Companies often come to a crossroads with SEO: Should they build an in-house team or partner with an experienced SEO agency? 

Both approaches offer distinct advantages and challenges. While building an internal team provides direct control and deep integration with your brand, agencies can offer specialized expertise and potentially faster results. The right choice ultimately depends on your company's unique circumstances and resources.

Examining resources: go big or go home

Many companies make the mistake of treating SEO as a part-time endeavor or a periodic project. For instance, they might dedicate a few hours weekly to keyword research and sporadically publish related articles. While these efforts aren’t entirely fruitless, they don’t compare to what could be achieved with a more robust and dedicated approach. 

Look at any company that has truly excelled in SEO (think Airbnb, Canva, Zapier, Zillow, and Hubspot), and you'll notice a common thread: consistent, long-term investment. These organizations understand that SEO isn't a sprint; it's a marathon. They've committed to:

• Regular content creation and optimization

• Ongoing technical SEO improvements

• Constant monitoring and adaptation to trends

Bottom line: The companies that have truly mastered SEO have made it a cornerstone of their digital strategy, not just another item on their marketing to-do list. Below are a few areas of investment to consider whether you choose to build in-house or leverage a specialized agency. 

1) The cost of talent: initial investment and ongoing costs

Building an in-house team: 

Building a high-performing in-house SEO team requires significant upfront investment, including recruitment costs, training expenses, salary, and benefits. The average base salary for an SEO manager in the US  is $80k — factor in benefits, and you’re looking at around $90,000 in total compensation per year per person. Salary expectations are higher in markets such as New York and San Francisco, averaging around $100,000 in base pay. Hiring a more experienced SEO expert (7+ years of experience) can cost upwards of $200k per year in base salary, depending on their background. 

A robust in-house SEO strategy demands the support and collaboration of a diverse team of professionals, including engineers, designers, content managers, and data analysts. While you may not need to hire engineering, design, and content personnel dedicated solely to SEO, you’ll still need to factor in the cost of labor/hours from these teams. This fully-loaded cost can often be twice or more the cost of an individual SEO manager. 

Leveraging an agency:

You often get what you pay for when partnering with an SEO agency. While it's possible to find agencies that charge as little as a few thousand dollars per month, these lower-cost options usually provide limited services or lack the depth of expertise needed for truly transformative SEO results. 

Top-tier SEO agencies, known for delivering exceptional results and driving significant ROI, typically charge between $30,000 and $50,000 per month. This substantial investment reflects the comprehensive nature of their services, which often include:

• In-depth strategic planning and execution

• Access to advanced proprietary tools and methodologies

• A team of seasoned experts across various SEO disciplines

• Cutting-edge tactics that stay ahead of trends and algorithm changes

• Robust reporting and analytics

• Personalized, high-touch client service

• Tactical execution 

Ethan Smith, CEO of Graphite, an SEO agency serving high-growth companies like Notion, Webflow, Chime, and Calm, says that the decision between in-house talent and agency partnerships should focus on performance potential rather than simply comparing costs. Smith advises companies to evaluate talent based on anticipated results, regardless of whether they're internal hires or external partners.

Smith recommends independently verifying performance claims using third-party SEO tools. "Request the start and end dates of a person or agency's engagement with a company, then use tools like Ahrefs to analyze organic traffic trends during that period," he suggests. 

2) The hidden cost of time

Building an SEO team from scratch is a time-intensive process that can take months, if not years, to fully realize. Finding the right talent can take 3 to 6 months, with additional time needed for onboarding, integration, and strategy development. 

Matt Bowers, a strategic SEO consultant who previously held SEO leadership positions at high-growth companies, including Zapier and Zillow, says a few time-related factors typically cause teams to outsource SEO expertise rather than build it in-house.

1. Rapidly growing companies may recognize SEO as an opportunity, yet the recruiting team has no bandwidth to prioritize the roles. Outsourcing SEO expertise to an agency can fast-track the process so the business can capitalize on SEO opportunities sooner.

