This dilemma has been around for years, and I’ve heard it discussed countless times—at SEO conferences, industry events, and online.
I’ve been on both sides, so I can confidently say there is no one-size-fits-all answer. It really depends on your company’s goals, structure, budget, and, most importantly, what kind of company you’re running and what your business model looks like.
Key Questions I’ll Cover:
To help you visually compare the two approaches, I’ve broken down the key differences between in-house and outsourced SEO across core areas like expertise, cost, scalability, control, and more.
By the end, you’ll have a clearer understanding of which direction to take—whether in-house SEO, outsourcing SEO, or a combination of both—to get the best ROI from your SEO investment.
| SEO Factor | In-House SEO Pros | In-House SEO Cons | Outsourced SEO Pros | Outsourced SEO Cons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Content Creation | In-depth brand understanding | Hard to scale content production | Fast, high-quality SEO content | Requires brand voice training |
| Expertise | Full control over expert hiring | Limited to internal knowledge | Access to diverse industry specialists | May lack deep knowledge of your niche |
| Link Building | Builds links via direct outreach | Limited scalability without support | Faster, scalable link-building networks | Less personalized than in-house efforts |
| Technical SEO | Works closely with developers for site fixes | Needs in-house skills or outsourcing | Access to expert tools and resources | Less hands-on control over daily fixes |
| Cost | Higher long-term spend on team and tools | Ongoing salary and training expenses | Lower upfront costs with bundled services | Extra fees for long-term contracts or add-ons |
| Scalability | Growth limited by internal capacity | Hard to scale without more resources | Agencies scale easily with demand | May need contract updates to scale |
| Control & Flexibility | Full control over strategy and execution | Slower to adapt to shifting priorities | Fresh perspective from external experts | Less control over decision execution |
| Overall SEO Knowledge | Strong industry-specific expertise | May lack broader SEO trend awareness | Cross-industry insight and fast trend adoption | Strategies may be less customized to your niche |
| Team Collaboration | Easy cross-team communication | Internal silos may slow things down | Dedicated experts, but slower communication | Less integrated with in-house teams |
| Adaptability | Quick to adjust to internal changes | Limited resources can slow response to sudden changes | Fast implementation of industry shifts | External changes may take longer to apply |
| Knowledge Retention | Expertise stays in-house over time | Knowledge loss if key staff leave | Agencies maintain continuity through systems | Transitioning between agencies can disrupt progress |
In-House SEO vs. Outsourced SEO Differences
Imagine you’re running a business and thinking about how to handle your SEO. Basically, you have two choices: You can manage SEO internally by hiring an in-house team, or you can outsource it to an external agency or consultant.
To keep things clear and easy to follow, this article is divided into a few main sections.
Part 1 covers everything about in-house SEO, including its advantages and disadvantages.
Part 2 dives into outsourced SEO, along with its pros and cons.
And in Part 3, we’ll wrap things up with some final thoughts and tips. I’ve started by focusing on in-house SEO to kick things off.
Let’s start with in-house SEO.
When you have in-house SEO, you're always in the driver's seat. If youwant to make a change—like the immediate reaction to a Google update or an immediate fix, you don't have to wait for someone else. You can fix it immediately.
Your in-house team knows your business. They're part of your day-to-day operations, so they truly get what you're doing—your goals, your audience, and your brand voice. Unlike agencies with lots of different clients, your in-house team is working just for you, so they can get in deeper and create content that just feel right for your business.
SEO doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It connects to content, design, and even tech. With an in-house team, you’re working with people who are already familiar with how everything works. They can collaborate easily with other departments and make sure SEO is part of the bigger picture, not an afterthought.
Because you're working with an in-house team, your data stays with you. There is no possibility of it being leaked to other clients or even used for case studies. Your data, your insights, and your strategies are all yours and yours alone, and you can be sure that your competitors aren't getting any information.
With an in-house team, you're building expertise that's staying within the company. They learn over time to understand what works for your specific requirements and can make decisions based on that expertise, leading to long-term development.
