multiple pages (Ongoing Project)?
- Is your project better suited to one direct point of contact, or would you be okay with the various members of the team plus an account manager?
- Can you check out 3 to 5 real examples of their past work?
- Do they clearly outline their process and expectations, or are they just promising results quickly?
If you are searching for, SEO companies in Newcastle, use these points to compare local agencies, national agencies, and freelancers. A national agency with remote SEO services can deliver better work than a local agency that only checks in once a quarter. Reporting and strategy calls work just as well over video, so location should not limit your choice.
Final Thoughts
In the end, it’s a case of choosing the best solution for the job at the best price. A freelancer can offer smaller, more focused work for shorter periods of time, but an agency is better suited for longer periods and complex projects. Revisit your choice every year.
