How to know if you need external SEO help

As we’ve discussed in previous SEO Weeklies (even just last week!), SEO isn’t a single skill anymore. It’s a collection of disciplines that need to work together – technical expertise, content strategy, copywriting, link building, data analysis, UX, and increasingly, knowledge of AI and semantic search… to name a few!

That’s a lot for one person (or even one small team) to master. 

And yet, many agency owners are trying to do it all themselves. Not because they want to, but because they’re not sure when it makes sense to bring in external help. 👀

So let’s talk about the signs that it might be time to look outside your agency for SEO support – and how to make that work financially.

Multi-Disciplinary Reality

We’ve talked before about how SEO has evolved from “keywords and links” into something far more complex. Today’s SEO requires: 

➡️ Technical skills: Core Web Vitals, site speed, crawlability, schema markup

➡️ Content strategy: Topic clusters, search intent mapping, E-E-A-T building

➡️ Copywriting: Engaging, conversion-focused content that also ranks

➡️ Link building: Outreach, relationship building, digital PR

➡️ Data analysis: Understanding what’s working and why

➡️ UX knowledge: How user behavior impacts rankings

➡️ AI/semantic: Entity optimization, knowledge graphs

No single person can be excellent at all of these. And that’s okay…

The question isn’t whether you can learn all these skills – it’s whether you should spend your time doing so.

Sign 1️⃣: You’re Working Outside Your Wheelhouse

You might be a brilliant developer who can implement every recommendation in a technical SEO audit. But can you write compelling, strategic content that builds topical authority?

Or maybe you’re a fantastic copywriter who creates engaging blog posts. But do you know how to optimize Core Web Vitals or implement structured data?

Here’s the thing: being good at one aspect of SEO doesn’t mean you’re good at all of them – and neither should it!

More importantly, doing work you’re not naturally skilled at takes way longer than it should. That hour you spend struggling with schema markup? An expert could do it in 15 minutes. Those three hours crafting a blog post? A professional copywriter could do it in one…

When you’re working outside your wheelhouse, you’re not just (probably) delivering subpar results – you’re also burning time you could spend on work you’re actually good at.

Sign 2️⃣: You’re Taking Money But Don’t Know What You’re Doing

This one’s uncomfortable, but it needs saying: if you’re charging clients for SEO but you’re not confident in what you’re delivering, that’s a problem.

SEO isn’t something you can wing. Clients are paying for results, and they deserve expertise – not someone learning on the job with their budget.

The SEO landscape changes constantly. What worked two years ago might actively hurt rankings today. AI overviews, Core Web Vitals, helpful content updates, E-E-A-T requirements – these aren’t optional extras. They’re fundamental to today’s SEO landscape.

If you’re Googling “how to do keyword research” or “what is schema markup” while billing clients for SEO services, you need external help. Not because you’re incapable of learning – but because your clients deserve someone who already knows.

There’s no shame in this. Every agency has gaps. The smart move is recognizing them and filling them with expertise.

Sign 3️⃣: You’re Running Out of Time (But Not Ready for Staff)

This is the classic agency dilemma: you’ve got enough SEO work to keep you busy, but not enough to justify hiring a full-time SEO specialist.

Or maybe you could hire someone, but you don’t want to. Managing staff, dealing with sick days and holidays, training, overheads – it’s a whole different business model. Some agency owners want to stay lean and focused.

But your clients still need SEO. And you still need to deliver results.

This is where external help makes perfect sense. You get expert-level work without the commitment, overhead, or management burden of employment.

The Financials: Building It Into Your Pricing

Here’s where I see a lot of people get stuck (and I’ve been there myself): “External help costs money, and my margins are already tight.”

Fair point. But if I can just reframe it slightly: nothing is actually “free”… It either costs you in terms of time or money (or sometimes both), so it’s more a question of how you want to “spend” on this resource.

(There is an old retail adage about “You need to spend money to make money”, but maybe thats one step too far here… 🙄) 

Consider it this way:

Option 1: You spend 10 hours doing mediocre SEO work yourself. You bill the client £1,000. Your effective rate is £100/hour, but you’re stressed, the work isn’t great, and you’ve neglected other parts of your business.

Option 2: You outsource the SEO for £500. You spend 2 hours managing the relationship and presenting the work. You still bill the client £1,000. Your margin is £500, your effective rate is £250/hour, the work is excellent, and you’ve freed up 8 hours for other revenue-generating activities.

❓Which makes more business sense?

The key is building external costs into your pricing from the start. Don’t try to absorb the cost – pass it through with your margin on top. Clients aren’t paying for your time; they’re paying for results and expertise.

If you’re charging £1,000/month for SEO and it costs you £500 to outsource, you’re making £500 for managing the relationship and ensuring quality. That’s a healthy margin for work you’re not actually doing!

What External Help Can Look Like

External SEO support isn’t one-size-fits-all. Depending on your needs, you might consider:

➡️ White-label SEO: A partner delivers the work under your brand. You manage the client relationship; they handle the execution.

➡️ Consultancy/Strategy: An expert provides the strategy and recommendations; your team (or the client) implements it.

➡️ Training/Courses: Upskill yourself or your team to handle more in-house over time.

➡️ Specialist Support: Bring in experts for specific tasks (technical audits, link building, content strategy) while handling the rest yourself.

➡️ Hybrid Approaches: Mix and match based on what you’re good at and where you need help.

The right model depends on your skills, capacity, and business goals. But the common thread is this: you don’t have to do everything yourself.

The Smart Approach…

The best agencies aren’t the ones that do everything in-house. They’re the ones that deliver excellent results consistently – however they achieve that.

Your clients don’t care whether you wrote the content yourself or managed a specialist who did. They care about rankings, traffic, and ROI.

Smart agencies recognize their strengths and partner for the rest. They build sustainable businesses that aren’t dependent on them personally doing every task. They create margins that allow for growth without burnout.

So, Do You Need External Help?

Ask yourself:

• Are you spending time on SEO tasks you’re not naturally good at?
• Are you confident in the SEO work you’re delivering to clients?
• Do you have the capacity to deliver quality SEO alongside everything else you do?
• Is your current approach sustainable, or are you heading for burnout?
• Could you make more money (and deliver better results) by focusing on your strengths and outsourcing the rest?

If you answered “no” or “not really” to any of these, it might be time to explore external support, and you should start to think about what sort of support would suit you best.