2. Marketing leaders often identify SEO as a big opportunity; however, they sometimes lack the technical expertise to oversee a high-performing SEO team effectively on their own. Instead of taking 6+ months to find an ideal senior SEO expert who can then build out the team, they short-cut the process by hiring a top-notch agency.

3. Organizations with limited engineering, design, and content resources often encounter process bottlenecks that delay SEO initiatives. Hiring an SEO agency that offers comprehensive tactical support and tools (like daydream) eliminates these barriers and accelerates SEO efforts. 

3) The cost of tools and software

For in-house teams, the monthly subscription costs for essential SEO tools can quickly add up to upwards of $5,000 per month, depending on the size and requirements of your team and strategy. 

• Comprehensive SEO platforms like Semrush, Ahrefs, and MozPro: $99-1,200 per month

• Rank tracking tools like AccuRanker and Advanced Web Ranking: $99-2,800 per month

• Content optimization tools like MarketMuse and Clearscope: $149-399 per month

• Link-building tools like Pitchbox and Buzzstream: $24-999 per month

Meanwhile, SEO agencies typically have access to an extensive set of tools, often leveraging enterprise-level subscriptions that would be prohibitively expensive for most individual businesses. The agency model allows for unique cost efficiency: By spreading the substantial expenses of these premium tools across their entire client base, agencies can offer access to cutting-edge SEO technology at a fraction of the cost an in-house team would incur. 

Industry knowledge is essential, but  don’t discount the value of external perspectives

In-house SEO managers will have deeper business and industry context than an outside agency, which enables them to:

1. More precisely identify long-tail, high-intent keywords that will drive qualified leads. For example, an SEO manager at a financial service firm like Goldman Sachs could more easily navigate complex financial products, regulations, and industry jargon to optimize content.

2. Anticipate consumer behavior shifts. For example, an SEO manager at Tesla would be up-to-date on the latest battery technologies, autonomous driving features, or changes in government incentives for electric vehicles that could cause a shift in search behaviors.

3. Align SEO strategies with cross-functional priorities and broader business objectives. For example, an SEO manager at a B2B software company like Salesforce would understand the sales motion and current/future product updates to create more targeted, ROI-driving content. 

While insider knowledge helps ensure on-brand, targeted content, internal teams sometimes struggle to move quickly or implement innovative ideas due to entrenched internal processes and general proximity bias. 

This is where agencies can offer a significant advantage. Top-tier agencies often work with a diverse portfolio of clients. They can help your team identify strategies that have worked for other clients while avoiding common SEO pitfalls that waste time. Smith’s team at Graphite helps clients overcome the “95/5 rule,” which is the notion that only 5% of SEO content drives 95% of the impact. “It’s common to have 100 pieces of content, and only five articles drive impact,” he said. “The only real way to avoid spinning your wheels on low-impact activities is to analyze the performance of content and only test and scale high-yield activities.” 

For instance, most SEO teams spend much time on technical SEO initiatives like page speed optimizations, internal link building, indexing, and mobile optimization. However, Smith’s team discovered that only two of those activities (internal link building and ensuring Google can read the page) actually yield high-impact results. 

It doesn’t need to be one or the other: the benefits of a hybrid approach 

Outsourcing vs. in-housing SEO doesn’t need to be an either/or decision. Many companies leverage a hybrid model that combines the strengths of both approaches. A common strategy is to begin by outsourcing an agency to build momentum and initial results and then transition to building an in-house core team over time while keeping the agency on retainer for specialized projects, consulting, training, or additional bandwidth as needed. 

Take Notion, for example. The company built a high-performing in-house SEO team but also works with daydream’s full-service offering as an extension of its team. This hybrid approach allows Notion to capitalize on daydream’s agility and innovative strategies while ensuring that SEO efforts consider the nuances of their industry, the needs of their cross-functional teams, and the company's broader business objectives. 

If you’re interested in finding a reliable programmatic SEO partner, consider daydream. We’re helping companies like Descript, Tome, and Notion build robust, truly scalable, and durable pSEO engines. Email us at [email protected] to start the conversation.