In-House vs. Outsourced SEO: How To Choose the Best Option for Your Company

Effective search engine optimization (SEO) has evolved dramatically. Beyond traditional ranking factors, SEO now requires expertise in appearing in AI-powered search features, optimizing for zero-click searches, and understanding how LLMs surface content.

Today's SEO specialists need to balance traditional search optimization with Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) or Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)—ensuring your content appears not just in Google results, but in AI overviews, ChatGPT responses, and voice search answers.

But how should you implement this complex and technical function in your business? Should you manage SEO in-house or outsource it to external agencies?

Choosing the best approach isn't just about weighing basic pros and cons—it requires a nuanced understanding of your business needs, SEO goals, and resources.

This article will guide you through a detailed comparison of SEO in-house vs. outsourcing. By the end, you'll know to make an informed decision that aligns with your company's strategy, ensuring cost effectiveness and efficiency.

Outsourced vs. In-House SEO: Summary

Here’s a quick comparison between in-house and outsourced SEO based on several key criteria, which we will cover in more detail below:

Factors To Consider When Choosing Between In-House and Outsourced SEO

Choosing to outsource SEO or build an in-house SEO team comes down to your unique business needs. To make this decision easier, here is a thorough explanation of the primary differences between these approaches to implementing SEO:

Cost analysis

The decision between in-house and outsourced SEO largely depends on cost efficiency. If you can achieve the desired results while paying less, your company can invest more in other strategic initiatives.

Here’s a detailed cost breakdown of the two options:

In-house SEO costs

Creating an internal SEO team requires hiring and training dedicated SEO experts, investing in specific tools, and providing them a place to work. The costs can quickly add up: 

• Salaries: The average annual salary for an SEO specialist in the US is $44,000 and $113,000.
• Benefits and perks: These include health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, and other incentives, adding 25–30% to the base salary.
• Tools and software: SEO tools can collectively cost several hundred dollars per month. Analytics tools, keyword research tools, and other specialized software can add to the monthly expenses.
• Ongoing training and development: SEO best practices and search engine algorithms continually evolve, necessitating regular training sessions and conferences. Training costs can range greatly, with one program costing between $1,500 and $10,000 per employee. Certifications like the Moz SEO Essentials Certification and memberships in professional organizations can also add to costs.
• Overhead costs: Office space, utilities, and other overhead expenses come with any internal hire. You’ll also need to account for administrative and HR costs associated with hiring and managing the team.

Outsourced SEO costs

Meanwhile, outsourcing your SEO needs to a dedicated firm or an expert outsourced SEO specialist can result in considerable cost savings: 

• Salaries: By outsourcing to countries with lower living costs, you can save significantly on salaries.
• Tools and software: These are typically included in the agency or freelancer’s fee. Agencies generally use their own suite of advanced tools and software, which can mean cost reductions for your company.
• Additional services: Content creation, SEO copywriting, link-building campaigns, and other add-on services might have separate charges. Special requests or extra projects might incur additional costs beyond the typical retainer.

Further reading: What SEO Tasks Should You Outsource To Maximize Results?

Expertise and resources

The skill level and expertise of an in-house SEO team depend significantly on the experience and training of the individual team members. While they may have strong knowledge in certain areas, the smaller size of your local talent pool means their expertise can be more limited than that of outsourced specialists.

When you outsource, you have a greater selection of professionals to choose from, making it more likely you’ll find experts with the skills you’re looking for.

Furthermore, external SEO agencies typically employ a diverse team, each focused on different aspects of SEO. This collective wealth of expertise often surpasses what a small in-house team can provide. They also have access to premium SEO tools and software that are sometimes unaffordable for companies with smaller budgets.

Still, an in-house SEO team has the distinct advantage of being deeply integrated into your company’s culture, goals, and products. This intimate knowledge allows them to craft highly tailored and consistent strategies.

Further reading: How to Choose the Best SEO Outsourcing Company

Scalability and flexibility

Scaling an in-house SEO team requires recruitment, onboarding, and training, which can be time-consuming and costly. Adding new team members also increases overhead expenses related to salaries and benefits. The ability to make swift changes to strategies or tactics can be encumbered by internal bureaucracy.

Agencies and outsourced SEO professionals can quickly redeploy resources to match the changing demands of your business. They can adjust if you need to ramp up your SEO efforts for a product launch or scale back during a slower period.

While scaling may be slower, an in-house team maintains consistency with your company’s long-term goals. Being deeply integrated into the company culture and core strategies ensures that the SEO efforts align with the overarching business vision.

Control and customization

One of the biggest reasons why a company may hesitate to outsource is a perceived lack of control. Trusting an outside presence to maintain your brand’s vision and standards can be concerning, especially if you’ve never done it before. 

Here’s a look at some of the differences between in-house and outsourced SEO when it comes to control:

In-house SEO control

Managing SEO internally gives you direct oversight of every aspect of your SEO strategy. From keyword research to content creation and link building, an in-house team can make immediate adjustments based on real-time feedback.