Internal teams often get too caught up in their own stuff and overlook the wider industry changes. Multi-client agencies, from my experience, are more responsive in terms of catching the trends and testing out ways of working.
If a key member of your in-house SEO team quits, they take all their knowledge with them. Agencies have a system and process in place, so when one leaves, it doesn't hold them back.
It can be costly to recruit and train an internal SEO team. You have to spend on salaries, training, tools, and resources. It can also take some time to get new hires up to full productivity.
SEO is far more than 1 person job. If you really want a positive ROI, you need to have at least 4 people in your SEO team - technical, content, link builder and strategist.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Total Control of Your SEO | Tunnel Vision & Missing Big Trends |
| Deep Understanding of Your Brand | Loss of Knowledge When Employees Leave |
| Better Collaboration With Your Team | Expensive Hiring and Training of SEO Experts |
| Your Data Stays Confidential | Often Lacks the Full Team You Need |
| Building Expertise That Stays With You |
Agencies have skilled teams who know SEO well. They have worked with many businesses, so they have plenty of valuable experience to assist in improving your SEO.
Hiring an in-house team will cost money. Outsourcing is generally cheaper because you do not have to pay for wages, training, or other costs.
SEO is hard work. Outsourcing allows you to concentrate on your business and leave the SEO work to the professionals.
Agencies can adjust their work based on your needs. If you want to focus more on SEO during a busy time, they can do that. If things slow down, they can adjust as well.
Agencies work with other companies, so they bring new ideas and approaches that may help your business grow in ways you never thought possible.
SEO tools are costly. Agencies usually have the best tools at their disposal, so you get to use them without having to buy them yourself.
Since agencies are more experienced, they will be able to learn faster than an internal team that is less experienced.
Miscommunication is a possibility in SEO outsourcing. Even if instructions are given clearly, an agency may not fully understand your business or priorities. So, it takes more effort to get things going in the right direction.
When you work with an agency, you're sacrificing some control. You set the strategy, but agencies also have their own process, which might not always be in line with your business objectives.
Agencies don't have as much knowledge of your business as you do. They might not always get your brand's voice or audience exactly right, which could lead to misaligned strategies.
While most agencies are ethical, there's always a small chance your information could be used elsewhere. So, make sure to sign a comprehensive contract and NDA with agencies.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| SEO Expertise | Communication & Transparency Issues |
| Lower Costs | Less Control Over Processes and Timelines |
| Saves Time | Less Knowledge of Your Brand |
| Flexible | Privacy Control |
| Fresh Ideas | |
| Tools & Resources | |
| Faster Results |
So, to wrap it up, you have two clear paths: keeping everything in-house, with a dedicated team directly under your control, or outsourcing some or all of your SEO work to experts outside your organization.
In order to decide that, let me break it down into four broad categories: content, technical SEO, link building, and overall SEO expertise.
Let’s start our comparison with in-house SEO. With an in-house team of SEO specialists. They understand your goals well and can make adjustments quickly.
Take something niche—like custom industrial machinery. Your products and customers have very specific needs. Your in-house SEO team can create strategies that really speak to your audience, while someone outside the company might not get the details of your market.
Besides, when I worked in-house, I enjoyed having full control. I could experiment quickly, work closely with developers, and ensure SEO was aligned with the overall marketing strategy.
But it was hard to stay updated.
Since we were only focused on our industry, we weren't always aware of new strategies from other industries, SEO trends, SERP changes, etc.
And it was hard to keep good SEO talent in-house. When a person left, it took a while to fill their position, which slowed things down.
Now, let’s discuss outsourced SEO. One of the biggest advantages of outsourcing SEO is the level of expertise you have access to. Agencies work with businesses across many industries, so they see trends early and experiment with methods that have worked elsewhere.
At my agency, one of the things I love most is seeing SEO patterns across multiple industries. It gives us an edge in adapting to changes quickly.
In addition, agencies tend to have access to top-tier SEO tools that would be far too costly for an individual company to invest in.
Another huge benefit is the team structure. SEO is a broad field—there’s technical SEO, link building, digital PR, content, strategy, and more. Expecting one in-house hire to master all these areas is unrealistic.
You’d either need to bring in a very expensive all-around expert (who would still struggle with the sheer workload of covering everything) or hire an entire team—lead SEO, technical specialist, link-building expert, content creator. That’s a big commitment.
Agencies already employ these experts. At Loopex Digital, for example, every SEO project has a team of experts who are focused on their areas.
Now, the drawback here is that an agency will not understand your business as well as an in-house team. It's got to take some time to familiarize itself with your brand, and if communication isn't great, you might have strategies that sound great on paper but don't exactly work for your business.
That's why it's really crucial to vet your agency properly. You want to make sure the team working on your project actually knows what they're doing.
So, in terms of expertise, you have a choice: either build an in-house team that's expensive and has the appropriate specialists in each SEO area or hire an agency that already has them on the payroll.
The bottom line here is that, in terms of SEO expertise, I'd definitely give preference to an agency rather than an in-house team.
When it comes to content, deciding between in-house and outsourced isn’t always clear-cut. Different parts of a website need different kinds of content—blog posts, product descriptions (for e-commerce), service pages (for businesses like Loopex Digital), or feature pages (for SaaS). What works best depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
For service, product, or category content, I’d lean toward in-house. Your internal team knows your product or service inside and out. That kind of deep understanding is hard to match, so they’re usually the best people to create content that’s accurate, and really speaks to your brand.
For information-based content, like blog posts or how-to guides, the decision isn't as cut and dried. The writing process, i.e., research, draft, edit, isn't that different whether you have it done in-house or an agency.
And from what I've learned, the quality is more about the writer’s skill than where they work. Prices are generally similar, too, so if you're still unsure, the best thing to do is put an in-house writer's output against an agency's and see what you like best.
Scalability is another thing to consider. If you have one content writer, you can only produce what they can produce. But if you need to scale all of a sudden and publish much more, that's where it gets tricky.
You would either need to build an entire team with multiple writers and an editor or outsource to an agency that already has those people on staff. I’ve seen businesses struggle with this—one writer can do a great job, but when they need to triple production, it quickly becomes overwhelming.
Then there’s SEO expertise, which is a huge factor. I’ve worked with amazing writers who create fantastic content, but it wasn’t optimized for search. And let’s be honest, SEO isn’t just about stuffing in keywords—it’s about understanding user intent, analyzing the SERPs, and structuring content in a way that helps it rank. If your in-house writers aren’t trained in SEO, you’ll either need to invest in their training or work with an agency that already knows how to do this.
Personally, I think that there is neither a wrong nor a right choice. It just depends on your needs. If you have experienced in-house writers who know what SEO is all about, then the result would be the same. But if your in-house writers do not have experience in keyword research, SERP analysis, and SEO-supported content, then an agency might be the best choice for you.
When you’re looking at the technical side of SEO, it’s a bit of a grey area.
Suppose you’re dealing with a big e-commerce site like Amazon, something massive like Zara, or even a custom-built website. In that case, having a tech specialist in-house can make sense, as there’s always something that needs attention.
For custom-built websites, it’s especially helpful because your tech specialist is working directly with the developers, so everything runs smoothly.
But if we are only talking about the output, the result is not so different if you have an internal technical specialist or if you are having an agency do it. In technical SEO, there's a right way and a wrong way to get things done, so if the expertise is there, the result should be the same.
Now, for smaller websites built with CMSs like Shopify, WordPress, or Webflow, keeping a technical specialist in-house doesn’t really make sense. Once everything’s set up, there’s not a lot that can go wrong. You’re mainly just doing regular maintenance, and having someone in-house for that can be costly for not much work.
In cases like this, it can be less expensive to outsource to an agency where a team can do the technical SEO without having to bring on someone full-time.
So, to sum it up, if you’re running a massive site or a custom build, an in-house tech specialist can be a game changer. However, for smaller sites, outsourcing usually makes more sense financially.