They have the advantage of customizing cohesive strategies to meet your business goals, ensuring that every effort aligns closely with your company’s vision and values.

An in-house team can maintain consistent communication and messaging across all platforms, as they are deeply embedded within your company’s culture and operational framework.

Outsourced SEO control

When outsourcing SEO, you delegate control to an external agency, which may limit direct oversight of day-to-day activities. This delegation relies heavily on trust and effective communication with the agency.

Agencies often employ standardized processes and methodologies, which might not always perfectly align with a company’s requirements. Customization is possible, but it may not be as granular or instantaneous as with an in-house team.

One of the ways to avoid this lack of control when outsourcing is to work with individual SEO professionals who can integrate into your team.

While they are still technically external providers, individual specialists tend to be more flexible and can more easily act as an extension of your business, providing you with all the benefits of in-house control.

To maintain alignment, you’ll need to establish regular communication channels and set up frequent meetings. These touchpoints help ensure the SEO strategies remain aligned with your business’s evolving goals and priorities.

Further reading: SEO Outsourcing for Agencies: Steps, Costs, and Best Practices

Long-term strategy and sustainability

An in-house team is likely to be more deeply aligned with your company’s long-term goals and vision. This ensures that SEO strategies are consistently tailored to support your overarching business objectives.

But SEO requires ongoing effort and adaptability, which can lead to team burnout if the workload isn’t managed effectively. As the demands increase, smaller in-house teams may struggle to keep up without additional support.

Maintaining an effective in-house SEO team requires a continuous investment in salaries, benefits, tools, and training. While this can lead to stable and consistent SEO efforts, it also demands a budget that allows for growth and expansion as needed.

External providers bring experience from handling various clients across multiple industries, which can provide fresh insights and innovative strategies for long-term SEO success.

With an agency, the workload is distributed across a broader team of experts, reducing the risk of burnout. Agencies can rotate team members and leverage their larger workforce to manage the varying demands of different projects.

Further reading: How to Find an SEO + GEO Specialist Who Can Drive Real Business Results

The third option: Hiring dedicated SEO specialists in Latin America

There's a third approach that combines the best aspects of both in-house and outsourced SEO: hiring dedicated SEO specialists or SEO managers in Latin America as full-time members of your team.

This strategy gives you the cost savings typically associated with outsourcing while maintaining the control, integration, and alignment of an in-house team. 

Your LatAm SEO specialists work directly for your company, in your time zone, and become fully integrated into your culture and processes.

Key benefits of this approach:

1. Significant cost savings: According to Near's State of LatAm Hiring Report, which analyzed 2,000 placements across 500 companies, US businesses save $35,000 to $55,000 annually per role when hiring from LatAm compared to US-based talent.
2. Full in-house control: Unlike traditional outsourcing, these specialists work as dedicated team members who report directly to you, attend your meetings, and integrate fully into your workflows.
3. Time zone alignment: Most LatAm professionals work in EST or CST time zones, enabling real-time collaboration that's impossible with offshore teams.
4. Modern SEO expertise: Latin America has a thriving digital marketing ecosystem, with professionals experienced in both traditional SEO and emerging areas like AEO, LLM optimization, and AI-powered search.

R&D, a digital marketing and web development agency, faced challenges finding dedicated SEO talent without overshooting their budget. They partnered with Near to hire a senior SEO strategist from Latin America and several other roles, achieving a 60% reduction in overhead costs—saving over $175,000 annually. According to Drew Prescott, Co-founder and CEO: 

Near not only helped us navigate the hiring process but fundamentally changed our approach to building our team. Their ability to connect us with high-quality, dedicated talent has been invaluable.

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Rankings.io, an Inc. 5000 digital marketing agency, needed to scale their SEO team quickly while managing costs. By partnering with Near to hire six SEO specialists from Latin America, they saved $463,000 annually—a 54% reduction in hiring costs compared to US-based talent. According to Gillian Alvillar, Human Resources Director at Rankings.io: 

When I check with the department managers, they all say, 'It's like 100 out of 10.' The talent we've brought in through Near has been professional, articulate, intelligent, and absolutely the right fit for our team.

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This middle-ground approach addresses the core trade-offs of the in-house vs. outsourced debate: you get the deep integration and control of an in-house team without the premium US salary costs, and you avoid the communication challenges and lack of ownership that can come with traditional agency outsourcing.

Further reading: Why More US Businesses Are Hiring in Latin America: What We Learned from Talking to 2,000 Hiring Managers

Final Thoughts

Choosing between in-house and outsourced SEO is a critical decision that can significantly impact your company's digital marketing. Neither approach to SEO is inherently superior—the best choice depends on your priorities for your SEO efforts.

However, there's a third path worth considering: hiring dedicated SEO specialists from Latin America gives you the control and integration of an in-house team while achieving cost savings comparable to traditional outsourcing.

Near can help you hire pre-vetted, dedicated SEO specialists in LatAm.

Ready to take your SEO to the next level? Schedule a free, no-commitment consultation call to get salary benchmarks and understand our fees and process.