In the case of link building, the right choice isn't that difficult, really: outsource. Agencies actually have an advantage here because they've already built connections with dozens of websites and blogs. They know what kinds of pitches get through and have their systems in place to maximize it.
Link building is tough, especially at scale. Agencies have dedicated teams—data specialists for finding prospects, outreach experts for emails, and so on. If you’re working with platforms like ProfNet or looking for expert commentary, they know exactly how to approach it, and can handle the workload more efficiently.
The same goes for digital PR. Agencies have creative teams and proven processes to run full campaigns, something it’s hard for an in-house team to match.
You pretty much have two choices here: build an in-house team or use one rockstar employee. The issue with one specialist, however, is that they can't do it all and still do an amazing job. Agencies don't face this issue because they have more people to work on things together.
If you're in a financial, banking, or insurance industry where the strategy keeps evolving, it's perhaps worth having an in-house team. You need someone who's always on top of the latest developments.
But even then, you can outsource link building. That's where the hybrid model comes in.
So, basically, what I am saying by the hybrid method is that it enables you to take advantage of the best of both worlds: your in-house team handles strategy and quick change, and the agency does more specialist tasks, like SEO audits, link building, or content scaling. Provided that everyone is communicating well and knows their role, it can work perfectly.
To sum up, for smaller teams, you can either choose the right agency or hire a small in-house team of 3-4 people, or even just one person to handle SEO. If you go with just one person, make sure they have enough time and skills to manage everything.
When comparing costs, an internal SEO specialist typically earns around $5,000 per month, according to Indeed. But remember, there are additional costs involved:
For outsourced SEO, agencies generally offer different pricing models: monthly retainers, project-based contracts, or sometimes performance-based agreements (although these are rare).
As a rule of thumb, the price for a complete SEO campaign for a mid-sized website would be approximately $5,000 per month. Outsourcing typically does not involve additional software programs or training fees, as the agency takes care of these internally.
If you're on a tight budget, you may think maintaining SEO in-house is the most affordable option. But when you add up expenses for tools, content creation, and training, it will soon become more expensive than you can think. On the other hand, outsourcing to an agency means you’re getting a team of experts who know everything about SEO (if you choose your agency wisely, of course).
SEO includes technical audits, link-building, digital PR, and constant adjustments to search engine updates. If your team understands complicated things, like log file analysis, backlink audits, and entity-based SEO, you can probably do it in-house. But if you're relying on "best practices" from 2018, an agency will close that gap in no time.
If you’re in a low-competition niche, like a local B2B service with minimal online rivals, an in-house approach could work. But if you’re in finance, health, SaaS, or e-commerce, where competitors have aggressive backlink strategies, digital PR teams, and dedicated content engines, an agency is almost always necessary.
If you need leads in 3-6 months, organic SEO just won't be enough—you'll need other things, like outreach and digital PR. Agencies have systems in place that produce faster results, while in-house teams can take months to even get things set up. If you can afford to wait a year and already have an expert team in place, in-house might be a good fit. Otherwise, outsourcing will provide faster results.
If you're invested in all aspects of marketing and want total control over SEO testing, content direction, and link-building campaigns, do it in-house. But if you want scalability, fresh ideas, and an outside team to keep you accountable, an agency is your bet. Another thing you could do is the hybrid approach—in-house for content and strategy, agency for technical audits, digital PR, and high-level consulting. By doing this, you get expertise without giving up control over your brand voice.
At the end of the day, there’s no universal “right” answer. And, as I’ve broken everything down, choosing between in-house SEO, outsourcing, or a mix of both really comes down to what your business needs right now.
If you like to have total control and someone who understands your brand inside and out, an in-house team may be the way to go. But if you're busy, experiencing technical issues, or trying to scale quickly, an agency will save you a ton of headaches. It's not about which is better—about what will work best for you right now.
At Loopex Digital, we just try to be helpful. Sometimes, that's building the whole strategy; sometimes, it's jumping in and helping with content or link building. Whatever the arrangement, we focus on what actually moves the needle for your business.
If you're still unsure of which direction to head or just want a second opinion, feel free to reach out to us.
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